All credit to respective owners!
-Y.A.R.N. or Mr. Nobody
P.S. I was hoping I could get some feedback on the fight scenes I put in, I think they could use some improvement, but I am not sure if I know what's missing...
Peter sat in his apartment, head in his hands and unable to look at MJ or Miles as they tried to comfort him over his self-perceived failure. Mary Jane rubbed soothing circles on his back and whispered comforts in his ear as he tried to come to grips on how far Yuri had gone.
"I failed." He moaned miserably, "I couldn't do anything..."
"What are you talking about?" Miles exclaimed,"You stopped Hammerhead and saved the maggia dons! You didn't fail!"
"But what about Yuri?" He replied, still unable to look up, "What good am I if I fail the people I love? I told Yuri I would handle it! I messed up over and over again! How much good am I doing? Is it even worth it?"
Mary Jane would have growled had she been angry enough, but she had known Peter for a very long time and knew what needed to be said.
She honestly had enough of Peter's crippling self-blame, He had nothing to blame himself for and she didn't intend to let him try to do so otherwise, "You can't blame yourself for her decisions or Hammerhead getting under her skin! You didn't kill her men nor did you cause them to get captured! You had no idea about the amount of or type of ordinance Silver Sable left in NYC that Hammerhead used! Blaming yourself for things you were unprepared for or unknowing about doesn't make it your fault Peter, you need to understand that!"
Viri's soothing voice trickled in his mind, "Mary Jane is correct Peter. No one is expecting perfection from you, you may have superpowers, but you are a human and as prone to mistakes as anyone else. You fought and managed to stop Hammerhead, that is enough; Yuri's choices were not created by your actions. You did all you could, take solace in what you did win."
Peter sighed, he knew they had all valid points and logically, nothing Yuri did was really his fault. But he had promised to keep the Dons safe and fix the whole mess, Yuri put her faith in him and he let her down.
"I just..." He began, helplessly trying to put into words what he felt, "I promised."
Mary Jane held his head in the crook of her neck, "And you tried your best, that's you need to know."
Miles swung his way home from Peter's apartment, lost in thought.
It was a startling thing to see Peter so disheartened, he remembered when Peter showed him how to punch correctly and how confident and relatively content Spider-Man had seemed in helping him. It was hard and more-than-a-little-unnerving to see the same person now looking so defeated and let-down. Miles knew that as a 'Spider-Man in training', he had a long way to go as far as being seen as an experienced hero, let alone Peter's equal. He was warned by Peter that there was only one grim reality in being a hero and that was life was uncertain and you would eventually lose. It wasn't like the comics or the movies where no matter what happens you win and everything is okay or resolved by the end of the day. There was always going to be a time you wished you had been faster, been smarter, been stronger, been BETTER so that you could have done what you couldn't have achieved before.
Miles engaged his spider-camo as he got closer to his home and landed next to his window and quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching (spider-camo or not, he didn't want to take any chances). He quickly slid his window open and crawled quietly inside, he let his led detach from the ceiling and landed softly in a crouch next to his bed. He quickly stripped out of his suit before letting his spider-camo fade away and slipped into his bed. He tried to find a comfortable position to settle, but thoughts of Peter's self-flagellation over his personal failures wouldn't leave him alone. Despite the fact he felt too wired and conflicted to sleep, the day's earlier battles and first battle-utilized venom burst had tired him more than he thought and his eyelids slid shut before he was slipping into the murky waters of sleep.
"That cop nearly killed me!" Hammerhead roared at the groaning scientist.
"You're still human," The scientist tried to reason with the incensed mobster, "You have limits!"
"Then make me less human!" Hammerhead demanded.
"I don't understand!" The man shouted, trying to free himself as he clawed at the hand lifting him in the air, "What do you even mean?"
Hammerhead slammed the man into the ground, shattering the hapless scientist's spine and killing him. He wiped the blood of his hands as the body of the mangled Oscorp employee's blood began to pool on the floor. The man had disappointed the Maggia Don, and said Maggia Don didn't take kindly to being disappointed, especially to the point of nearly dying. He approached a terrified Oscorp scientist and picked up a baseball bat before shaking his head and running his hand over a lead pipe. Each time the revived Maggia Don picked up a new torture device, the scientist's fear only increased, there was no way he would survive if he didn't cooperate.
"Now..." He said, placing the pipe down and opening the door to one fo the Project Olympus canisters with a smile, "You've seen what'll happen if you decide to... decline my most generous offer of working on making the tech I want, and keeping you alive. So point-dexter, the application has been read and we only need you to say the right answer before our partnership begins. Be warned, the wrong answer will hurt you a lot more than me."
"I told you!" The scientist pleaded, "I helped manufacture them, I didn't DESIGN them!"
Hammerhead tsk'd, "Guess we got the wrong guy then. On the bright side, we've got our first test subject."
The man blanched, "No! Don't! Please! Don't turn it on! Please! Give me a few minutes! I can figure it out!"
Hammerhead gave a satisfied smirk, "Now THAT'S what I like to hear..."
Miles paused as he was training and stared at his hands, clenching them into fists before sighing and relaxing. They had been using some of the construction sites that the police had cordoned off from the public. Aside from the fact they had been Fisk's fronts for crime, the recent attacks on the city had made them ideal for Miles and Peter to work on stick-em powers. Peter noticed and strolled over to Miles, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing slightly to get Miles' attention.
"What's wrong?" Peter asked.
"It's just..." Miles trailed off, "I have these powers, and an awesome mentor but I don't know if I am really doing as much good as you do. I see you do all these things to save the city — I mean I have been even helping out — but in the end you still have losses, I mean we should be able to stop them right?"
Peter sighed and crossed his arms, "That's the thing Miles. We have powers, but we aren't gods. Heck, even actual gods like Thor have days where they can't save everyone. We just have to do what we can, no matter how small, no matter how big. I know it feels like we aren't changing anything, but we are making the city safer, if only a little bit. And you may not think so, but you've helped me out so much, things have been so much easier. Do you think it would have been half as easy to take on Hammerhead if you hadn't handled his reinforcements? You are already doing so much better than I was in the beginning. I've been doing this for years, you've only just started and grown so much. I'm proud of you."
Miles stared at his mentor, if his face wasn't masked, Peter would have seen his eye light up with a blaze of proud determination, "Thanks Pete."
Peter smiled and tilted his head, "It'll probably be better as you get older, your body is still growing, and you'll adapt to your powers as they grow more alongside your body as a result."
Miles eyes widened, "I'll get stronger?"
"I did." Peter replied easily.
Peter inclined his head when suddenly his hands-free phone buzzed, "Hello?"
Mary Jane didn't waste time with pleasantries, "Hammerhead's gone."
"What?!" Peter shouted, startling Miles.
"The ambulance carrying him was founded abandoned and completely empty except for a beaten coroner. I think when you yanked on Yuri's gun, it fired straight into the metal plate and knocked him out. One of his men must have stopped the ambulance or something and got him out or revived him!" She theorized before shuffling something and then continuing, "I did do some digging and found out that Project Olympus was Oscorp and Sable joint project to create super-soldiers, it was still in its developmental stages, but Oscorp continued when Sable left the city. They had a good leap and that prototype was what Hammerhead fought you in before Yuri shot him."
Peter cursed.
That's exactly what he needed right now — even leaving aside the fact that Yuri was on administrative leave and her anger hadn't abated in the slightest — Hammerhead still causing more issues. It made sense if he stopped to think about it though, the maggia had still been acquiring more sable tech despite the apparent thought that Hammerhead had been killed. The other Maggia Dons were still cooling their heels in various hideouts or waiting it out after Hammerhead trying to bury them, they may have seen the benefits of the Sable weapons, but they wouldn't have been able to immediately take over Hammerhead's operations.
"What's wrong?" Miles asked.
"Hammerhead isn't dead and apparently managed to escape any capture." Peter growled.
"Are you kidding me?" Miles exclaimed, "He was shot in the face!"
"When I webbed Yuri gun and yanked it, the gun probably made it hit the steel plate in his head," Peter expanded irritably, "That head is too tough — even for a sable rifle bullet — to be pierced so easily. He used to swinging his head around like a hammer to beat people down."
Miles sighed and massaged his forehead, "Okay. So what do we do?"
Peter sighed, "We go after the gangs. We hit them hard, and see if we can find some thing to force Hammerhead out to play."
Spider-Man grumbled at the Olympus-enhanced goons attacking the cops, he had thought that with Hammerhead being beaten, it would show that even those suits wouldn't be enough to stop him. Then again, he supposed that the maggia would still be able to handle other threats like the cop and other families much easier if they had Olympus-enhanced goons fighting the usual battles. Both Peter and Miles had been putting in overtime as heroes and even then it was difficult for the both of them to quell the rise of Olympus-enhanced thugs. Peter had occasionally ran across other heroes — Daredevil and Luke Cage for example — also battling the Maggia in their respective areas. While it was good to see they were helping the people of New York, Peter still felt bitter and hurt over the fact they didn't seem to be helping out all that much during the Devil's Breath incident. Regardless, the Olympus-enhanced goon wasn't quite as hard-headed as Hammerhead so it was relatively easy to hit the goon hard enough to knock him out with a decently strong punch to the jaw.
Which was only momentarily satisfying as a digboy erupted from the ground and more Olympus-goons poured out of the openings. Spider-Man ducked away from a hail of gunfire and fired off a suspension matrix at the foot of the oncoming thugs. Which a high-pitched whine and explosion, blue light erupted from the floor and several goons and thugs were lifted into the air. Peter tagged several of them with trip-mine webbing and watched as the webbing anchored them down to the ground with a wince-worthy thug. The rest he dispatched with blasts of impact webbing or concussive blasts.
His current workplace at Horizon had really let him increase the 'ammo' capacity of his tools now that he had a actual budget, chemicals he could request, and tech on demand.
A goon with a jetpack rocketed into the air with a officer grasped in his hand, "Come on Spider-Man, let's play save the pigs!"
"Well that's just rude." Peter muttered.
Peter fired a webline and followed only to see the jetpack-wielding goons all launching Sable grenades at the wall crawler. Peter huffed as he twisted through the air and kicked one of the goons in the face.
"Oh, hello ambush guys!" He called cheerfully, "Where's your buddy go?"
One goon rushed at him in the air only for Peter to slam a palm into his back and fire an impact web that sent him into the floor.
"No one's talking huh?" Peter commented, "Maybe you all can't hear me over the sound of those jetpacks.
Quick as they were, Spider-Man had already fought Sable Agents who were much more experienced in the whole jetpack-fighting area, beating down the goons who had only just got used to using the jetpacks was much easier than they were. Within a minute or two, the goons had all been either webbed up in cocoons of webbing or unconscious. Peter brushed his hands when he noticed the previous goon flying closer to the edge of the building they were on., the struggling cop still in his grip.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Spider-Man called out as the goon paused.
"Come closer," The goon sneered, "I dare ya!"
"Is that a regular dare, or maybe a double-dog... dare." Peter began to quip before a large humming left him trailing off.
A large jet floated into sight as it faced the goon and the hero.
"Is that yours?" The goon inquired as fear leaked into his voice.
"No!" Peter replied before continuing in an undertone, "It'd be so awesome if it was though..."
The glass of the cockpit slid open to reveal Silver Sable glaring at the goon before opening fire on him. The goon boosted out of the way while dropping the cop as he ascended.
Spider-Man leapt into the air and landed on top of the goon as he fired a web-line down and snagged the cop before attaching the web-line to the jet pack and using an impact web to secure the goon to the side of a smokestack that came from the building he had been over.
The cop came to a halt as he dangled and Spider-Man quickly dropped down next to him, "You okay?"
"Yeah... yeah." The cop replied breathlessly.
Spider-Man leapt back up to the roof only to see Sable aiming guns at the trapped goon as he called out, "Long time no see!"
Sable didn't seem to listen — or care — as she barked at the goon, "Who do you work for?"
The goon gave a few muffled grunts.
"He works for Hammerhead." Peter supplied.
Sable pointed a gun at him, "Where is this Hammerhead?"
Peter placed his hand up in a placating manner, "Whoa, whoa! Can't we go grab a coffee and catch up like normal people? By the way, I love your new hovercraft thing."
"Tell me everything you know." She demanded.
"Can we drop the gun and I'd love to bring you up to speed!" Peter offered.
Sable jaw clenched as she paused, "You have three seconds."
"Right, so the whole gun lowering thing—"
"Three."
Peter groaned, "Do you really want to do this?"
"Two." Sable pointed both guns at him.
Seeing that there really was no point in antagonizing Sable by deflecting her inquiry with his own brand of humor, Peter leapt up to the side of the jet and pointed at the trapped goon still wiggling under his webbing, "Apparently Hammerhead's been after your project Olympus tech, I thought he had been killed by a cop on the force after being shot in the face, but apparently she hit a metal plate on his head, which knocked him out, but left him alive. His underlings hijacked the ambulance his body was in and revived him shortly after."
She scowled at the wall-crawler but lowered the gun slightly, "Tell me where to find Hammerhead."
"After he was brought back to life, he went underground." Spider-Man sighed, "I wish I knew where he was, but if you want to, we can work together on this."
"Together?" Sable scoffed, "Never!"
"What did I do wrong here?" Peter demanded, arms crossed, "Wait... have you been listening to Jameson's podcasts?"
"You are supposed to be the protector of this city!" She accused, "And yet you have allowed this Hammerhead to steal all my weapons and supplies."
"I didn't allow anything!" Peter defended, gesturing at the goon, "I was trying to STOP him from stealing your stuff, I only recently found out he was still kicking."
"Then you are failing!" Sable growled, "Badly!"
"That hurts." Peter remarked dryly, "But you're not wrong."
Sable aimed a gun at him and Peter tensed, "Who knows, maybe you are working with him!"
Spider-Man scowled, "Okay, now I am insulted!"
Sable lowered the gun, "I don't know or trust you! Stay out of my way or you will suffer the consequences!"
"Stay out of your way while you do what?" Peter inquired dubiously.
"While I find and kill Hammerhead!" She shouted.
"Good luck with that," Peter remarked, "But if the whole being shot in the head and still alive thing didn't clue you in, "He doesn't die easily."
Sable snorted in derision, "He hasn't met me."
Unfortunately while they were bickering, the goon that had been affixed to the wall managed to activate his jetpack and flew away from the scene.
"Dammit!" Sable cursed as she kicked Spider-Man off the jet and jumped back into the cockpit.
Peter landed in a roll, "I thought you were one of the good guys now!"
"I am good at what I do." She replied curtly, "And I am not a 'guy'."
The cockpit slid closed and Spider-Man only had time to ponder, "Lost in translation I guess...?" Before the exhaust from Sable's jet threw him off the roof.
He fired a web-line and dangled from it while complaining, "What happened to 'You can thank me by not dying'?"
