Chapter Seven: A Price To Pay
There was a reason why Erica Pym Collingsworth did not tell her brother that she was calling him from a hospital. Henry was up to his chin in various issues.
Erica's sources tipped her off long ago that the bombastic Harrington Byrd had gathered enough support from fellow anti-Tony Stark senators to start a hearing. Now that Vanko was gone, they would look to fry Stark Industries' chief freelance contributors. That meant Henry would be under a microscope. One can only hope that theses numbskulls would trip over their own feet before discovering the discrepancy between Stark's payments to her brother and the actual assets that Nee owns.
Nee's spy-smashing money was supposed to have been treated as "dropped-out-of-pocket" so that it would be difficult to trace it to Henry. For headlines sake, these sh – t-for-brains senators wouldn't think twice to expose Hank. What would the publicity-hungry pigs care if it meant open season on Nee for the enemies of the country he had defended? They would have their name recognition for the next senatorial race.
It was time for Erica, herself, to do some investigating. Once she discovers the skeletons in these jackass senator's closet, a mutual hush-hush agreement could be brokered.
Another preoccupation for Hank was putting together an entrepreneurial plan to start a business, leaving government employment behind. That would pretty much put him way below politicians' radar… unless he was super-successful, like Tony Stark.
To top things off, Nee also had an assassination attempt to investigate. How could Erica burden him further with the news that his brother-in-law had a stroke serious enough to land him in the Georgetown University Hospital?
The stroke happened Friday as she was driving both of them home from work. Considering the dark possibilities that ran through her head when he fell over to her side of the car, she thought they were lucky.
As Washington Officials, the Collingsworth couple had the privilege of having a car phone. Instantly after she made the call, police motorcycles squeezed by the rush hour traffic. With sirens blazing, they made a way for Erica to reach the hospital. Every few half-miles, FBI cars joined in on the procession.
Even after admission, Erica had stayed by his side. She stroked his hand and talked to him all that time. He never opened his eyes, but she knew that he heard her.
Ten minutes after he had arrived at the hospital, Barry finally opened his eyes. Doctors wanted to see if the stroke damaged his memory. After asking his name, address and birthday, they asked him what else he could remember. He turned to his wife.
"All the times that she made fun of my name."
Erica buried her face into his chest. She cried and laughed at the same time.
She lifted her head, stroked his graying hair, and finally managed, "I told you a million times, when I first met you that I thought, 'Who would announce himself as Barrymore Ulysses Collingsworth and still walk around unembarrassed?' But right now it sounds like the greatest name in the world… and you look like the handsomest devil in the universe."
She kissed him repeatedly and apologized for the tears that bathed his face.
Test exposed an artery blockage as the culprit. Barry would stay under the hospital's watch until Tuesday, but the doctors assured Erica that with a few weeks of therapy, he'd return close to 100% functional capacity.
But today, after seeing him motionless in the car brought home her sense of their mortality. Tomorrow was not guaranteed to anyone. Then, considering another thought, there was the possibility of a future illness that could rob one of years and money. Time wasn't known for mercy— it stops for no one to catch up to it, nor does it replaces what it snatched away.
Erica was convinced that she and Barry had to seriously look at where they were and where they were going. Maybe a simpler, less stressful life was in order. The first step in a change of lifestyle had to include the vacation— the two workaholics have not taken one in years. There would be a stronger motivation for this if she got back her pregnancy test and it proved that there was indeed a muffin in the oven.
Neither of the two men in her life knew about the test. She didn't want them to get their hopes up. But even if she intended to blab, there was too much excitement to even mention it.
Today, Sunday, at sundown, the Erica and Barry were surprised when Barry's sister and mother had come to Georgetown University Hospital.
They advised Erica to take a break. They would stay with him. Barry thought that it was a great idea; that way his wife could go to the cafeteria food vending machine and sneak a Drake's Yodel up to his room.
"NO WAY!" she roared. "Fats and sweets are out. I'll bring you apples and bananas."
Barry groaned, but Erica replied that for the rest of his life, his diet had changed.
Walking into the eatery, her eyes instinctively looked up to a wall-mounted television. The on-screen newscaster was speaking about a thwarted attempt on Giant-Man's life, right outside of the Avengers' mansion.
She raced to a hall phone and called New York demanding answers. In an unexpected turnaround, she ended up being the one providing answers. That's when Nee found out the would-be assassin's name. After two calls to her connections in the Bureau, she then called Nee telling him which FBI agent was going to see the whacko bomber.
He heard all that he needed to hear. Responding to his cybernetic command, a flying ant landed on the shoulder of Darren Clover. Henry mounted his transporter. The ant rose over the head of a very subdued Clover and his very passive lawyer. It swiftly passed over the lean F.B.I. agent who sat quietly in astonishment. The agent never believed that Darren Clover could be so cooperative. He even volunteered answers to questions that were supposedly never asked. But then, the agent didn't know that Ant-Man was talking into the prisoner's right ear.
Seeing the tape recorder still spinning spools below him, Ant-man thought "The agent didn't shut it off. What important info was there left to extract from Clover? Did he smoke Lucky Strike, or Chesterfield's? -Nasty things, those cigarettes.
Perhaps the agent will ask him if he ever passed gas in a public area and then got dirty looks from people?
The ant dove down to the floor. The rider hugged the carrier as they slipped under the interrogation room door. Ant-man heard a commotion among the precinct officers about Spider-Man and a man threatening to jump off of a building.
Hmm, on the same day a suicide jumper follows a suicide bomber. Was this fellow using a ruse to get a Giant-man's attention? Could he be Jeff Clover? Darren did say that his older brother was going to initiate a back-up plan, if he had failed. Henry had a transistor radio waiting for him just minutes away. He'd turn it on to find out.
Henry and the ant rose up again to surf the air flow caused by the ceiling fans. It was a good thing that it was summer. The Police Precinct's front doors were wide open. Clearing the last circular ceiling light that hung from the bottom of the fans, Hank flew out without a human eye detecting him. The ride ended twenty blocks away, at a lonely alley between two stores. Hank hopped off and regained his regular height. He reached into the grocery store dumpster and took out a plastic encasing.
As expected, the non-transparent bag had absorbed much of the pungent odors that came from the discarded produce within the dumpster. Unzipping the bag, he was glad that the contents were insulated from the smell. He availed himself to a blue long sleeve shirt, and a pair of dark pants. A pair of sneakers finished his new getup.
Hank took off his blue gloves and then retrieved an empty match box out from his pants pocket. His steed had served him well. It was his obligation to get her back to her colony safe and rested. The ant obediently snuggled herself into the small box lined with soft tissues. Inside of her limo, a tiny piece of honeydew melon waited for the ant as a treat. Hank slid the box close. With his Ant-Man hood folded against his back and under his shirt, the Avenger returned the smelly plastic bag back into the dumpster. As Hank ventured into the humid streets, he dug into the other pants pocket to bring out a small radio.
Elihas Starr looked up to study the cracks of the bedroom ceiling for the thousandth time. Though under the influence, he wasn't sleepy. He wanted to talk. If there was a grapefruit in the room with him, Elihas figured that it would have had a better chance of understanding him. But since there was only this whore besides him…
He moved her shoulder angrily. "Wake up, wake up."
The small brunette turned around. After a releasing a few expletives, she asked him what was the problem.
"Shut up and listen to me," Elihas commanded. The woman groaned and closed her eyes. He stirred her again.
"I said listen to me. Learn something, you ignorant whore." She focused her angry eyes on the unusually shaped head of her current bed-mate.
"I know a man… a petty, insignificant nose hair by the name of Pym. He always thought he was so superior to me. The small-minded snake really didn't believe that, but he needed to tell himself that so that he could stomach looking at himself in the mirror.
Anyway, this slime-ball, …:BUUURP:... he grabs me three times just before I can secure a great job in science. He knows without me his precious reputation would prove to be a lie. I'm the real brains behind our partnership."
"Partnership…."—with disgust on his face Elihas shook his head slowly, left and right— "More like a ball and chain to me… the greatest intellectual thorough-bred in history. He thinks he can bottle me up like a Genie. Then he can take me out whenever his feeble, over-rated mind can't solve a problem.
Elihas squinted as if to see something in the distance. "I take some of my projects home and the government brands me a thief. Imagine that—a thief, stealing my own work?
That was probably Pym's doing, too. He thought, at home I'd be able to improve on anything, invent anything. I'd finally come out from under his shadow, you know?"
A light snore indicated how interested his audience was with his bias scenario. Enraged, he sat up and brought the back of his hand down hard on her cheek. It stung his hand, but he didn't admit it.
The woman screamed in pain. Elihas put his left hand over her mouth and his other hand threateningly around her neck. "Shhh, whore. Stay awake. Don't you want to learn something? Do you want to stop being a nothing? Course you would."
Elihas removed his hands and she shrink away. He pulled her back and she squealed in fear.
"Shhh. Shhh. Stay awake and you have nothing to fear, bitch." Looking past her horizontal body, his eyes focused on nothing again. The alcohol was finally taking effect.
"I was the wheel; no, the entire engine of the celebrated Pym-mobile. He got all the glory for my sweat. What did I get for it? Petty jobs under his mum, eh, thumb. Pym needed swings— things that way.
"He was so sssshtupid, he couldn't think his way out of a paper bag. Sssho weak he couldn't …. sell left from right. And he wash jelly-oush offffff me."
He frowned as he struggled to keep up with his own story. "The third and last time he ensshaved me,… just like other times, he wanted to cake… no, make it look like he was mooing… no, doooing me favor. But I fixed him."—he nodded approving his sentence structure—"Him. The jelly-oush tiny-brained jack-asssssssh."
Elihas smiled, and added, "I got my pants, eh, chance. The idiot thought he had invented a shtink… shrink… ing sherum… shommme.. shubatomic slupthing. I took a month'sh worth of celery, .. no, shalary in advance. And why not? He cheated me out of yearsh of wetness…. greatnessh. Then I went to hell, t- t- tell the Feds thish time. I told them what a crack pot I was, no, he—he wash. Told the gov'nent that he wash shtealing their honey, or money or what…. shaying that he could shrink thingsh."
Elihas shook his head, this time in loathing. This time that simple move made him dizzy. He fell back onto his pillow. After a period of silence, he continued.
"They clipped-did his swingsh, … that jelly-oush idiot. Brainlessh ball and train."
"Then I heard about a shtupid Ant-thing. …Man. No one actually sheen him, but he also cook a lot of underwear, … no, took a lot offff undeserved adulation from the pub… lic. "
Elihas looked puzzled. "You ever… seen a pub lick… anything? No, that's stupid. You should know a pub is a .. a bar, right?"
"I started putting two and two together and I shkinned the cat"—Elihas frowned trying to piece his words together—"I found more than a way to come to four. The door? No, was right– four."
The increasing fog in his mind began to irritate him. This slow thinking must have been Pym's fault also, he reasoned.
Elihas yelled, "He ssshlipped shomething into me, but it won't work!"
Hearing his own echo bounce back to him, he put his finger to his lips, hushing the woman again as if the shout came from her. In a calmer voice he continued.
"I know he's Ant-pantsh… fancy pantsh is Ant-…Man. I c-c-can prove it. When we fl… flo… no, we fought, …. he tricked me rice, twice. But I was too quack, … too quick to be caught. But shtrike free is coming … This time I have a fan—no, a plan to flush, to..flinish him off. And you know, that other ridiculousssh .. Spider-Ham."
He stopped and laughed at the image of a red-and-blue costumed pig. "Spider… intsey wintsie. Everybody'sh afraid of him too. I'll flinish both of them before getting to… to… the water spout. I'll have both the crime curl, .. worl' and the schience com-mimi-me … community by the b …balls. Me, king …. Who? …. Oh, yes, King Starr, the rinsing first."
He looked back at the woman after sketching-out his great plan. Instead of adoration, he saw her eyes glaze over.
After his hand slapped the air in front of her with a downward stoke, Elihas said, "You're so stupid, you know fat? You'll learn nothing. If you did, you'd know the great asss—the greatnaassh before you. But there's only one thing .. one, one thing you know. Only one thing you're good for.
He roughly turned her on to her stomach. He took his body member out of his pajamas opening. He dropped on top of her, impressed with his own virility. He thought he was penetrating her with his shrunken worm, but she was groaning because of the great weight of the football-shaped man.
"There, there, that'sh what you know. That'sh the only sing you're good for."
Seconds later, he stopped as if he was dead. After a round of muffled pleas, the small woman managed to bring her head up from the mattress. From under his arm pit, she gasped. Then with the extraordinary strength that arises in a life threatening situation, her arms pushed up, causing the mass of flab to roll off of her and onto his side.
She looked back to curse him, but even in her stupor, she realized that he was out cold.
Great. Now she could get up, ran-sack his house for money and leave. She got to her feet and then the enormous strength abandoned her. And so did her will. She dropped back to the mattress, and looked at the miserable mistake that was caused by the wrong sperm fertilizing a human egg… Or maybe a watermellon.
She then got a brilliant idea. She returned the slap that he earlier gave her. WHACK.
That was fun. With renewed vigor, the vengeful woman hit him three more times, but a fifth attempt left her head spinning. She rested a bit and then she pushed him onto his back. She giggled at the idea of peeing on his face. As she hurried to straddle his cone head with her legs, she bumped her own head on the wall and fell backwards onto him. Now even the slim vestige of strength that once powered her small body left her. She closed her eyes.
Okay, she thought, I'll pee on his face later.
The Wasp whisked through the damp night sky to approach the 59th Street Bridge. The back-up of vehicles on the Queens side was unusual for a Sunday night. But it gave testament to the danger that had already mounted the bridge.
Cars in the middle of the bridge were trying to back up, but the drivers behind them— being relatively at a safe distance from harm— were either curious about the menace, or just plain dense.
The Wasp raced forward. On the way to the middle of the expanse, Jan witnessed the awesome sight of a few car hoods horrendously smashed-in and fluids leaking away from them. Looking up, she finally saw the back of an odd creature before her.
Arrayed in gray metal, it had a dome-like head, and the torso of a man with a metallic backpack. That backpack had eight black half tennis balls attached on both sides. Its legs were monstrously elongated by more than thirty feet. This thing was just as Steve Rodgers described it over the phone. It was heading towards Manhattan and it had a violent temper. Through a megaphone that seemed invisible to the eye, the thing's amplified voice cussed and swore at the motorists.
Keeping a safe distance, Jan moved around to the front of the terror. She saw that the dome wasn't a head, but some sort of protection for the back of his head. The almost human face of this thing was also metallic and gray. Jan got close enough to see that the eye slits of the face mask revealed that a man was in that thing.
"I'm telling you, get out of my way," the menace shouted. "You f- -king idiots can't see that I'm here to save you?"
That's a new con from a villain, Jan thought.
She moved behind the forward progressing metal man and shouted "Save us from what?"
She flew a few feet over his head as the figure turned around in surprise. He thought that he heard someone behind him; someone who may have been as tall as he.
Seeing no one, he recovered to say, "Idiots— I'm saving you from that f- - king masked hooligan, Spider-man."
Though Jan never met him, the idea of a man wanting to impersonate something as horrible as a spider was extremely offensive to a female who donned the name "The Wasp." Maybe she would have liked to have seen the two of them square-off, but this cheap imitation of Iron Man was endangering people.
She flew back towards the face mask.
She began, "Whoa, Daddy Long-legs. Just simmer down."— He squinted to find the speaker— "Take it easy. If you want to act like a hero, then—"
"The Wasp," he snarled with the amplification that made Jan cup her ears with her hands— "Get away from me you brainless bitch.
He began to quickly swing his hands in an attempt to swat her away. In her thoughts, she thanked Hank for the many months of evasive maneuvering training. The metal menace was left striking nothing but air. The Wasp was too quick to be touched.
"Listen, Tin Can of Sh – t, This brainless bitch is an Avenger. So get ready to get you're a – s kicked by this bitch."
Jan was steamed to the hilt. She adjusted her air compressor to full capacity. It could kill a charging tiger, she remembered Hank's words. Well, it's going to dent the empty head of this scum-in-a-can. She didn't need Giant-Man for this battle. She didn't need anyone. She was Avenger enough to solve this mess alone.
She'd aim just above an eye slit and give the jackass a migraine of a lifetime. All she had to do was to taunt him enough to make his back face the nearly empty Queens-bound side. That was where Mr. Talking-Toilet was going to land…. And HARD!
Suddenly both of the contestants were diverted from their initial clash by a loudspeaker roaring from the opposite-side traffic lane. Two Manhattan cops had leaped out of their patrol car. One held the voice-amplifier, but both had their guns drawn.
"Police! …Stop where you are," the officer warned. "We will be compelled to fire if you don't."
"NOOO!" the towering terror said. "You won't stop me from my destiny. Today the world needs to see their new champion. Today the world needs to see Spider-Man crushed by Stilt-Man."
"Stilt-Man?" Jan replied while swirling distractingly around him. "You have to be kidding. There were no other lame names to take? Where you sober when you took that name, meathead? Stilt-Man— really?"
He continued to swing and miss. She had him turn around a few time, but not to the position that she wanted. Still, it was fun to show off her superiority over this awkward moving scum-eater.
The Wasp advised, "How about something that reveals the inner you? … Like the Supreme Sh –t Head, or the Amazing A – s Hole.
"But don't worry about it, you walking port-a-potty. I'll send you to dreamland before you can hear anyone laugh at your dumb a –s name."
The Stilt-Man could tolerate no more of the trivial distraction. He had an image to build and he was going into Manhattan to do just that. The officer warned him a second time. Then three siren-screaming, Queens-bound police cars screeched to a stop before the metal giant. The police that he left behind him opened fire. That was Jan's cue to get out of there.
"Damn it. Leave to meddlesome guys to screw up a girl's sure-victory."
The shots bounced off of him. The metal threat seemed less bothered by the flying bullets than he was by Jan's taunting. With his back to the shooters, he used his left index finger to flip open a thin metal flap on his right forearm. The black half tennis ball on the lower left side of his metal backpack emitted a thin red light at its base. Before anyone knew what happened, it shot off with a "floosh."
Its six-inch tail was unmistakably missile-like. Jan's eyes followed its speedy trek towards the police car behind the Stilt-man.
The air roared with an explosion. A blinding yellow-orange blast caused her to turn away. When she looked again, a black mushroom cloud began to rise skyward. The Wasp could not find the policemen that stood by the car. Jan instinctively turned to the newly arrived policemen just a second before they began firing.
The Stilt-Man balanced himself on one foot while his other leg retracted. The raised leg shot out to squash one officer. The leg then swung up to catch another cop in the chin. The policeman's body flew up.
The gross backward movement of the officer's head in mid-flight indicated that his skull was separated from his spinal cord, killing him instantly.
With the metal foot pulled away, Jan saw the first officer's head on the ground. His skull looked like a deflated balloon and blood sprang away from what she could recognize as his ears and mouth. The Wasp didn't know why she couldn't turn away from such a ghastly sight.
Then, from the corner of her eye, Jan spotted one of the officers that disappeared behind his car. The light from the flames rising from the squad car showed Jan that he was motionless on the ground; his hair and clothes were on fire.
A fourth officer was still shooting when the metal foot smashed him into the closed door of his car. Mercifully, only one hand and two feet of the utterly pulverized man were visible to Jan.
The two officers in the furthest car opened the doors to get in and begin a retreat. The remaining officer from the second squad car ran to join them.
The metal leg shot out again. It pushed-in the front door, killing the driver. The leg continued lengthening to force the patrol car— with the two live men in it— over the edge into the waters of the East River.
The Wasp, too shocked to exhibit any life, stared blankly at the scene.