They parked at the base of the steps that led up to the house that overlooked the bay. Mystique reached under her seat and came up with a small pistol.

"Isn't that like a .22?" Peter said, restraining a smile.

"Easy to conceal, is what it is," she said. "And if a normal person gets lippy with me, I love this gun. The bullet doesn't go through them, see. It bounces around inside," she said, looking him in the eye, "then lodges in them requiring surgery to remove. Stopping power? No. But they'll remember it longer." She flashed him a smile and got out of the car. He followed her.

After a trek up three flights of stairs, she banged on Faber's front door. Then she rammed it with her shoulder, bursting it open. Peter was surprised at her strength, then he thought back to when they had fought. Well, not so surprised after all…

Faber tottered into the hallway from the bedroom, wrapped in a bathrobe. His eyes got very wide.

"Restore his powers," Mystique said, leveling her gun at him, "or else."

He sighed and shook his head. He raised a finger, indicating that they should wait a minute, then headed back into his bedroom. Peter closed the front door.

"Think he's trying to get away?" Peter asked.

"No," Mystique said. "He knows we won't kill him. And Fisk isn't worth dying for. We have him at a disadvantage. He'll do this."

Faber came out of the bedroom with a syringe. Peter sat on the couch, Faber put him out. Faber stretched the young man out on the floor and looked at Mystique. She nodded curtly. Faber shrugged, and bent his concentration once more.

xXx

Mystique supported Peter out the front door. "How do you feel?" she said.

"Better," he nodded. "My concussion is going away. I can feel my power… coming back." He bent over slightly, pressing his forearms into his torso. "Damn my arms itch."

"What?"

"Making web," he said curtly. He let out a choked little laugh. "It's coming back to me."

She lined the pistol up with his forehead. "Then our truce is over."

He looked her in the eye. "If it's like that, pull the trigger," he said softly. "If I'm wrong, just shoot me now. But if I'm right," he said, "then you saved me from Ledge because you want to get Fisk back for what he tried to do to you, and you figure I'm your only way to do that without getting your remaining hand dirty."

She grinned at him. "I like you," she said. "You've got… spunk," she said. "Kick his ass."

Then she trotted down the stairs, holstering her gun. She got into her car and started it, heading down the street. Peter watched her drive down the road that paralleled the lapping waters of the bay.

She had gone three blocks when the engine sputtered and died. She tried to start it. Peter's eyes widened as he saw Ledge step out to the street behind the car from an alleyway, discarding a trigger box. Ledge pulled out two guns.

Mystique didn't spot him until his heel crashed through her window and slammed across the side of her head, knocking her sideways on the seat. Ledge pulled his leg back from the perfectly executed kick, and pointed both guns at Mystique at point blank range, with the car hampering her movements. He grinned.

"Step out of the car," he said. Nicely. She noticed his eyes were bloodshot.

She opened the car and stepped out, and he stayed fifteen feet from her. More than close enough to surgically cut her to ribbons with bullets, but much too far for her to cross to attack him.

"I knew you'd be by Faber's place," Ledge gritted out. "Now, if you don't have the Darkstone on your person, I know a woman who is going to be punctured and perforated an inch from death and then have to wear a brass bikini and get shackled to Fisk's throne as his little dancer chick. He is not amused." Ledge reflected. "But he is fat, and a crime lord. Never occurred to me before this moment that he's like Jabba the Hutt." He returned his attention to where she stood, scowling at him. "Not forthcoming?" he said cheerfully.

He squeezed the trigger, pounding a bullet through Mystique's leg, shattering the bone. She screamed as the leg was kicked out from under her by the bullet's force, and she slapped down on the ground, slowly squirming with pain she couldn't voice.

"I got lots and lots of bullets here," Ledge said, peering at her through the smoke of his gun. "And I'm supposed to bring you in alive, not in one piece. So how about you show me that Darkstone."

With trembling fingers, she reached into her coat and produced an octagonal puzzle box.

"So far so good," Ledge said. "Open it."

She managed to solve the puzzle, though it took a minute. She popped it open. He glanced in the box and nodded, satisfied.

"Close the box," Ledge prompted. She did. "Now hand it to me."

Her hand shook as she offered it to him. Ledge reached for the box.

A peculiar zipping sound interrupted the moment, and a webline slapped onto the box and jerked it out of her hand. Ledge spun shooting, and his bullets severed the webline. The box had momentum, though, and it clacked down on the ground and skidded, then hit the edge of the shoulder of the road, popped up in the air, and tumbled into the bay with a loud plop.

Ledge screamed and fired at Peter, who was perched on the guard rail of the road. Peter dropped sideways out of sight as bullets pounded through the metal of the guard rail. Ledge spun one of his pistols by its trigger guard in a practiced motion, holstering it and pulling out a grenade. With his thumb he popped the pin, and he tossed it over the rail. It exploded, sending shrapnel singing up and out; if Peter was lurking on the side of the hill, he was deeply punctured now. Ledge returned his attention to Mystique.

He snatched her by her hair, stepped around behind her, holstering his gun. He pulled out a small double bladed knife, and he slit her throat. He dumped her on the ground and stood, catching his breath. Then he stepped over the guard rail and slid down the steaming hillside to look for the box.

Sirens were converging on this location now, and Peter stole out of the shadow of the buildings across the street. He had quickly circled around; Ledge would find no body. He picked Mystique's limp form up and carried her into the shadows, two streets over, behind the strip mall. He settled her on the ground with her back to a truck loading bay.

"You don't have to pretend for me," he said simply. "I know you're not dead."

She glared at him as her throat struggled, reforming itself.

"Maybe not," she choked, "but it hurts like hell."

"Don't do that," Peter said, looking away. Blood bubbles formed on her throat when she tried to talk; it wasn't fully sealed yet. A few minutes passed.

"I'm going to kill him for that," Mystique rasped.

"Hey, do it on your own time," Peter said. "What was your name when you worked for the Nazis?"

She almost chuckled. "Raven Darkholme," she said. "I had to ditch the name when I severed ties with the Nazis, a pity really. I like that name."

"Maybe it's been long enough you could pick it up again," Peter shrugged. "Mystique is a really stupid name. How did you end up with it?"

"I was a triple cross quadruple agent, nobody knew who I was working for. Even I got confused at times. About sixty people ended up dead, but I pulled the job off, as insanely difficult as it was, even for me. I can't tell you what it was about. But… after that my callsign, Mystique, was well known. I decided to keep it."

"Well, it's your name," Peter shrugged, "but I sure wouldn't want people to call me 'Wallcrawler' even if it's something I can do."

"I am weary of this idle prattle," Mystique said. "My people are going to miss me if I'm gone much longer. I'm doing this on my vacation, after all. Don't fret about me, I can get out of town on my own."

"Was the Darkstone really in that box?" Peter asked.

She looked at him for a long moment. "It pleases me that you can't know," she said at last.

"You," Peter said, narrowing his eyes, "are a snotty, nasty woman."

She looked amused. "Of course it was in the box. You won this one, Peter Parker," she said. "How about we agree to stay out of each other's way."

"Why didn't I think of that," Peter said sourly.

"It would be a shame if we had to kill each other," she said, flashing a smile. Then she tugged a cell phone out of her pocket and autodialed. "Extraction, I'm ready to go." She conveyed their location to the mystery on the other end of the line, then hung up and looked at Peter.

"You'll want to be gone in about twenty minutes," she said softly.

"Your arm and neck and all," he said, feeling a bit awkward. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine," she said with a shrug. "In about a month. You can go with a clear conscience. And I suggest you go now rather than later."

Peter nodded.

Then he was gone.

xXx

Peter opened the door to the closet in his room and pulled out the child mannequin. "Heya Chuck," he said. "Daddy needs new threads." He took the mannequin and trotted down to the basement. He had previously screwed a ring onto the back of the mannequin, and he hung it from the ceiling. Then, he stripped off his shirt. His spinnerets carefully modulated the web spray, pushing it down to a fine mist. He puffed webbing all over the mannequin; soles of the feet, top of the head, hands, torso, everything. He made the layer quite thick, almost a half inch.

He finished, and the mannequin was coated so not a fraction of an inch was exposed. Peter nodded to himself, satisfied. He rubbed at his forearms. They burned and itched; he was not fully recovered. He noticed traces of blood in the webbing on the dummy. How appropriate.

He took two cardboard cutouts of oval eye shapes and stuck them on the drying mesh, in place. They would make pale eye spots when he spray-painted the entire mesh later. First the mesh had to dry, then the paint. The mesh was thick on a child dummy, but stretched on his adult form it was truly form-fitting.

"And comfortable," he added aloud. He closed his eyes, his senses unreeling and touching everything in the basement, all things familiar. He felt unshed tears of gratitude well up behind his eyes.

"Now I just have some writing to do," Peter said, "leave some letters for the near and dear. Just in case. And then? Then the sun goes down." He paused.

"Are we ready to do this thing?" he said quietly.

We are ready.

"I missed you," he whispered to himself.