Peter woke up coughing. His bleary eyes struggled for focus, his spongy brain fought to interpret the clock hands into time. Two a.m. Damn.
Peter lay still for a moment just working on breathing. He was nauseous, dizzy, his head was splitting, and he had a crusted scab on his knuckles. Two a.m. If the gas put him down for almost eight hours, then it was pitched to kill a normal person. But the intruder had issued a warning.
The intruder must know he was capable of surviving a dose like that. How could he know Peter's senses were scrambled by smoke?
"Everybody's senses are scrambled by smoke, dingus," Peter muttered as he pulled himself into a chair.
"That. Sucked." Peter said. He levered himself up out of the chair, and the room tilted. Peter groaned. "Thirsty," he murmured. Indeed, his mouth and throat felt dry and parched, he could feel the strain of swallowing. Whatever that gas was, it had dried him out pretty severely.
He poured himself glass after glass of water, standing at the sink.
Then he stood there, weak and shaking, for a long moment.
"So let's go find out what's up with Beck," Peter said softly to himself.
Five minutes later he was in his mesh, his street clothes in a web bag. He slipped quietly out of the house and stole across the street, through their alley, then he let rip with a webline that tugged him off the ground, over a toolshed, under a tree. He felt the world spin at a slightly different angle than usual, and his speed was dulled. So he stuck to simple maneuvers, sure shots, and locked position swinging instead of going for flips and twirls.
"That gas really kicked my guts in," he murmured to himself. "Is this a good idea?"
Oh, quit whining.
In twenty minutes he was stuck to the wall outside Beck's office window, looking around carefully. He slid the unlocked window open, and slithered inside.
"Looks like I'm too late," he said, looking around.
Books lay all over the floor, torn in two. Someone had broken and defaced the furniture with a crowbar. Chunks were gouged out of the wall. The bookshelves were tipped over and broken. The computer was missing. It looked like the room had been trashed by a sloppy treasure hunter who was very angry and not at all patient.
Peter got a cold feeling, surveying the wreckage. It looked like someone was very angry at Beck. He ducked out the way he had come in.
Pushing himself a little more for speed, he swung towards Beck's condo.
"This is much easier than ringing in," Peter said to himself as he crouched outside Beck's window. He peered in.
In the living room, Beck was tied to a chair, his head sagging, unconscious or dead. Peter's blood froze. He touched the window, adhered, and with a quick tug snapped the fragile lock. He slithered in, without sound, every sense alert. He eased the window shut behind himself.
"In what way," he thought to himself, "is this not a trap?" He put his bag of clothes to the side, and braced himself.
He sprang into the room, instantly aware of everything in it. As he whipped through the air, he caught a dim glint of light from the dark doorway to the kitchen and he heard the ripple of air as something was thrown into the room. He lined up with his webs to catch it on the bounce (incongruously, he noted it looked like a racquetball) when it exploded in the air.
A desperate squeal started at the very top of the human hearing range and soared higher; Peter's senses reeled and were driven back into his head as with a hammer. Red-hot splinters sprayed the room, and twirling mini-smoke-bombs scattered. The room was a cacophonous mess for Peter, but the neighbors just heard a pop and maybe a hiss or a whine.
Then a figure loomed out of the foul curling smoke-mist. Peter saw a reflective dome, a faceless helmet, and he struggled to ignore the distractions and react.
A greave was backhanded across the side of his head, tugging him over against his balance. He didn't hit the floor, he scrabbled around, and a metal bo staff hissed through the smoke, slamming the other side of his head and tumbling him against the wall. He bounded to his feet, less steady than he looked. The bar thrust through the smoke, registered a moment too late, and thudded hard into his gut.
Peter grabbed the staff, tugged it away, and tossed it into the wall. He lashed out, his attacker parried with those damned greaves; blood started on his wrist where his attacker slammed his blow out of the way.
Peter felt like he was moving underwater; his speed and strength were sapped by the drugs and his senses were screaming and distracting. He moved to grab the man with the bowl helmet, but he was evaded. A knee rammed up into his gut; the knee had flat blades on it, and the man tugged his knee to the side before darting back. Peter felt blood welling into cuts on his abdomen. He saw strips of mesh hanging off the man's knee.
Then the attacker lined up his wrists on Peter, who leaped out of the way as thick billowing fog roiled at him. He didn't need alert senses to guess that it was drugged. A door slammed as he rolled out of the way and scurried into the next room.
"I'll take 'suffer deeply' for two hundred," he said ruefully to himself. "Ow." He sprayed some web across the sliced flesh of his abdomen, bandaging the wound and repairing his mesh with a pale area.
"Great," he muttered. "Now they'll call me the 'Panda Ghost'."
He held his breath and ventured back into the living room. He opened all the windows. Then he untied Beck and laid him out on the couch.
Peter stepped into the next room, removed his mesh carefully (since he might need it again this night) and dressed himself. He returned to Beck, then went and got a glass of water.
"Come on now," he said, dabbing some on Beck's cheeks with a dishrag. He poured some water in Beck's mouth. "Wake up, now." Almost an afterthought, Peter sucked on his tongue and got some of his phermonal tracer material. He licked the rag, then dabbed it on Beck again. In case he should have to find him… New York was a big, big city.
As Beck slowly came around, Peter looked at the door and narrowed his eyes. Try that without the smoke next time…
xXx
They stopped at a stop light as Grummins finished unscrewing the helmet. He tossed it in the back seat. He was sitting on a heavy plastic seat cover that kept the blades on the suit from tearing up the car.
"That sucked," Grummins said. "I hate that suit. You have to be Mysterio next time."
Wylde couldn't hold back the small burst of laughter. One glance at Grummins, and he dissolved into hysterical howling cackles.
"Har har har," Grummins muttered. "Can we get back to hq already?"