Peter knew what he had to do, or at least what he would likely have to do.
By now, Vulture, Rhino and Sandman would likely have returned to wherever their base was, so trying to pick up on their trail was a waste of time. He'd already done an initial check of the site where they had fought, but it yielded nothing, so now he needed to take a new approach. More specifically, he needed to do a little backtracking.
The way he figured it, whoever the Master Planner really was, he obviously had utilized some of the various groups of the underworld's assistance in getting whatever it was he needed, namely the thugs that had accompanied the super villains at some of the heists he'd tried to bust up. Therefore, he needed to pay a visit to some of these places, and he figured he'd start at the Bar With No Name and his good pal Blackie Gaxton. Sure, he'd tried this approach before; he'd asked the man to generously dispel any info he could, and yes, it hadn't worked.
Well, Peter would just have to ask a little harder this time. In other words, he might have to get a little rougher. It was a side of himself that he'd been trying to suppress more recently, especially since returning from his multiversal adventure. He hated the thought of bringing it back out again, but May's life was on the line. If he had to move past playing nice to save her life, he was going to do it.
Peter finally arrived at his destination, landing well above where any of the patrons might see him. He was still hurting from his earlier scuffle, but he wasn't about to let a few relatively minor injuries hold him back. He crept to his favorite discrete method of entry: the ventilation shaft, tearing the barrier off and entering. Crawling his way through it, he eventually came above none other than Blackie Gaxton's office. Even better, the man himself was there too.
Criminals really did love the night.
Making no attempt to sneak in, Peter burst through the ceiling, crashing into the office.
"What in blazes?" Gaxton called out, nearly jumping out of his seat. "Spider-Man? I'm afraid I'm on my way out, so if you're going to try and appeal to my conscience or whatever..."
Wasting no time, Peter grabbed the man by his shirt and slammed him into the back wall of the office.
"I'm past playing nice, Gaxton," Peter growled. "Where is the Master Planner?"
A disgusting and twisted smile slowly crept over the man's face as he chuckled.
"I'm impressed, bug," the man said. "I know I talked all that smack last time about how you were Mr. Goodie-Two-Shoes and wouldn't do anything to me, but I'd heard some rumors a while back that the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man had taken a turn for the darker. I didn't believe them, but maybe I was wrong after all."
Peter hoisted the man up further, pressing his fist into the man's neck in the process.
"Where is he, Gaxton?" he asked.
"Look kid, let me cut to the chase," Blackie replied, the man's voice struggling a bit under the pressure of Peter's knuckles, "I don't care what you do to me. I've been in this business since I was a boy. You think I don't know how to take a beating? Sure, I may get roughed up, and you might even put me in a hospital bed for a while, but we both know that, no matter what, you don't kill. If you did, all those big bads running around out there would've been the first to go six feet under. Hurt me if you want to, but you won't get anything out of me."
Unfortunately, Peter got the sense that the man was telling the truth. Still, he had one more trick up his sleeve. He dropped the man to the ground in a heap.
"Well, then, guess I'll have to hit you where it REALLY hurts," he said before turning and walking out of the office. Peter made his way to the main room of the place, drawing the attention of the small crowd that was there. All eyes were on him, but he didn't care; he looked around, finally deciding on how to initiate his plan. Walking over to one of the gambling tables, Peter grabbed it, hoisted it over his head, and proceeded to smash it against one of the other ones, not stopping until both were reduced to scraps.
Naturally, this incited the customers and the workers alike, so they all came after him. Peter just stared as the small mob charged at him, totally calm and cool. One by one, he methodically took them out, sometimes brutally. He kicked people into walls and tables, smashed people into the floor, and knocked others out with devastating punches and kicks. Whatever pain he felt on his way here was now gone, replaced by the adrenaline that came from desperation and anger. It didn't matter what they came at him with: fists, knives, glasses, or even guns, he dispatched them all as if they were mere nuisances to him.
Even after he was done with all the lowlifes in the place, he didn't stop there. He ripped out a booth seat from the wall it had been attached to and proceeded to use it as a battering ram against the main bar itself, destroying it. At that point, Blackie finally showed himself.
"Get out of my bar!" the man yelled angrily, holding a gun at Peter. He didn't move, prompting the man to fire at him. He dodged three bullets before leaping at the man in a lightning-fast manner, grabbing his arm and twisting it, stopping just short of breaking the guy's wrist.
"Alright, let me tell you how this is going to go," Peter said. "You tell me everything you know about the Master Planner, or not only will I break your wrist, but I'll make sure to come back for a visit as soon as you get the place fixed up. How's that sound?"
"You filthy little..."
Peter twisted ever so slightly harder, prompting the man to grit his teeth as he fought back a cry of pain. "Don't make this any harder on yourself, Blackie," Peter insisted.
"Okay, okay!" the man finally shouted. "A while back, a man came to me saying that he worked for the Master Planner, like as an emissary or something. He said that he needed people: cons, crooks, construction workers, engineers, electricians, you name it. He also said he was willing to pay handsomely for whoever I could send his way, so I got the best I could find. He never gave me a name or anything, and we always met here. I swear, that's all I know!"
Peter looked hard into the man's eyes. These kinds of people were expert liars, and maybe that was what was happening right now, but Peter found no indications that that was true here. He just didn't see a liar, just someone desperate to get out of a crushing grip.
He finally released said grip on the man's wrist, and Blackie staggered back.
"If you're lying, I'm coming back," Peter warned before turning and walking out the front door this time.
If there was a hiding place for the criminal underworld, Peter paid it a visit. He left no stone unturned, combing through every shady place in the city, desperately searching for answers. Naturally, he wasn't exactly met with a warm welcome at any of these places, but he diffused most situations pretty quickly, neutralizing all his opponents with relative ease. He made every point to display the greater scope of his powers in order to intimidate those he interrogated, ripping doors off their hinges, smashing walls, and even overturning cars as he tore through hideout after hideout.
Most common criminals were cowards, desperately pleading for their lives at Peter's first display of strength. Others took a little more persuasion, which he obliged. Unfortunately, it didn't really seem to matter, as all he could get were vague answers at best and nothing at worst. Whoever this Master Planner individual was, they had clearly gone to great lengths in order to keep their true identity a secret, not meeting with anyone themselves, only going through emissaries, and never giving anyone any kind of concrete details, such as a location where he might be found. All he could really gather was that he was probably building something really big and likely planning something even bigger.
As Peter's desperation mounted, it took greater restraint not to more severely hurt or even potentially kill those he came across. All the anger that he'd felt towards the world, and towards himself, was coming back all in one night. His failure to save Gwen had made it harder and harder to truly be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that he wanted to be until recently, and now it felt like all that progress was slowly being undone.
He was just so determined to save May, the strongest connection he had left as Peter Parker. It was ironic, because it had been her learning his identity that had helped him slowly come back a little from all this anger, all this rage he had felt for a long time after Gwen's death, even if it hadn't done much to help motivate him to live the civilian side of his life. Now, with the threat of losing her growing more and more imminent, Peter started to feel like he was slowly unraveling inside.
It all came to a head when Peter confronted yet another mob boss, who claimed not to know anything. It didn't matter what he did, the man simply didn't have any information for him. Exhausted physically and emotionally, Peter's emotions threatened to get the better of him, and he just started beating the man, punching him repeatedly and without mercy. He landed several hits before he finally caught himself, seeing the man was unconscious and even bleeding out his nose. Fearing he'd crossed a line, Peter checked to make sure and, thankfully, he picked up a pulse. He then promptly left the building.
By now, the first rays of the sun were just starting to peek out over the ivory towers of the Manhattan skyline. Peter perched himself on a building, resting on his feet and fingers in one of his squatted positions. Life was undoubtedly beginning again for most of the people of the city, but for Peter, the light that was now finding its way through the lenses of his mask only served as a reminder of just how tired he was, both physically and emotionally. The adrenaline from his excursions through the underworld now wearing off, he could now feel every bit of how far he had pushed himself despite his injuries. Every part of him ached, but especially his head and midsection. On top of that, he had only slept because his body had reached the point where it literally needed to crash in order to even begin to recover earlier, and Peter was feeling that as well.
More than that though, Peter's soul felt as if it had received the beatings that he had dished out tonight. All this effort he had exerted had yielded next to nothing about the Master Planner, his whereabouts, and most of all, where the life-saving treatment that May required might be. He had done everything humanly possible to try and get answers, but it was looking all for naught right now. His heart sank as the realization dawned on him even more than the morning sun as it continued to rise.
Exhausted beyond what he'd thought humanly possible, Peter fired a web, swinging off for home.
He just didn't know what else to do anymore.
Harry continued walking through the streets, keeping his head down to avoid anyone recognizing him. His long hair and the discarded hoodie he'd found in the same alley he'd slept in most of the night were likely helping him maintain his anonymity more than he was giving them credit for, but he was taking no chances. He had a mission, and he needed to remain as secretive as possible to complete it.
However, finding the person he needed was proving to be difficult. When he first escaped in the car he stole from the "warden," he'd just assumed he could find Peter, tell him the location of where his former allies were, and that would be that. What he'd failed to realize though was that he didn't have the first idea where Peter might be, either as himself or as Spider-Man. Still, he was determined to at least begin to right his wrongs, even on the smallest level. He might've also seen Peter as his only chance to get out from under the thumb of Ock and the others, but more than anything, Harry just wanted to at least feel like he'd done something right in his miserable existence.
He was beginning to realize he was hungry and, remembering a discarded five-dollar bill he'd found on the street somewhere, he opted to walk into a nearby gas station to grab a quick bite to eat. It wouldn't be much, but it would give him the energy he needed to keep going. He rummaged through the options, picked one, and walked up to the main counter.
As he put the sandwich on the table, Harry happened to glance at the television, where there was a local news report on.
"In local news, there is still no update on May Parker, the woman who was injured during the attack at the hospital several weeks ago."
Harry was suddenly drawn to the TV like a fly to a light, slowly stepping towards it as he sought to glisten all the details he could. There wasn't a lot of talk on the specifics of her condition, but what the reporter did offer didn't sound good. They did dispel the most important information he needed though: the hospital she was at.
"Sir!" the man at the counter yelled.
"Oh, yeah, sorry," Harry said, grabbing the money out of his pocket, smacking it on the counter. "Keep the change."
Harry then grabbed his sandwich and rapidly walked out of the building, knowing where he needed to go next.
Wow, this was just a little heavy.
I started writing this before No Way Home came out, but after seeing it, I wanted to explore a bit of the darker side of himself that Andrew's Peter alluded to. Granted, I don't personally enjoy the idea of him potentially being a killer, so I made sure to rule that out, but still, I think it makes sense that he would struggle with anger towards the world and towards himself, so hopefully I explored that well in this chapter without messing up the continuity of this story.
Anyway, all that to say, I hope you're still enjoying it!
Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!
"The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul." Psalm 23:1-3a