Afternoon.
Peter trudged towards the bungalow, head down. He glanced up to see the repairman finishing his work on the front door. The door was open, so Peter walked in.
"Peter," Harry said, his face brightening as Peter walked in. "Good to see you. That was some night."
"That it was," Peter said.
"You must be exhausted."
"Well," Peter said, "I wasn't the most alert student today."
The repairman stood in the doorway. "I'm finished, Mister Osborn," he said.
"Oh, right," Harry said, standing up and fishing out his wallet.
"Hey, want me to pitch in?" Peter said.
"I got this," Harry said, and he handed the bills to the repairman and signed the clipboard. "Have a good one," he said to the repairman, who touched his cap and headed out.
"Thanks," Peter said.
"No problem," Harry shrugged, "I mean it. How about your car? What's the word?"
"The word is hosed," Peter said. "Alignment is screwed, tires screwed, the wheels in the back are screwed, trunk is screwed, windows, roof, shocks…" He sighed. "The engine is okay."
"Can you cover that?" Harry asked.
"I'm in a rental at the moment," Peter said. "Insurance will probably declare my car totaled. I should be able to get a new one with the settlement." He sat down at the table. "And the police will catch the bad guy and we will live happily ever after. Speaking of the police, they done with crime scene?"
"They were done when I got home from school," Harry said. He was quiet for a moment. "Thanks, Peter," he said. "Thanks for saving us."
"Oh, come on," Peter said with a dismissive wave. "You would have done the same for me, and I just got really, really lucky," he added. "That's what roomies are for."
"Yeah," Harry said. He glanced out the window. "What now?"
Peter got up and went to the door. He looked at the man who had parked in front of their bungalow and now got out of his car. He sighed, and his expression darkened. "That's Detective Brilhart," he said. "Great."
Peter opened the door before the detective rang the bell. "Detective Brilhart, I presume," he said.
"Parker," Brilhart nodded. "Can I come in?"
Peter reluctantly stepped aside and let the detective in. Brilhart's eyes were older than the rest of him, and he was lean and broad shouldered. He glanced around. "Nice place," he said.
"Brass tacks," Peter said. "We're busy men." Harry glanced at him sharply but said nothing.
Brilhart sat at the table and put a manila envelope down. He opened it and started laying out pictures. "This the guy?" he said.
Peter and Harry leaned over the table. "Oh yeah," Harry said. The pictures were taken from a distance, some of them, but one of them was a mug shot.
"His name is Lonnie Thompson Lincoln. He's a hit man mob enforcer for hire right here in New York. From all appearances, he was trying to use you guys for bait. Any idea what for?" he asked Peter directly.
"Search me," Peter shrugged.
"Do you think he'll come back?" Harry asked a bit more anxiously than he wanted to.
"Depends," Brilhart shrugged, "on whether you were the ones he wanted or you were convenient. Considering he made no demands and didn't even talk to you," he shrugged, "I think he wants you and Mary Jane and Peter. So that's why we're going to help you out," he said with a grin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two small cylinders.
"These are panic buttons," he said. "Mary Jane already has hers. We're going to shadow the three of you for at least a week. If you see Lincoln, just flip the top," he said, demonstrating, "and push the little red button. Cops will swarm the place immediately."
"Great," Peter muttered.
"We'll cooperate fully," Harry shrugged.
"Peter?" Brilhart said.
"We are the model of cooperation," Peter nodded. "This should help you catch him. I love being bait."
"Oh, and Peter," Brilhart said, his eyes hard. "I had a few questions about your statement."
"Can it wait?" Peter said, glancing at the clock. "I'm pressed for time, I gotta be in class in fifteen minutes."
"When you have a minute we can talk," Brilhart said. "Don't want to make you late for class."
Peter nodded at him, then went into his room and swapped out books and headed out.
Brilhart watched him go.
xXx
"My brain hurts," Peter muttered to himself. "Physics. It looks so different on paper. I want to do trajectory demonstrations and exercises, not theoretical work. Ace the class and sleep through it at the same time."
Then he froze. The trees ahead, by the sidewalk. A very tall, very stealthy man waited for him.
"Great," Peter muttered. "Fabulous." He reached into his pocket and flipped the cover open to push the panic button. He clicked the button once. Then he strolled on towards where Lincoln waited.
"Peter Parker, spider ghost," whispered the huge man. "Good afternoon."
"What do you want," Peter said, his voice hard.
"You're in an awkward spot," the huge man hissed softly. "I know about Aunt May, the Stacys, Harry and Mary Jane, I have your schedule of classes. But you can make all of that go away. My employer wants you to do cat burglary for him. Two hundred and fifty thousand a year, plus bonuses. Say yes, everything is fine. Say no," he shrugged, "and it's time for more leverage."
To his credit, Lincoln heard the approaching police officers almost as quickly as Peter did. He looked at Peter with a cruel twist of the face that could be a fond expression. "Go think about it. I'll be in touch," he rasped. He turned to face the approaching police.
"Officers," he whispered, his eyes cold.
Five of them fanned out on the path, pointing their pistols at Lincoln. His back was to the small stand of trees by the path. Just under twenty feet between him and the police. Peter was off to the side.
"Go, Parker," one of the police said. Peter backed into the trees.
"You have the right to remain silent," one of the officers barked at Lincoln.
He chuckled, a chilling slithering whispering sound.
Then he moved.
The officers fired, but he slid around and under their fire as his hands tucked into his jacket and whipped free, a pistol in each. From his kneeling position he fired, bullets catching one officer in the face and another in the throat. They fired again as he spun around and towards them, bullets slicing through the air dangerously near him but somehow missing the vast agile target as he closed in.
He lashed out with his guns, punching the gunbarrels into the throats of two of the officers in one powerful, sleek drive. He yanked the gory barrels free as the officers keeled over, clutching their maimed necks. In a smooth motion Lincoln lined the two pistols up on the remaining officer, who turned to run. They boomed, and the officer was taken off his feet as half his head blew off.
Lincoln stood with his back to the trees. "Backup's on the way, Parker," he said in his chilling hoarse whisper. "Why are you still here?" Thick blood oozed down to the ground from his gun.
Peter felt himself trembling with rage, with nausea, with a kind of fear. Five men. Five police men were dead because he wouldn't lift a finger because he had to protect his precious secret identity.
Shame washed him as he considered that the families of the dead men before him would not find that a compelling reason for their husbands and fathers and sons to be dead.
He didn't feel fully in control as he stepped out of the trees. His body was acting before his mind could catch up. He still struggled to grasp that in a handful of seconds Lincoln had effortlessly dispatched armed police. He must be punished. He must not get away with it.
"I tire of repeating myself," Lincoln whispered, turning to face him. "Go." Then he looked into Peter's eyes, and a slow cruel smile spread itself across his features. "Or stay," he whispered. "It's like that." He squared off. "Let's dance."
"No guns," Peter heard himself say as web shot out and glooped across the gunbarrels. Lincoln tossed the weapons away and darted in, his huge hands reaching for Peter's neck.
Must not let him get a grip on my neck, Peter thought distantly as his body whipped down to the side and lined everything up to release a blow to the meat of Lincoln's ribs. The whole world was reduced to that trajectory and that instant.
Peter let it go.
Something under the dark fabric of Lincoln's coat snapped, and the breaking rib echoed through the meat of his chest. Lincoln grunted as he was knocked off his feet and sent crashing into a tree.
"I can't be stopped," Lincoln hissed as he rebounded from the tree. Peter saw his fist coming, and slid to the side—a feint—
Lincoln's kick caught Peter in the belly, tossing him back. The big man closed in, his long arm uncoiling down at Peter.
Peter skipped to the side. "You don't understand," he said. He hopped through the air towards Lincoln and brought his foot down with his inhuman strength, crushing it into the lower hinge of Lincoln's knee. Something cracked and tore. Lincoln let out a hoarse gasp.
"What you do is wrong," Peter said as his senses saw into, through Lincoln's sleeve. They saw the way nerves lay in his elbow, the way the blood flowed, the way the bones meshed. Using one knuckle and all the strength at his disposal, Peter broke the whole assembly as Lincoln tried to pull a knife out of his jacket. The knife glittered as it twirled to the ground.
"No more," Peter said, driving a single two fisted blow into Lincoln's sternum. It snapped, breaking inward and tearing the cartilage that held the ribs to it. Lincoln's chest was now a broken ruin.
Peter grabbed his wrist and spun into him, the sudden move slinging Lincoln off his feet to fly over Peter, lanky legs sailing, and crash directly to the ground at his feet, shoulderblades first. Ribs snapped and shifted. Organs bulged into foreign territory as the borders in Lincoln's chest were busted further. Blood roiled into Lincoln's mouth.
His eyes were terrified.
Peter knelt by his head and stared him in the eye. Something wrong about this. No mesh. He needed the mesh when he did this. Peter Parker doesn't do this to people. The spider ghost does.
Quit whining and finish the job, came a thought.
Peter let the moment sink in. "I've beaten you, Lincoln," he whispered. "I didn't even break a sweat. I broke you, though, didn't I. Now you listen to me. You might walk again. Someday you might get out of the oxygen tent they're going to put you in. If you do, and if you ever, ever try this again you might not live through it. Word to the wise. Quit while you're ahead."
The sirens were very close now, and Peter heard running footsteps approaching. Without breaking eye contact, he sprang off the ground up into the spreading arms of the oak tree. He crouched out of sight in the branches and held Lincoln's eye as the swat team and medics swarmed the scene.
The swat team overran the site, then one said "Clear!" into his tac net and the medics rushed on the scene. One checked the policemen, the other started looking Lincoln over.
"Holy cow," the medic said. "This guy stop a wrecking ball with his chest?"
"Hey, lookit this," said one of the medics, standing over Lincoln's dropped pistols. "What's that gunk on the gun?"
If Lincoln could have laughed, he would have.
The spider ghost was gone.