The brunette checked his phone for the time again.
At least when he could duck out and swing across town, he could make better time. Now that he was partially retired it was public transportation for him.
Maybe he could get another motorcycle?
Peter rode the bus to his stop and hurried to the door of the building. Usually when he needed to speak with her, she popped up at the most inopportune times.
Now?
He had gotten an address from Commissioner Rogers and he promised to keep the Knights in the loop if it was important. If he could actually get straight answers from her, for once.
Arriving at the apartment door he knocked once showing the door was already open and waiting for him.
"Come in", she called to him. Her daughter was more than likely at school.
Peter entered and shut the door behind him.
Inside the apartment, well, at least she gave it ambiance.
A sensible home for a mother and daughter, except it was covered in spiders. Webs of every shape and size covered most of the walls and doorways, except for the obvious path he needed to travel.
Walking through, oddly comforted by the décor, Peter found the resident sitting at a small table loaded with tea and snacks.
"Have a seat Peter", she gestured to the open seat. As he approached the spiders crawled off the seat and skittered to the walls.
"Okay Julia, can we cut out the theatrics?" Peter asked with a sigh.
Julia Carpenter, Madame Web, former superhero, fulltime mom, and current pain in his butt waved a hand and the spiders that surrounded them skittered back into their cracks and holes and Peter felt that they were truly alone.
"Another neat tidbit I didn't need to know about until I was ready?" Peter gestured with an exaggerated wave of his own hand.
"You had to have realized that I too had some form of control over spiders", Julia responded and sipped her cup.
"I assumed, yeah", Peter cupped his face in frustration, "but KNOWING so could have helped so many times."
"You didn't need to rely on me Peter. You've been training-"
"I KNOW I've been training!" He cut off, letting his annoyance seep through. "I've been tested every day since I was 15! I don't need to be trained, I need answers!"
Julia radiated calm. She sipped her cup and placed it back on her saucer. She knew how this conversation was going to unfold. It was up to her to right the Spider onto the correct path, and sitting here yelling at her wasn't helping anyone.
"You've been tested and trained. You have the skills to solve this on your own", she informed him primly.
"I can't time travel Julia. I can't see the future either", Peter confessed as if it were a huge secret. "I need answers and asking someone with one of those abilities might get me those answers and save some lives."
"Perhaps. Or you could save lives now and forfeit many, many more tomorrow."
"HOW!?" his anger finally exploded. He wanted to punch a wall or tear into some criminals. He stood up and began to pace the room. "You say I CAN do these things, just never HOW I can do it! I've made enough damn mistakes Julia! Too many! If you can tell me how to keep everyone safe, why can't you just come out and TELL ME!?"
"The future-"
"Damn the future", he cut her off again. "I'm interested in right now! Our problems are coming her from the future. We got to stop them NOW."
"No Spider-Man", she rose from her seat to stare at the angry hero. "We need to concentrate on the real problems."
"What problems?"
On cue, the building shook like an earthquake struck.
"The problems you let develop while you were focused on your crime", Julia told him with pity. That was his problem. He became too focused on one thing and didn't see everything developing around him. This would develop into yet another life or death fight that someone close to him would pay the price for. She had seen it.
Peter swiped the webs away from the window, opened it up, and stuck his head out. There was smoke pouring from a nearby subway entrance. Looking down the street, he could see more pillars of smoke rising into the air.
Something happened underground.
"What is it Julia?" He turned back to her, praying he could get an answer from her.
Peter paused and watched her. The woman spewing words at him LOOKED like Julia, a woman he had known for years. Yet when he focused now, those weren't her words. Those didn't look like her mannerisms. There was a "glow" about her. For some reason, it didn't seem like Julia Carpenter telling him that there would be grave consequences if he failed this quest for her. He focused as she offhandedly belittled him for not blindly following her words. The glow seemed to take shape. Seemed to look like a…
"Who are you?"
Julia froze mid speech and looked at him with an eyebrow raised from behind her glasses. The reaction was mirrored by the form of the woman floating behind her.
"What are you-"
Again Peter cut her off, "not you Jules." He stepped forward and pushed her gently to one side. He walked straight up to the floating woman and pointed a finger at her. "Who are you?"
The floating woman, in some kind of caped costume, moved back a few feet. Peter vaguely heard Julia gasping as if awakening from a deep sleep.
"You can see me?"
Without the attractive Spider-Puppet, the voice from the figure sounded older. More coarse.
Peter leaned in close and whispered to her, "I see dead people."
The face of the figure contorted in rage. "I did not foresee this", she proclaimed and disappeared in an otherworldly flash.
Julia groaned and collapsed. Spider-Speed caught her just in time and helped her to a chair.
"Jules?" Peter softly called her, hoping whatever happened wore off.
She took off the glasses and rubbed her eyes. Looking into his were a pair of healthy, functioning orbs.
"Peter? Is she gone?"
He nodded and gave her some room to breathe.
Once she shook off whatever came over her, she stood and stretched.
"So, details?" Peter awkwardly asked.
She fixed him with a look. "We got to move. I'll tell you on the way."
She tore down through the hallway and pushed into a room, ignoring the webs. Peter stood still for a moment then pulled out his phone. He answered several texts and received a few new ones before Julia entered the room again.
Gone were the glasses and long red coat. In their place, the original black and white suit of Spider-Woman laid, the wearer fixing the mask in place as she entered.
"Are you suiting up?" She asked him, slightly confused he wasn't waiting on her.
"Um, promised the Cap-missioner the Spider would lay low for a while", Peter shrugged feeling a bit self-conscious. "The Knights are already all over it."
She looked at the alerts he had gotten on his phone. Sure enough, there were several reports of Knights engaged with super powered suspects.
She shook her head, "they're not the ones we need to watch out for."
She grabbed his phone and typed on it for a few moments. She handed it back, "notice something?"
He scrolled through several lines and summed it up. "Where are the Avengers?"
"Not just Avengers", she remarked, looking out the window into the street. "Everyone short of the Great Lakes Avengers seems "busy". The Marvel Knights might end up overwhelmed."
"I doubt it", he said with faith.
"She foresaw it. That's what SHE's been counting on", she popped his balloon. "There's more than one plot going on here Peter. They've intersected, but have nothing to do with each other."
"What do you know?" He hoped he could finally get answers.
"Enough to maybe put some of the pieces together", she grabbed him around the waist. "We got to move."
She jumped out the window.
-The club-
Kaine walked between small groups of people being treated for injuries.
His workplace had been turned into a makeshift med clinic for the injured. On all sides there were people holding head wounds, laying on pool tables being examined, or just being fussed over by loved ones or those that just happen to have some kind of medical training.
On the second floor he could just make out the back of Araceley's head. When the explosions happened she concentrated on throwing up some kind of "fear field" that she claimed could keep out "the bad guys".
"That girl scares me", the feminine voice startled him out of his musings. He twisted around and found the woman who's been frequenting the place more and more recently.
"Rachel, right?" He asked gruffly.
"Yeah, and you're the guy that broke into the mansion with her a couple of months back", she replied with a smirk.
He walked to get a bit more privacy and guessed she would follow. He found a semi clear space near a wall and leaned against it with his arms crossed. "So you finally looking for payback?"
She mirrored his stance to try and annoy him, "not particularly. A couple of weeks ago I might have tried, but I like to think I've matured a bit."
Kaine stared at her blankly. "Soooo….?"
Rachel turned her back to the wall and looked out to the people. "Thought Peter might have shown up today. Not likely with this commotion going on."
"Not likely period", he said eyes still on her. "He's not much of a club hopper."
She gave a little sigh and turned back to him. "I know, but I figured it was better to bump into him than knock on his door."
Kaine squinted at her. "You and Peter?"
She laughed a little sadly and took a deep breathe. "No. And I doubt it ever will be. I know he's super busy with EVERYTHING in his life", she stared at the ceiling, "but ever since I got into his head, I haven't been able to get him out of mine. Was hoping to do, I don't know."
"That's a Parker for you", Kaine remarked dryly. "Once we're in, we tend to fester like an open wound."
She gave a short, loud laugh that drew a couple of looks. She waved them off, "sounds about right." She looked around the room again. "Where's your spooky serious girlfriend?"
He thought about Maria. She finally called things off. He wasn't expecting anything serious and they both were fine with the fun arrangement they had for a while. They split on good terms, which was more than could be said about some of his brother's romantic escapades.
"We split up", he told her with a shrug.
A long pause floated between them.
"What are you doing after this disaster?"
-The Street-
"Agent Mayhem, report."
April, suited up in her best 2nd skin, jumped over the Walrus and webbed a fleeing White Rabbit on the feet before she pressed a finger to her ear. "Mayhem here. Got separated from the Power couple a block back. It's mayhem out here Commish."
She heard a shuffle of papers before he replied, "looks that way. Dozens of lower tiered villains and many more regular criminals are springing up from the subway system, and looks as if some of them have had an upgrade."
"Really? I haven't noticed", she quipped while dodging several laser blasts from multiple directions.
"I'm sending Agent Venom to assist", he continued well used to her father's behavior during these kind of situations. "There's been reports of possible Spider Slayer tech among the enemy. Don't take unnecessary risks."
Two bulky early designed slayers emerged from around a corner and slowly approached her, tentacles flailing all about.
"Unnecessary risks?" She asked, appearing to effortlessly dodge between the metal limbs and land in the center of a criminal group. "Who do you think I am, dad?" She asked with a grin under her white mask.
She spotted the tactical looking symbiote shape swinging in their direction while she hit the punch clock in her head and went back to work.
-New Mexico-
"Yes, it was rather easy to lure him out here. I have been doing it for years", the voice said into a phone, engineered for his large frame.
"The device you've cobbled together for me is working fairly well. I'm sure the time stream is taking a few hits, but I imagine we'll be wrapped up before anything breaks."
Another titanic hit sets off earthquake alarms for hundreds of miles around. "Ah yes, I believe he is about do for another sparring partner."
The figure presses a few buttons on a device on his wrist. The "sparring partner" disappears in a blink and an exact copy, minus bruises and wounds, takes his place and starts fighting anew.
"Impressive that he thought of this on his own. If he had the resources, I believe he might have actually been able to pull it off himself."
He pulls the phone away from his ear as screams and curses are thrown. "Insult him all you want, but don't underestimate him. He is a cunning foe. The data we got from our Trojan Horse ally proves as such. If he put these plans toward more nefarious goals he could have been a rival instead of the victim you hope him to be."
A loud roar and the sound of two jumbo jets crashing into each other was followed by the "pip" of one person disappearing. The figure leaps toward the edge of the crater and peers down to see the pink flesh that caged the other fighter.
"Rather clever to use copies of me from the time stream", he spoke as he slid toward the worn out person at the center of the hole.
"And who else to stop you other than yourself, eh good doctor?" The green behemoth with long grey hair mocked the unconscious man.
-Elsewhere-
Most of the Avengers were off world at the moment, he had made sure of that.
The so-called "strongest there is" was incapacitated.
He had an agent that would take care of the Future Foundation and Pym was sure to follow after.
The Marvel Knights were tied up in the riot.
Just the fur ball and the clown left.
Any other player was inconsequential.
He had someone in place to take care of the mutant, leaving him the worst of them all.
Win or lose, he was going to tear this world, this time apart.
The others may know, may have some kind of plan against him. Or like him, didn't plan to be "here" any longer than he did.
Let them do whatever they like.
Once he had his hated enemy beaten, made known that HE was the one to destroy him completely, he could turn his back on this time and rebuild his life. He could make it perfect.
And maybe keep a couple of lady friends of his on his payroll, just to spite him a little.