Chapter Eighteen: Where's the Cake?

Oh no, something terrible has happened in New York. Again. Where 95% of the world's superheroes live. Who would've guessed? What is this catastrophic calamity, you say? Well, it would sound like the beginning of a joke.

So a witch, a headsman, a high school science teacher, a radioactive Chinese guy, a dude made out of laser beams, and a Nazi stroll into New York and start blowing stuff up. But these guys were no joke, they were called the Masters of EVIL by some stupid paper and it stuck. This aforementioned A-Team of bad guys were the Enchantress, Skurge the Executioner, Radioactive Man, the Living Laser, and Baron Zemo. Actual threats to the sanctity of life. What? You were expecting another terrible joke of a villain? Bah, what low standards you have of this tale.

"Have at thee, foul wretch! Thy mystic harms shan't reach the fair people of Midgard this day!" Yelled Thor like a well-trained stage actor as he flung lightning at the Enchantress.

The sorceress cackled in response "This confidence is most debilitating, Thunderer. I seek not the pitifully short lives of these insects, I seek yours!"

Spidey came flying through the mess of magic sparkles and whatnot as he landed a blow on Radioactive Man's very radioactive face. Not the Simpsons one, the other one. The Chinese one. A 'crack' sounded as Radioactive Man stumbled backwards, and Peter sighed "These guys are tough! Where's the big green guy when you need him?!"

Hawkeye, nobody's favourite Avenger, was matched up with nobody's favourite supervillain; Chemistro. As he dodged the various chemicals that were fired from Chemistro's gun, Clint returned fire and replied to Peter "Oh you didn't hear? We lost him."

"SSSHHHH!" Tony hissed through the comm channel as he flew around shooting lasers at the Living Laser. "Do you know how much money I'm throwing away to keep that a secret?!"

Peter's shock was evidenced in how Radioactive Man socked him with a backhand strike. Spidey flipped forward in recovery and said "Wait, so you really lost him? The Hulk?"

"We didn't lose him. He kinda just left."

"After killing his wife?" Hawkeye jabbed.

Peter, somehow juggling this shocking exchange with tying the Radioactive Man up in his gross webs, managed to press "He what?!"

"Look, no one knows what happened. As soon as we find him, we'll ask him. But right now...everybody needs to focus." Captain America ordered. He parried the sword blows of Baron Zemo and skilfully evaded his handed strikes.

Hercules wrestled with Skurge as he added "I, for one, agree with the well-spoken sentiments of the Captain of America. We face mighty foes in this battle who shall draw no quarter!"

"Verily. Friend Hercules speaks true. Cease this bickering." Thor boomed.

Hercules slammed Skurge with his club and turned to the flying God of Thunder "'Tis Heracles, you Norse ne'er-do-well!"

Hawkeye nailed Chemistro in the face with a taser arrow. "Yeah, yeah, whatever Hercules."

Since this narrator believes that doing more back and forth dialogue between more than two people who are simultaneously fighting more than two other people is kind of hard, we can agree that the battle was hard fought but the Avengers prevented the Masters of EVIL from doing whatever the heck they were trying to do.

"This is Captain Rogers, requesting cleanup." Cap said into his earpiece as he secured reinforced handcuffs around Zemo's wrists.

The purple-masked son of a Nazi sneered and whispered "My family has fought you for nearly a century, my Captain. I am not going to relent until I hold your lifeless corpse in my hands."

Cap replied "That's what your father believed, Helmut...and he wasted his life trying to make it happen. I hope you won't make that same mistake. It's never too late."

About ten metres away, across the street, stood Hawkeye and Spidey. Clint rolled his shoulder back and forth as he muttered to Peter "How the hell does he do that? That guy's a Nazi. A crazy Nazi. And his dad and grandad tried to kill him and Bucky back in the war. But Steve can still look the dude in the eye and say 'hey man, all that murdering you did is all good if you say sorry or something'."

"Well he's not technically a Nazi. His dad, Heinrich Zemo, was a Nazi. Nazism is a political ideology, and sock-face over there doesn't seem too interested in anything but stabbing Steve." Spidey replied, messaging his fists which were sore from punching dudes all day.

Clint squinted at Zemo as he struggled slightly against his cuffs. "Yeah he's a Nazi."

"Oh. Okay."

Suddenly, there was a stream of maniacal laughing coming from the street across. Peter turned and saw a giant yellow wheel with machine guns fixed to the side rolling down the road, smashing cars aside.

Hawkeye chuckled "Well, off you go."

"What? Can't you take that? I'm kind of busy tonight."

"Hey, I'm an Avenger not Spider-Man. You take the weirdos with the gimmicks, we'll take the world-ending threats."

Great. It was the Big Wheel, a guy who rode around in a giant battle wheel. Again, you need to give an award to the guy who came up with this.

However, once again, Captain America came to Peter's rescue like a knight riding to a damsel's side. "Stow that talk, Barton." Steve glanced about to make sure no one else was in earshot. "Peter, we'll handle this. Happy birthday, son."

He waved Hawkeye over to one of the several quinjets that arrived to transport the Masters to jail. Oh, now that we've reached it, it seems that Enchantress and Skurge are a bit too powerful for human jails. We shall now mention that Thor shovelled them off to Asgard or whatever. Yeah, that's what happened.

Hawkeye groaned as he heeded Cap's order. "I had to work on my birthday, why does he get a pass?"

"Doesn't count if you didn't know it was your birthday." Steve quipped as they disappeared into the quinjet.

———————————————-

It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. In Annabelle's opinion they were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years. It was like a kind of strange life, and there were houses, she knew it, that breathed. They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human. The Parker's house was one of these homes.

The living room was small and attached to an even tinier kitchen, but lined along those crumbling walls were rows of photographs of a family happier than any she had seen before; Peter, his Aunt May, and a man she could only assume was his uncle.

The small dinner table was set with a floral cover and plates so clean that the lights above it were perfectly reflected within. There were bowls full of dollar-store candy and a tray full of wheatcakes. Annabelle raised an eyebrow and pointed towards the dessert "Isn't there supposed to be icing on those?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous." Aunt May hummed rather chipperly. "Peter likes them plain."

"Peter likes everything plain." Harry teased. He was leaning against the wall opposite Annabelle and watching as Mary Jane gave a heart-melting giggle.

Belle, not knowing Peter well enough to judge whether this was an accurate statement, turned her attention back to the photos. There were plenty of Peter as a child, with his pants pulled up a little too high and his glasses much too big for his young face. Annabelle suddenly realised that he no longer wore glasses...he must have switched to contacts.

As she scanned the framed memories, she came across one of three teenagers. They couldn't be any older than sixteen. One of them was clearly Peter, but the other two didn't look even remotely familiar.

"That guy pulling the weird face is Ned and the girl next to him is Michelle Jones. Pete dated her for, like, a year." Harry explained as he stepped closer to the line of frames that had clearly caught Belle's attention.

Her eyes fell on the next photo, and this time she saw three familiar faces; Peter, Harry, and Mary Jane were all squeezing into the frame...but there was one more person there. A girl with hair woven in gold, and eyes like a misty ocean. "And who's this?"

Harry froze. "Uh...I don't know if it's my place to-"

"That's Gwen Stacy." May answered without a hint of reluctance. She was bringing out a plate of cookies and offered Annabelle one. She took four. "She was always very close to Peter. They started dating and it lasted quite a while. Until after graduation, actually, if my memory serves me correctly."

Annabelle grabbed hold of the picture and analysed it. Peter's arm was wrapped around Gwen's shoulders, and Harry was holding Mary Jane close to his side. Belle could only assume that Mary Jane had been dating Harry at that time...at least, that's what it looked like. "What happened to them?"

The inevitable question triggered a fit of silence. The only sound that dared to break it was the crunching of Annabelle as she ate one of May's cookies. The elderly woman in question patted Belle on the shoulder and smiled weakly. "The dear girl passed on."

Annabelle's loud chewing came to an abrupt halt. "You mean...she died?"

May nodded and Belle swiftly put the photograph down; as if it were haunted and likely to curse her at any given second. The girl in the picture looked entirely healthy...young, beautiful, and full of life. Belle knew that to enquire any further was probably inappropriate, but her curiosity often outweighed her none-existent social skills.

"How...?" Belle finally asked, and this time the sweet aunt's eyes shifted to the floor.

Harry was the one that answered. In the span of two seconds his kind gaze had turned cruel, and anger seeped through his every pore. "Spider-Man killed her...just like he killed my father."

Annabelle gasped, silently. It was more like a hitch in her throat than anything else. Spider-Man killed them? It simply didn't sound right. Sure, The Daily Bugle loved to make him look like a menace, but all she'd ever seen the web-slinger do is help people.

"Now, I'll be hearing none of that." May finally said, placing the cookies onto the table. "This is Peter's special day, and that topic always ends badly. I won't be having any fighting tonight."

Harry grumbled something inaudible under his breath but decided to drop the subject entirely. That look in his eyes never wavered though. It was something dark, and full of an intense hatred.

In a desperate attempt to escape the tense atmosphere, Belle wandered towards a nearby door. There was a battered old sign hanging from it that read 'Advanced research staging area - Oscorp'. It was immediately obvious that this was Peter's old room, and as that same curiosity overwhelmed her, Annabelle ducked inside.

The room itself was a mess; clothes littered the ground and massive textbooks on every matter of science were splayed out over the mattress. May hadn't changed it since Peter left.

There was a framed cover of Frontier Science Journal hanging on the wall; featuring Doctor Reed Richards in normal clothes posing with his foot on a chair - trying to look cool and casual but actually emitting that 'kill me' look out of his drained, soulless eyes. The title of his essay was 'Applications of Molecularly Unstable Objects'

Then, right next to that, was a thirty-seven page research paper by Doctor Robert Bruce Banner called 'The Effects of Gamma Radiation on Organic Matter'. It was printed in its entirety and blu-tacked to the wall. Annabelle raised an eyebrow at the sight. Apparently, Peter had always been a little eccentric.

The loud roar of 'Happy Birthday, Peter!' echoed through the house, insinuating that Peter had just arrived...but Annabelle has just found a pile of comic books and found herself distracted by flicking through them. She was so distracted, in fact, that she barely noticed how much time had passed until the door was pulled open.

She turned to meet the shocked expression of Peter Parker. He yelped. It was high-pitched and temporarily deafening. Harry and Mary Jane could be heard snickering in the living room at the sound. "A-Annabelle? Wh-What are you doing here?!"

Belle shrugged. "I was invited."

Panic flashed on his face so quickly that it took all the colour with it; he was now so pale that he looked like he might pass out. Within the span of two seconds he started gathering the clothes left on the floor and chucking it into the closet. "Oh my God...I haven't actually been in this room for years, I'm so sorry about the mess."

"It's alright...really. My room isn't that neat either."

Despite her reassurance, Peter still scurried around the room trying to make his room less of an embarrassment...but whenever he removed one thing, there was something even worse underneath it; like a melted chocolate bar or a soda stain.

His running around was starting to make Annabelle dizzy...and so she decided to switch his focus from the dirty room to the essay on his walls. "Why do you have a whole research paper pinned up?"

Peter stopped, arms full of shirts with science jokes on them, and glanced up at his wall. "Well...uh...you know how people have inspirational quotes on their walls?"

"This thirty-seven page essay on gamma radiation is the equivalent of an inspirational quote to you?"

"Yeah he did some uh real in-depth research on that." Peter confirmed, throwing the shirts onto his bed and staring at the pages with a grin.

"Right... Didn't it turn him green and shrink his pants?"

Peter did one of those snorting laughs that make people think he was ten seconds away from turning into a pig. "Something like that."

Annabelle chewed on her bottom lip. Their conversation had fallen flat, and only one thing remained. She needed to apologise, but Belle had always been awful at admitting any wrongdoing...primarily because she usually didn't get involved.

"Look, Pete..." Belle started, twisting her foot anxiously against the carpet like a drill running low on batteries. "Harry told me what happened with Will o' the Wisp."

Peter's expression dropped into one that almost resembled horror. Harry didn't know his secret...did he? The fact that he was still alive proved it. "H-He did?"

"Yeah. You went to find that Ladybug-Guy."

Peter blinked incredulously. "You mean...Spider-Man?"

"He's not a ladybug?" Annabelle hummed in deep thought. It was almost like she was purposefully getting it wrong...because not long ago she had called him 'Human Spider', which though was still wrong, at least acknowledged that he was a spider. "He has the dots like a ladybug."

"They're webs." Peter sighed, rubbing his temples and hoping to scare away the first signs of a headache.

"The point is that I jumped to conclusions...and I'm sorry." Annabelle smiled, and Peter hadn't realised how much he missed seeing that crooked grin directed at him. "You were trying to keep your knowledge of that Spider-Guy's location a secret. You were being a good friend, and I was a horrible one."

"N-No!" Peter suddenly blurred out a little too loudly. "You're a great friend! Your reaction was completely understandable... I should be thanking you, actually. You took care of my aunt while I was gone. So, uh, thanks!"

Annabelle giggled. It was low and earthy, and lacked the general lilt that most women had...but Peter had never heard such a beautiful sound. "Anytime. She's a sweetheart."

Peter smiled back at her. "Yeah, she is."

Then, one of the best moments of Peter's life came forward in the shape of Belle's arms. She wrapped them around his waist and hugged him so tightly that he thought he might faint. Not from her strength, but from being so incredibly close to her. "Happy birthday, Pete."