It was long after midnight when Peter's breathing became deep and even. Mystique silently climbed the side of the house until she reached his window. She silently popped the screen off and hung it from her belt. Ever so gently, she pushed the window up two inches and she slid the blowgun tube to line up with Peter's neck. He stirred in his sleep, approaching awareness as a chill breeze breathed through the room.
Then she puffed, the dart zipped out and smacked into his neck. Drug delivered. She dropped the screen to the ground, then tossed the window open the rest of the way and moved fast, dropping into the room and buckling a rope with an attachment around Peter's chest. She lugged him to the window and lowered him on the rope, down to the ground. He wore sweats and a sweatshirt, even in bed. Peter was lowered all the way to the ground when the portly man in dark clothes stepped out of the bushes and knelt by him.
Faber's forehead creased with concentration. He put one hand on Peter's abdomen, and another on his forehead, and he focused. He buckled down and applied his will, his strength of mind and heart. For an agonizing second he was motionless. Then he rocked back to his seat, and looked up. He nodded briefly. Mystique grinned and hauled Peter back up.
Seconds later, Peter was snugly back in his bed. Mystique collected the dart and slithered out the window.
All was quiet, and the night was again undisturbed.
xXx
The knocking on the door took on a fresh sense of urgency as Peter fought his way to consciousness. "Gnu?" he managed.
"Peter," Aunt May said, her voice a bit worried, "are you ready to go yet?"
Peter blinked his bleary eyes and looked over at the clock.
"We need to go in twenty minutes," Aunt May said.
"Guh!" Peter said, and he rolled out of bed. Overslept by hours. Missed the alarm going off for an hour until it automatically shut itself off. He felt like his head was wrapped in cotton.
"I'll be out in a minute," he slurred to Aunt May.
"Alright Peter," she said. She headed down the stairs.
Peter groaned. "I missed racquetball with Harry," he managed. "He's gonna kill me."
Peter pulled off his sweats, pulled on jeans and a shirt, felt like his muscles were made of water, his head of sand. He was moving in slow motion. "He woulda kicked my butt anyway." He shook his head to clear it.
"What a night," he muttered. "Ow." Dressed, he stumbled to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
First he sucked on his tongue and spat in the sink and get rid of excess spider tracer. Sniffed. No scent. He sniffed his breath, breathing into his cupped hand. He just had normal morning breath.
"Now that's odd," he muttered to himself. Then he quickly brushed his teeth, still feeling like he was moving in slow motion.
He headed to the stairs, hopped at them, and his foot slid out from under him. He thudded down on his rear end and fell down three stairs, thud thud thud. He froze in utter shock as he sat on the stairs, real pain darting through his frame, his legs tingling.
"I just fell down the stairs," Peter said breathlessly, full of wonder. "And it hurt."
He bounded up and stared at the steps, shaking and his eyes wide. Aunt May ran from the kitchen to the living room.
"Are you alright, Peter?" she said.
"Fine," he said, "just slipped." He tried to smile.
"You had a spill, you should go to the doctor, make sure nothing's broken," Aunt May said.
"Not to worry," he said with a brave smile. "You ready to go?"
"All packed," she nodded.
"Great!" he said, and he scooped up her two heavy suitcases.
He stumbled, and adjusted their weight.
They were heavy.
Just then, the taxi honked outside. Peter tried on a smile for Aunt May and he hauled at the suitcases with the effort he normally would put into tossing a car. He managed to get down the front steps without killing himself.
He muscled the suitcases into the trunk and shut it, then hopped into the taxi next to Aunt May.
xXx
"Have a good time in Florida, pretty lady," Peter said as he smiled at Aunt May standing outside the boarding area.
"Peter, you're pale, and sweaty," Aunt May said. "Are you sure it's alright for me to go?" she asked, worry creasing her face.
"I'm gonna miss you, that's all," Peter said. "And I think I'm coming down with something. We have enough chicken soup to reconstruct a chicken. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I will go to the doctor if I'm not better by tomorrow, I swear. Now will you go and soak up some sun for your favorite nephew?" He almost managed a grin.
"Thank you, Peter," she said, tightly squeezing his hand as her eyes shone with unshed tears. "Thank you for everything."
He cleared his throat and glanced around, feeling suddenly awkward. "It's the least I could do," he said, and he pulled her into a hug. She gave him a squeeze a few seconds later, and leaned back.
"I'll be back on the twenty third," she said.
"I got it," Peter said, fishing out his photocopy of her flight information. "I'll be here with bells on." He smiled.
"I suppose that's all," she said. "You got my instructions for taking care of everything while I'm gone?"
"The full volume is at home on the shelf," Peter said. "I can manage! Go! Have a great time! Don't take any wooden nickels!"
She waved to him one last time as she headed through the metal detectors, then she was in the boarding area where Peter could not follow. He smiled to himself, turned, and looked through the crowd.
It felt silent to him. The throb of hundreds of voices swelled around him, punctuated by the public address system and the occasional laugh or shout. But he felt oddly silent.
Usually he would catch a whiff of a man's perfume, he would know who was around him at what ranges, he would be filled with an onrush of details like the stain on the wall and what caused it, how far from the destination, his senses ferreting information out of his surroundings and pouring it wholesale into his head. He had trained himself, learned to ignore it, learned to only pick out the anomalies or dangerous threads of the net of senses that surrounded him. But now… he was alone in his head.
"I have no idea what time it is," he said softly; no sense tracked his heartbeat and gauged its speed against the atomic clock.
He felt very cold as he realized that he was reduced the senses, reflexes, and strength of a normal young man.
He stumbled through the crowd in time to reach the bathroom. He staggered into the men's room and into a stall, and then he vomited into the stool. He managed to push himself up to a standing position, and he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
He looked at his hand. Turned it over. Unbuttoned his sleeve and pulled it up.
His spinnerets were scabbing. He picked at the scab, trying to ignore the pain of digging at his sensitive organ. He prodded at his forearm.
Peter's webbing was being reabsorbed by his blood.
He sat on the stool. He noticed the chill in the bathroom. It never used to be cold. Anywhere.
"It's a good thing I've got to take a cab back," he murmured to himself as he shivered. He thought of the roads; deprived of his senses and reflexes, he would have to learn to drive all over again.
For a moment, his very normality threatened to overwhelm him. He felt a crushing sense of vulnerability, realizing if he was mugged he could very well be hurt or killed. He realized he could move no faster than his build implied. He realized he was not pretending to be normal, but it was the real deal.
"I lost my powers," he whispered, fear shot through his voice. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as dark despair welled under him.
Mystique. Last night. Couldn't be a coincidence. "She said something about my powers," he murmured to himself, and his forehead creased.
He wavered between resolve and despair, sitting on the toilet in the airport. The choice was his.
Peter took a deep breath. "I lost my powers," he said to himself, "but that doesn't mean I'm powerless. I have got to get to the bottom of this."
Unsteadily, he pushed himself off the seat and stepped out of the stall.
xXx
"Right about now he'll be losing his cabbage," Mystique said, inspecting her nails. "Under all that power, he's just a kid. Now you have the sole control over whether he gets his power back or not. As far as he knows, you can control whether he keeps his power when you give it back. It's been a pleasure, but I think our business is concluded."
"Don't be a stranger," Fisk rumbled. "Is your business in New York concluded? Perhaps I can be of assistance if there is anything else."
"Parker was a special case," she said airily. "He crossed me once. I feel much appeased by taking away his power and putting him within your control. My work here is done. Don't have me followed."
He just smiled at her. It seemed he wasn't quite able to take his eyes off her.
"Until next time," she said, and she strode out of his office, slipping into her pale form with dark hair.
She half expected to be attacked on the way out, her usefulness ended. Instead, she reached the street in one piece. She identified the three tails following her, and she headed down an alley. A bag lady came out the other side. Halfway down the block, she was a meter maid. She had even brought along a ticket pad in case of this eventuality. She pulled out the pad and started writing a ticket, her hair blonde and her figure perky. One of her followers walked right past her, alertly searching for her in the crowd.
She looked around, noting she was only a few blocks away from the police station where she had accosted Peter the last time she had been in town. She narrowed her eyes.
"I have what I came for," she mused. "Why am I still here?" Then she nodded to herself. "Of course. It's not enough to know. I want to see Parker groveling. And," she added with a small smile, "maybe rub it in a little." She thought of him, helpless to detect or defend against her. The thought sent shivers of delight up and down her spine.
She swiftly jimmied a car door, dropped into it, and hotwired it in seconds. Then she headed for Peter Parker's house.