answers to reviewers questions or statements:
RonaldM40196867: Well she's more... friendlier I suppose, less harsh, but that's really about it. She's still the stone cold manipulator we all know and fear.
Mr E: And yet he didn't get beat by Bucky given that Bucky isn't even in this story. That says something doesn't it? Peter's a ticking time bomb that Talia was going to have placed in the heart of Nyssa and Cain's operations, so when he does go off, all the collateral damage will be on their end, The Iceberg Lounge just showed her that his 'fuse' can't really be timed or anticipated, she just has to hope that luck will be on her side. If you think this story will have any sort of happy ending, I suggest you stop reading now. There's gonna be no 'he finally comes to his senses and he and the girls after this war ends find a nice quite place to live out the rest of their lives'. Some of the characters in this story will not be reaching the end, some not even the middle of this story.
itsyaboi2525: Very soon.
Adtr509: Right now Peter's at like 20%, most of the time he can tell he's having some sort of hallucination, but there are a few that sneak up on him and he doesn't realize it's not real until something snaps him out of it. But it'll get worse until he can no longer tell if what he's seeing really is happening and there won't be a way for him to 'come to his senses', it'll just be a never ending blur of what's real and not.
Batman1998: He doesn't have any kids, Peter's more or less sterile thanks to the genetic augmentations he's undergone that gave him his abilities. Yes Peter's met Black Cat in the past and we'll see her again soon. Peter will be killing a major figure in Gotham soon and the fallout will be a cluster fuck.
emmanjacaba: Or you could not keeping reading it since you clearly don't like it dumbass. If your not a fan of the story a fifth of the way in, than your not going to like the rest of it. No one is making you read this dipshit. But hey if you wanna take time out of your life your time reading it, than shut it. Or fuck off, it's that easy.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or DC characters seen, mentioned or used.
It all sounded so simple.
So easy, that any novice as new as the latest updated crap from Apple could do it as a first assignment. Peter could do this half drunk, missing an eye and half his fingers on each hand while half a kilo of cocaine was surgically implanted into him... and he's had to do that before.
He never forgave Daken for getting him roped into that job and made it clear that the moment he finds a way to negate the man's healing factor, he was gonna rip his damn head off.
"So... all we have to do is storm this warehouse, kill anyone who gets in our way and retrieve some super valuable asset that's vital to Talia securing her alliance with this Silvermane guy?" Peter said as he stood on a rooftop that overlooked Gotham's docks just five minutes passed noon "Sounds simple enough..."
Almost a hundred feet below and a half mile away towards the water front was the warehouse in question, even from his vantage point Peter could see that it had far more men around it than it should. Several trucks were parked at specific locations around it and he could see several men patrolling it's perimeter, occasionally turning away some curious worker from getting too close, usually by blatantly displaying their weapons.
"Yes... which is why it'll quickly becoming anything but simple I'm afraid" Honor said as she aimed down the sights of her pistol before nodding in satisfaction and holstered the weapon before grabbing a pair of knives and began to slide them into their respective sheathes.
"A rather nice change of pace from the usual jobs I'm assigned to" Natalia said as she zipped up the front of her black body suit after slipping on a armored corset underneath.
"And what kinds of jobs are those my dear little Widow?" Peter asked as he glanced at the red headed femme fatale that shared an affinity of spiders.
"Seduction... and murder" Black Widow said with a smirk "Hence the name"
Peter hummed at this before he glanced at the other member of his team, the lone telepath and arguably the most powerful member of their little team "And Psylocke? How'd you get that name?"
Betsy paused in cleaning her katana to look up at Peter with a blank look on her face "I'm psychic and I like how it sounds psionic related"
Peter waited for further elaboration before Betsy resumed cleaning her blade, causing him to frown "Wait, that's it?"
"Don't mind her, she's just upset that she won't be leading this op" Cheshire said as she painted her nails an ominous green color.
Ever since her return from Jaina's apartment, the toxin specialist had been... normal, for the lack of a better term, around Peter. She didn't seem to have a chip on her shoulder when it came to him after their last encounter and a part of Peter couldn't help but wonder if it was genuine or if she was simply good at masking her dislike for him.
'Either way, I'm probably gonna find out soon... via sharp, pointy, metal thing in my side' Peter thought with a mental sigh as he turned away from the five deadly beauties' and made his way towards the other side of the roof and gazed out at the city.
According to Laura and Psylocke's intel, which was re-enforced by information supplied by Savant and Creote, the guards at this warehouse will be changing shifts soon. Once they started, Peter and the girls will launch their attack. While it was a bit odd to attack a fortified location where there'll be more guards, Peter was banking on the unusualness to work in their favor.
After all, who was dumb enough to attack a place when there's probably twice as may guards roaming around?
'Which is what these guys will be thinking... meaning they won't expect anyone to attack them' Peter thought with a confident nod as he could hear the rest of his continuing their preparations and making small talk.
It seemed that Laura and Natalia will be going on some sort of 'girls night out' thing with Jade and Honor while Psylocke will be shadowing Talia and her lawyer Maki to meet with some guy that was in the District Attorney's office. And Peter, well he was pretty sure that he's been more or less 'grounded' to the Penthouse until Talia felt he could be out and about on his own.
'And she'll still probably have me followed and observed' Peter thought before he noticed that his mask was receiving a call and displayed the number on the small HUD on his mask's lenses.
Very few people knew Peter's actual number to his suit's built in phone, they could all be counted on one hand and one of those people was only a few meters away from him. Logan didn't like phones, he preferred to do things in person if he could help it, and Daken had likely up and forgot what Peter's number was by this time and will more than likely call Laura and ask for it. So that either left Jessica or... the other person that Peter didn't feel like talking to right now.
'But if I don't answer and it did turn out to be him, I'll never hear the end of it' Peter thought as he stared at the number for a moment before he sighed and very reluctantly answered the call "Hello, this Peter how can I help you-"
"Parkie! I knew it was your work I saw all over the news this morning! Why, I haven't seen such beauty in dismembered human beings since... well, South America" said a voice that's become a legend of horror to Gotham City "HAHAHAHA! Shame the you weren't on the Titanic when it met that iceberg, it'd be be just as bloodied as Oswald's is now!"
"Glad you approve Jack" Peter said with a tired sigh, already feeling drained at the sound of Jack's voice.
"Sooo, how long on you in my town for?" Jack asked with a hint of a laugh in his voice "I can get the boys and get us a seat at this lovely little Thai place I found the other day. Great service, though the manager recently lost his head, hahahaha!"
"I'm... good Jack. Plus I've never been a real fan of Thai food anyhow" Peter said as he spared a glance at Laura and saw that she was still in the midst of a heated conversation with Black Widow.
"Awww, don't tell me the fun police is with you too!" Jack whined "For a girl that can cut people up in ways that'd make my grandpappy, Satan rape his soul, all giddy in envy, she's such a bore! Real damn shame, your old mousey looking wife was better. Too shy for my likes, but eh, better than kill joy. Oh that reminds me, I have this new girl I wanted you to meet. Real classy, she's in-errr was in college. Kinda weird and a bit too gothic for my likes but better than old country gothic at any rate. She strikes me as your type. Plus me and Harle's are back on so I don't see a real reason to keep her around anymore"
"Ah you know me so well, Jack..." Peter said with a snort of grim amusement as he turned away from the city proper and returned to his original position on the roof, allowing him to look out at the docks again "You know 'kill joy' would love to personally carve you up like a turkey if she ever heard you call her that. Daken won't be there to pry her off you this time around"
Jack's response was a maddening laugh before it died down to a few chuckles between each words.
"Soooooo, hehehe, what brings you out to Gotham, hehehe? Decided to finally cut loose and figured best city to start was here?" Jack inquired "If so... good choice, though I think Blüdhaven would've been a better choice. Not exactly easy, but not as difficult in the sense Gotham is with all the morally retarded heroes swinging around dressed like rodents"
"I'm here on business, nothing more" Peter answered in a firm tone "After it's concluded, I'm gone"
"Ahh, now we both know that's bullshit" Jack chuckled "You my friend, have to have the absolutely worse luck out there! And I know should know. My nemesis is a rich boy in a bat onesie- hahahahaha!"
"Oh, so you do know who he is" Peter said with a raised brow.
While Jack wasn't smart like Peter was, he was far from an idiot. But over the years that the Batman and the Joker have duked it out, Peter's never seen signs that the Joker was aware of the Dark Knight's secret identity. At least, Peter's never seen the Joker openly act on the intel like say bomb Wayne Plaza or something along those lines.
"Pffft, of course I do" Jack said with a scoff "Wasn't that hard. Had some ideas up until I ripped little Hoodie's, at the time, little Robin two point oh's mask off and saw who it was. You'd think after all this time, he'd have his little helpers wear something... well harder to take off. After that it was just simply seeing the brats face on a newspaper with good old Bruice boy and bam, mystery solved. Honestly, it's a wonder some of the others haven't noticed yet. Eh, maybe their keeping quiet like I am for the time being in the event of a rainy day. Granted knowing sort of takes the whole appeal and drama out of things but it does offer up a few interesting possibilities I can try"
"Maybe" Peter said with a shrug before he noticed that Laura and the rest of Talia's guard were approaching "Well Jack, much as I'd love to continue this conversation, and sadly, I kind do in regards to that college girl you mentioned, I gotta go"
"Hehehehehe, off to reap more unimaginable horror on the world?" Jack said in a far too excited tone for Peter's tastes.
"More like taking the first steps to prevent that from happening believe it or not" Peter said before ending the call as Jack broke off into another fit of laughter.
Why did it seem that all of his friends were mentally unhinged sociopaths to some degree? First there was Deadpool back when Peter first tried to go solo after his excommunication from the League and now Jack Napier, now known to the world as the infamous Joker.
Or one of them at any rate, the other two were kinda dicks in his opinion.
'Maybe I should take up going to therapy again' Peter thought with a snort of grim amusement.
"Who was that?" Laura asked with a frown once she and the rest of the girls were closer.
"Wrong number" Peter answered as he turned his attention back towards the warehouse below "Telemarketer. Wanted me to buy some timeshare I think"
"Oh..." Laura said with a nod before her lips turned down into a frown "Well I hope you told Jack what I'd love to do to him when I next see him"
"How do you know it's Jack?" Peter asked with surprise.
"Because you've always used the telemarketer as an excuse whenever he called in the past" Laura stated with a pointed gaze.
"Whose Jack?" Natalia asked with a raised brow.
"Old teammate of ours before he tried to go 'legiteament' as a comedian" Laura said with air quotations "Didn't work out well for him"
"Well it kinda did... in a fucked up sort of way. His punchlines tend to be real killers and his jokes have a certain appeal to some people... if said people worshipped Satan or something. You know, I think we're being a little too hard on those guys. I mean yeah they worship the devil and all, but does that make them bad people? I mean when you think about it, the Christian God's probably got a higher body count than good old Satan ever will and a crap ton of church going folk in the past have turned out to be some pretty screwed up people" Peter said before he shook his head "Ah, we're getting off topic here. Talon, are you and the rest of the heavily armed girls ready to storm a warehouse in broad daylight and start killing everyone inside it?"
"We are" Laura said with a nod as she pulled her cowl up to cover her face while Jade slipped on her Cheshire mask and Widow and Psylocke simply pulled up face masks, one black the other purple.
Honor covered her own face with a full face mask like Peter's, though it seemed more armored in appearance and it's lenses looked like they used to be on some sort of fancy military helmet.
"Good" Peter said with a nod before he looked down to check that his web shooters were locked and loaded.
He made a few modifications since he's arrived in Gotham, mainly by increasing the ammo capacity of the web shooters built in pistol and adding an automatic reload for the web cartridges. He thought of brining some of his more exotic web cartridges, ones that housed either acid or electricity, but decided against it. With a combination of Laura's claws, Psylocke's psionic powers and katana, Cheshire's toxins, Black Widow and Honor's guns, he was pretty sure that anything more than his standard webs would be overkill.
'Annnd I just jinxed myself' Peter thought as he stared down at the warehouse before leaping off the ledge and falling down towards the structure.
...
Anthony Bucard wasn't a saint by any means.
The man's shot down women, children, elderly people, killed little kids animals cause he could and never once lost an hour of sleep over it. Still, as horrible as those things sounded, to him at least, he can say that he's never quite as stooped as low as some of the people he's worked with or for over the years. See to him, killing a woman was one thing, brief period of pain, if that and boom it's done and over with. But some people weren't about killing, some just wanted to hurt people in the worse way they could just because they could and they liked to do it.
"I'm just saying man, it's kinda fucked" Anthony said as he and his partner for the day casually roamed a hall on the second floor of the warehouse they were bunkering down in the past few days.
"How?" Anthony's partner asked with a confused look on his face.
Anthony stopped before a grime covered window and shot the man, he couldn't bother to remember his name, a look of annoyance "I mean, what if she was your sister man? You'd be okay with a bunch of dudes raping her just to pass the time?"
The man blinked at Anthony for a moment before he shrugged "Well she's not my sister, and even if she was, she's a bitch anyways. I say let them go for it"
"Dude that's seriously fu-" Anthony began before a dark clad figure suddenly slammed through the window, sending shards of glass flying at Anthony and his partner.
Peter rolled with the momentum he built up and sprung up to his feet just in time to send a lighting fast punch into one of the armed guards' face. The force of the blow all but destroyed the man's face in a shower of blood and gore and sent him stumbling back towards the wall. The other guard backed away, his entire body shaking as he raised his gun, a simple Glock, towards Peter before a web line from Peter snagged the barrel of the gun and allowed Peter to yank it out of the man's hands. Once he was disarmed, Peter closed the distance between the two and seized him by the throat and slammed him into the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of the man.
"Good morning" Peter said in a disturbingly cheery tone "The name's- ah who am I kidding? You probably don't care, or will care for much longer. Any who, me and a few friends of mine have it on good authority that you and your friends here are holding something that one 'Silvermane' values a lot. Mind telling me where that thing is?"
When Peter didn't get a response from the man, who was too busy trying to catch his breath while fighting Peer's iron clad grip on him, the hyper lethal wall crawler sighed and shook his head.
"Fine, guess I'll look for it myself" Peter said before he pushed his arm against the man's neck until he heard and felt a 'crack' and allowed his limp body to fall to the floor.
'Okay, now what?' Peter thought as he could hear shooting in the lower levels and men screaming out orders, surprise, confusion or just outright being killed 'Huh, that was fast'
With Laura and the rest of Talia's guard leading an all out assault on the lower levels of the warehouse, it drew security away from the areas that Peter will be combing through in his search for whatever the hell it was that Silvermane needed. Talia was a bit vague on what Peter was looking for exactly other than a simple 'it'll be obvious' and that he should ensure that no harm comes to it.
"Why couldn't she be more clear on what it is I'm looking for?" Peter asked himself as he slowly made his way down the hall, towards the sounds of approaching footsteps "I mean, is it really that hard to just say up front 'Hey guys, your looking for this and this because of this'. Oh no, instead she has to emulate her father and be all 'You find this thing which I won't give any details about because it's vital in some way your unaware of to my plans'. Ugh!"
Times like this that Peter was grateful for Logan's leadership style, blunt and upfront with just about everything.
Before Peter couldn't complain anymore about Talia's less than desirable briefing about this mission, he felt a buzzing at the base of his skull and quickly leaped up towards the ceiling as gunfire suddenly sprayed the hall he was in. Peter's eyes narrowed as he saw several men ahead of him, stickling their weapons around the corners of a pair of doors, one on each side, and blind firing in his general direction. It wasn't the most elegant of actions but it at the very least caused Peter to stop and sort of take cover by moving out of the wild lines of fire.
A for effort though.
Peter stayed perfectly still on the ceiling as bullets tore into the floors, walls and parts of the ceiling around him until the trigger happy henchmen ahead stopped to reload. In the span of a heart beat Peter had skirted across the ceiling in a manner straight out of a horror movie before dropping down between the two opened doors. The gun men jumped back in surprise before letting out identical screams of terror as Peter raised his arms and shot a web line off at each man's chest and yanked them out into the halls with a powerful tug. One of the gun man's heads had slammed against the frame of the door as he passed it and made a sickening 'crack' while the other slammed head first into Peter's outstretched fist. The hit wasn't hard enough to kill but the man would be needing a trip to a doctor that was for certain... and probably a plate, or at the very least, a few screws to repair the damage to his skull.
With both men down Peter turned his attention towards a door that sat at the end of the hall, a pair of wires were secured to the wall and led right into the room.
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that's the room I should be searching" Peter said as he reached up and activated his suit's built in commlink "Hey guys, it's Peter, I think I found the room that's probably housing what we're here for"
He quietly approached the door, being mindful to keep an eye out for any other henchmen that were lying in wait for him. Just because his spider-sense wasn't going off didn't mean there wasn't any sort of danger present, it's been fooled before in the past. Once he was closer Peter the scanned the door's frames for signs of tampering, mainly in the addition of some sort of booby trap "No signs that this thing has some kind of IED attached to it"
"Does it feel safe?" Laura asked, her voice barely audible over the sounds of gunfire in the background of wherever she was in the warehouse.
"Yeah" Peter said as he ran a hand across the door before he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck "I'll let you all know how it goes. If it goes bad... say it was a bomb... like a really big bomb. Or Black Adam. You know what, say it was Black Adam with bombs strapped to his fists while riding a metal whale with a ax for a tail and a mouth full of barbed wire"
"I'll say it was a claymore at your wake" Laura teased before she ended the conversation.
With a grunt, Peter kicked in the door with enough force to send it flying off it's hinges and several meters into the room before stepping in. At the far end of the room, near several windows stood three men and a lone individual strapped to a chair with several pairs of handcuffs, one attached to each wrist and ankle.
It was a woman, an unbelievably attractive one despite her current predicament, dressed in a badly torn white dress that was covered in blood and grime. Her hair, which would've been snow white when clean, was in a similar state and seemed it was outright ripped out in some parts. The woman's face was also decorated in dark blue and purple bruises, some of which were bleeding, a split lip and one of her eyes was sporting a rather nasty cut just underneath her eye lid.
In that instant Peter already knew she was the one he was here for... and what happened to her while she was in the 'care' of these... people.
"Stay back freak!" one of the armed gun men said as he aimed a pistol at the woman's head "Or I blow this little slut's brains all over the fucking floor!"
Peter hummed at the man's remark as he took stock of the other three, all aiming their AK-47's at him.
'Honestly, who still uses AK's in this day and age anymore? Personally I'd outfit my people with IWI Tavor but that's just me' Peter thought as he took a step forward before a quick burst of fire from one of the armed men at the floor before Peter stopped him.
"We ain't playing man, one more step and the bitch's fucked!" the man who shot yelled as he readjusted his aim so that he could possibly pull off a headshot.
Peter stared at the man for a moment before he slowly raised his hands up "Alright, I won't move"
"Yeah, you won't!" the man said with a smirk that was anything but confident, the shaking of his hands which in turn caused his rifle to shake slightly didn't help his image either "Wouldn't want to go back to Silvermane and tell him his little slut got her head blown clean off"
"No... I suppose not" Peter said as he eyed each man carefully "Also, can we tone it down on the 'slut' thing? I mean what if she was your sister or something?"
"Than it'd be me in that chair" the apparent leader of this trio said with a grim snort "Mister Falcone ain't a fan of Silvermane"
'Well at least I know who these guys work for' Peter thought with a hidden grin before it fell as the white haired woman made a groaning sound before she received a harsh smack to the head by the man closest to her.
"Quiet bitch!" the man snapped.
"You know, hitting a woman when she's all tied up like that isn't very sporting" Peter said, causing the three men to return their attention to him.
"The cunt's lucky to have any fucking limbs left attached to her after she bit off Moey's cock!" one of the gun men snarled.
"I'm sure she had her reasons" Peter said as he spared a quick glance at the woman and noticed the sheer and utter rage burning in her eyes.
And they were aimed at the three men before her.
'Can't say I blame her' Peter thought as he took one last look at the three men before him before springing into action as one of them began to speak.
Whatever the man was going to say was drowned out by a barrage of 7.62's fired from the dated rifles as Peter sprinted towards the men before at the last second leaping over the bullets. The men's eyes widened in shock as Peter's hands gripped the ceiling before he pushed himself off and towards the trio, his feet connecting with the chest on the leader and sending him flying back and into the restrained woman. With one man down Peter turned and shot a web line towards one of the remaining two standing gun men and yanked him into a powerful kick to the stomach that created a loud 'crunch' sound and caused the man to double over and vomit blood.
With two men down, Peter turned and just sidestepped a attempt by the last gun men to slam the but of his gun into Peter's head. The man stumbled forward for a second and tried to regain his footing only for Peter to grab his rifle's barrel and snap it clean off. The man flinched as a piece of the barrel's metal struck him in the face before Peter jammed the broken end into the man's throat. Peter watched the man sputter blood for a moment before pushingg him away and turning his attention towards the man he kicked earlier and paused at what he saw.
It seemed that the force of the man's body hitting the restrained woman had knocked the two both over and had the added bonus of breaking the chair she was cuffed to. As a result, she had her arm around the man's neck and was squeezing the life out of the struggling henchmen with a look of sheer rage. The man bucked a few times in an effort to break the woman's hold before the white haired beauty suddenly used her free hand to reach around and jam one of her fingers into the man's eye, causing him to let out a pained sequel before he was cut off by the woman suddenly snapping his neck.
"You uh, okay miss...?" Peter trailed off and waited to see if the woman would give him a name or not.
Peter's question was met with a stony silence for several moments before the woman answered with a slightly hoarse voice as she pushed the now dead man off her body "Silver... my name is Silver..."
"Silver. Lovely name" Peter said with a nod as he offered a hand to the woman "Sorry about kicking that guy into you. I uh, misjudged the force I was going to hit him with"
He also misjudged the distance he'd be sent flying but that wasn't important at the moment... at least he didn't think so. Sides, it gave Silver the opportunity to choke the man out before gouging an eye out and breaking his neck.
"It's fine" Silver said as she took Peter's hand and let the man pull her up.
Once Silver was back on her feet, she turned a smoldering look towards the dead man at her feet before she raised her foot and brought it down on his bloodied face, hard. A sickening 'crunch' echoed through the room as Silver raised her now bloodied foot and brought it back down on the man's face again, this time on his mouth which in turn knocked several teeth loose. Seeing that Silver had some pent up rage to still vent, not that Peter could blame her, he quickly contacted the rest of the team to give them an update.
"Package is secured. I repeat, package is secured... always wanted to say that" Peter said with a grin in his voice.
"Understood" Natalia's voice filtered through the comms "We're meet you at the rendezvous over in the Narrows. Keep her safe Peter. We're gonna need Silvermane's men and influence for tonight"
'So she knew what we're here for... thanks for the heads up Nat' Peter thought with some annoyance before speaking "Right. See you guys soon" With that Peter ended the call and turned towards Silver to see that she was now kicking in the face of another one off the three men before he felt a tingling at the base of his skull.
Peter turned just in time to see four men rush through the door, all armed and aiming their weapons at Peter and Silver. The wall crawling assassin made to put himself between the woman and the newly arrived goons before a long burst of gunfire shot up from behind Peter. The dark clad man flinched and stepped to the side as Silver stepped forward, wielding one of the AK's that was dropped and spraying the newly arrived gun men on full auto. After several seconds the gun clicked empty just as the last of the henchmen fell to the ground, his body riddled with bullet holes and a shocked expression on his face, one shared by the rest lying beside him.
Peter's surprised gaze flickered back and forth between Silver and the now dead men for several moments before the white haired beauty stomped past him.
"If your going to stand there like an idiot all day, than get the hell out of my way" she growled in anger as she stopped briefly to pick up one of the other dropped AK's and checked to see if it was fully loaded "I'll find my own way out"
"Uh... sure" Peter said as he watched the half naked, bruised, bloodied, woman enter the hall outside and proceeded to start shooting at the men he left out there, be they alive or already dead.
Well, at least he won't have to worry about keeping her safe during the extraction part of this operation... if anything, he should worry about Falcone's men's' safety.
...
And done.
Next chapter, A Dark Night begins... a very dark night.