Chapter 8: Victory and Betrayal
Hovering over the roadway of the 59th Street Bridge, Jan snapped out of her spell and flew down towards the policeman whose still body was on fire. She grew into her normal height and began tapping out the flames with her fire-proof gloves.
Was he still alive? She had to snuff out the flames before any further damage to his bod-. … She stopped and looked at his charred hand next to his blackened head.
Even if he was dead, she had to beat away the fire. It was too horrible a manner for a hero to fall.
When the flames were out, Jan knelt by the body with her body trembling. The shaking wasn't brought on by fear, but by a sudden torrent of anger.
She screamed into the night air, "THESE WERE HUSBANDS, FATHERS, SONS! THEY WON'T COME HOME TO THEIR ONES ANYMORE!"
After releasing the last word, she made out flashing lights and sirens coming from the Queens side. Cops and medics, she said to herself. But the trembling heroine wasn't just going to wait there for them. No, not when the filthy scum responsible for this was free to roam. She shrunk back down to four inches and sped to the Manhattan side of the bridge.
Three quick explosions and flashes shattered the night. Her speed increased to a rate that she had never dared to approach outside of rescuing Hank from a hawk earlier that day. Her body caused the heavy summer air to whistle as she sliced through it.
On the Manhattan side, the Stilt-man was met by squad cars at the opening of the bridge. More policemen were being slaughtered by the crazed metal man. Some 400 feet away from bridge's entrance, Jan saw the front half of a police car falling from the sky down to the street. She prepared her weapon and charged onward.
"Whoa!"
That was all he could say when he swung out of 57th street into the avenue that feed cars into the bridge. The view of the horrific carnage and of the metal terror stunned Spider-man. Cop cars were damaged and in flames; storefronts were also ablaze. A wall of police resistance had broken and the men in blue ran. The retreating policemen made sure that they didn't trip over their fellow officers lying motionless on the street. Screaming fire trucks had appeared also. Spider-man wondered, Aside from putting out fire, what use could the trucks be? Could they…?
No, Spider-man saw that the liter of destroyed cars had prevented their trucks from ramming into the long-legged monster.
In one swift movement he spun his telephoto lens onto his camera and slapped the camera against a nest of webbing on the side of the corner building of Third Avenue and 6Oth Street.
Through some voice magnifier, the killer called himself the Stilt-man; he said he was a hero and that the cops were trying to hinder him. Hinder him from what, Spider-man asked himself.
Stilt-man was facing downtown when Spider-man dropped behind him. The police had stopped shooting to regroup and launch a second attack. The red-and-blue hero picked up a heavy car hood from the ground. He had planned to strike it against the back of the Stilt-man's knees and make him fall. But first he had to find those "knees" on the hydraulic limbs.
The murderer was turning around. Spider-man, with car hood in his hands, started a leap that would leave him behind the Stilt-man again. Spider-man had to take the metal man down NOW.
Suddenly, in mid-flight, he received a half-second stimulus from his spider-senses. There was a loud "CRACK". The hood buckled towards Spider-man's face and the young hero was thrown violently earthward.
When faced with an impending disaster, the human mind shows itself to be awesome. Jan knows. When she was eleven years old, Jan witnesses a bad car crash. An elderly driver was passing through an intersection. Another car was shooting down from a hill to the cross road. There was a stop sign there, but Jan knew that the oncoming driver couldn't, or wouldn't, obey it.
The speeding car was going to ram the first vehicle. At that point, everything appeared to move in slow motion in Jan's perspective. Yes, the horrible event was going to take place in a second, but Jan remembered having enough time for her to reprimand the speeding driver.
Her mind shouted, "STOP, STOP, STOP. Can't you see what is about to happen? Are you blind, or stupid, or what?"
The terrible impact and the subsequent spinning of the car took on a snail's pace. After it was over, time regained its normal tempo for the young witness.
At this moment, the twenty-three-year-old Janet Van Dyne was experiencing the same time-drag. Though she may have been topping 80 miles an hour, she still had time to realize that if she struck the murderer with her air compressor at the maximum setting, she was no better than he was.
No, she thought. The Stilt-scum had to live and go to trial. He would have to face the widows and orphans of the brave men that he massacred.
She slapped her left hand over the button on top of her weapon. She was determined to strike the villain's metal headgear at 65 percent capacity. If she made no dent, she could go back to full strength.
Stilt-man was now before her. He was right there…. RIGHT THERE!
Suddenly a car hood jumped up in front of her. She was going too fast for her to stop in time and at this racing pace, she'd be as dead as a bug hitting a speeding car.
The slow motion time sequence had not dissipated, so Jan had time to reason. There was a 50/50 chance that she could fly around it, but should she chance it? Her air compress could swat it over her head and behind her. But he was passing stopped police vehicles on the bridge. What if a cop was inside of one, calling for reinforcement….
She could swatted it away, but then the hood could decapitate someone at the right or left of the bridge entrance. Now, if she struck the hood so that it went straight down….
She arched her back to rocket upward. The momentum of her speed— the speed that her mind did not grasp— caused a painful crush against her body when she changed direction. But it was a small consequence. She aimed and fired.
The flying car hood bent in the middle and went down fast.
Spider-man's quick instincts and incredible leg strength were his saviors. He landed on the street and the hood banged loudly on the ground next to his feet. Upon impact, the car hood bounced up and away from his hands.
The young hero's tremendous legs absorbed the crash upon the ground, but his body was also forced to bounce away from the point of impact. Whereas a normal man would have died by having his spine snapped in two, Spider-man only ended up sitting on the street. He stayed there for long seconds— his whole body was rattled by the unexpected fall.
Suddenly, Peter Parker's mind came back into play. The Stilt-man was somewhere near and he had to be stopped. The young hero got up. The adventurer started to shake off the effects on body when he noticed a car wildly maneuvering around the wreckage of building parts and destroyed vehicles. Twice, the crazy driver almost flipped the car on its side when a front wheel hit unmovable objects.
"Aww man" the nearly recovered Spider-man said. "Not now. I can't deal with a drunk driver with Stilt-man on the loose."
The car stopped in front of a city bus, some 25 yards in front of the frustrated Spider-man. A wide-eyed bald man came out of the vehicle wrapped in a poncho that could have covered the Hulk. The crazy man's arms pushed back the poncho and it fell to the ground. The thing stranger than the guy's driving was that his arms where very long and green. His whole body was green. It took Spider-man a few seconds to focus on his wickedly smiling face.
"Ohhh, no," Spider-man said as his hands slapped the sides of his thighs. "Here? Now? With everything that's happening? What kind of crazy old fart are you, Vulture?
When Erica had returned to Barry's room with the fruits, her husband joined the in-laws' chorus encouraging her to take a longer break from her vigil over his bed. Defying her mother-in-law's wishes usually led to arguments, and Erica thought that this was the worst time for it. She took a very looong time to prepare herself to leave the room. The quiet teeth-gnashing of her mother-in-law over her hour-long delay made the time rewarding.
Alas, all god things come to an end. She kissed her beloved and put on her shoulder strap purse. It was a good summer night. As she walked, Erica thought about the changes that needed to be incorporated into their lives. Barry wasn't going to like it, but she was prepared to fight it out for their mutual benefit.
Erica decided to think upon lighter things. She was going to call her kid brother again. Maybe she was wrong. With everything weighing Nee down maybe he should be told about the pregnancy test. Together they could daydream scenarios as they did as children. That could cheer him up.
They could imagine Uncle being there for the first steps. Baby visiting Uncle in New Y-
At the thought of Nee's penthouse, Erica's mind again went straight to the main negative factor roaming free there.
Henry had an unworthy girlfriend who had charmed him for reasons that were beyond Erica's understanding. Janet Van Dyne was a heart-breaking, manipulative, high-maintenance floozy as far as Big Sis was concerned. She was the reason for his new address— the rising rental rate at the other penthouse was just a secondary concern.
Her troubled thoughts caused Erica to fail to notice the Washington, DC neighborhood that she had wandered into.
Suddenly, she felt a push on her back and her face and chest were forced against a building's wall.
"Don't move and you won't get hurt," a young male voice said.
"Oh, F - - k," another youthful voice said. "Dat's one tall- a - s white woman."
Peter Parker had a messy unlucky streak going. The girl he's crazy about, Betty Brant , is ticked off. She believes that Peter has the hots for a blonde, Liz Allen. Midtown High's resident chief jock and big mouth, Flash Thompson has the same impression. And for stealing Liz's affection, Flash is looking to knock Peter into next Sunday. Needing to hide his other identity, Peter couldn't show his full strength. But he also didn't want to be Flash's punching bag, either.
Avoiding Flash brought on giggles from girls and shouts of coward from the guys in school.
The Daily Bugle had the world believing that Spider-man was a public menace. Speaking of which, Editor and Publisher, J. Jonah Jameson had fired him for not taking pictures of the arrival of Kraven, the Hunter. He needed that income. Money was low. Aunt May had to pawn her grandmother's jewelry to keep up with expenses. There was a question as to who suffered most from that transaction—Aunt May or Peter.
And right now Peter was standing between a new threat, the powerful Stilt-man, and a returning and formidable villain, The Vulture.
But if Mr. Parker thought that he had been struck by every conceivable bad break known to man, he'd change his mind if he knew what was transpiring many miles away in Freeport, Long Island. Another figure from his past— one green demon-faced sky traveler— was also looking for vengeance, but it wasn't on Spider-man. He was zeroing in on Gregor Shapaka's home; Jack Frost's home.
The cloud cover in front of the moon was a great canopy for the Green Goblin. The side of Industrialist Norman Osborn was proud to see that he successfully replaced his unsightly, noisy rocket- broomstick. His new means of transportation also used the rocket principal, but the engine noise was just above a whisper. The metallic batwings on both sides served as his feet harness and gave him a superior steering ability over his first model.
Tip his toes forward, he dives; bring his toes up, he rises; use his left leg to move the flexible bat wing close and his vehicle turns right. To complete his rocket's motif, in a weird homage to an old comic book character's car, the Goblin attached an all-black bat head to the front of his ride.
Finally, he found the abode that he was looking for. Lights were on in the living room and in one second floor window.
The Goblin looked up to see that the current cloud covering was going to pass and the full moon was going to shine down like a spotlight. He dove down towards Shapanka's modest house. He ducked into a tree in Shapanka's back yard just as the whole neighborhood became bathed in silvery light.
Looking around and satisfied that there were no amateur astrologists looking out of their windows to possibly spot him, the Goblin's glider hummed forward towards the light-emitting second floor window. He saw no one in the bed room.
The Goblin asked himself, "Was the stupidly named Jack Frost in the basement his practicing with his icing gun? Yes, yes—then I could prove my superiority over the idiot just before taking his weapon from him."
From his purple bag, he took out something that looked like a long pencil. The middle bent to form a "V". One end had a small suction cup. At the other end was a thin glass cutter.
From behind his metal mask Wilbur Day saw more flashing lights heading his way from cross town and uptown. His small, but powerful amplified speakers launched a storm of profanities. The resistance that the brainless police was putting up was delaying him from hunting down the real villain, Spider-man.
In frustration, Stilt-man shot off one expandable leg to kick at a building forty yards away. The crowd of people standing by the edifice gasped, but they only moved a few feet away. They had no intention of missing the battle. The kick loosened a giraffe-sized concrete portion of the building's corner from the tenth floor. It held onto the building a few seconds. Then it plummeted down towards the people. It was large enough to kill a dozen and seriously injure many more when it hit the ground and shattered.
Jan turned from her target and increased the power level of her gun. Three shots and the falling concrete structure became small rocks that hit against the same building from which it fell.
The Wasp was now the second costumed figure that was nearly crazy with rage. She landed on an overturned truck and assumed her normal size. With every inch of her enraged being she shouted to the masses in front of her.
"Are you f- - king people crazy? I had the bastard in my sight. I could have ended this. But you a- - holes are standing here like a d- - k was up you're a- - , looking to get killed. I can't be responsible for your dumb a- - es. Get out of here."
The crowd did not move. They stared at her as if she and everything around her was part of a movie. This angered the Avenger more. She felt like aiming her air compressor weapon … oh, forget it. She shrank and took to the air.
"I can't fight and still keep an eye on the a- - holes. Oh Hank where are you. I need you. WHERE THE F - - K ARE YOU!?"
She noticed a car racing into the carnage. It bounced off of the larger debris that scattered across the street. The car nearly flipped over.
Another a - - hole, Jan exclaimed. Probably wants a better view of his own death. The sh – t head."
She had to turn around, to take out Stilt-man before more police lives were taken. But before she turned away, her eyes caught Spider-man sitting on the street.
WHAT THE F - - K?! Sitting on the street? Is he drunk? She'll get him up.
Honestly, he wasn't her choice in a partner, but without Hank or Steve, the Wasp couldn't be choosey. There was a job to be done. She zoomed down.
Spider-man suddenly sprang up to his feet. As she slowed down in front of him, the oncoming car stopped and out of the driver's door popped out what she fist believed was the Hulk. The body was very wide under a circus tent of a poncho. The face of the person looked old and his wide eyes provided evidence that he was crazy.
The old goat flipped off his covering as the Wasp tried to get Spider-man's attention. But the red-and-blue hero was too occupied with the old nut-job.
Spider-man yelled "Ohhh, no! Here? Now?"
Spider-man mentioned the Vulture and the Wasp immediately remembered those old newspaper photos of the crazed Professor Adrian Toomes. He was the inventor whose great devise, an anti-gravity mechanism, launched him into a criminal career. He was old, but in his costume, he was more than a handful. Toomes had recently escaped prison and was believed to be out of the country.
Thankfully, he appeared oblivious to Stilt-man, who was cursing up a storm almost half a block to the right of her. That meant that they weren't a team. That also meant that Toomes had to go down quickly before they decided to pair-up against her and Spider-man.
She turned to Spider-man, "You can shoot webs, right? Well bury the old goat."
Spider-man turned around to see who was talking.
"SHOOT, DAMN IT ! SHOOT!" she yelled.
After he let out a flurry of webbing, the Wasp introduced herself behind the masked hero's left ear.
"Wow, I heard of you," he said. "I didn't think that you actually could be so small."
"Don't blame you. My shrinking ability isn't as believable as a guy dressed up in a Spider outfit, who can climb up walls and jump three stories high."
"Touche."
After they thought that the Vulture was covered helplessly in web, the duo heard the amplified cry, "Spider-man."
Stilt-man had found his prey. As they turned to him the mass of webbing around the Vulture was being sliced away with a wicked sound.
"Surprise, you Spider-dolt," Toomes said. "Since last we met I've made a few changes. The two longest feathers at the end of each wing are now thin steel. … sharp enough to slice through your webbings and …your flesh."
His evil smile and eye bulges when he said "flesh" sent a chill over Jan's skin. The strongest thought going through Jan Van Dyne's mind was that the Vulture and the Stilt-man had to be kept separated so that they couldn't even think about a partnership.
Acting on impulse alone, she raced towards the metal menace. She lifted herself above Stilt-man and dove down at him. At the last minute she reverted to full size. She turned her body around to charge him feet first. The Wasp's weight backed by the momentum provided by her speed and gravity nearly toppled elongated killer. Taken by surprise, he ran sidewise, desperately trying to regain his balance.
Spider-man turned to the Vulture who was spreading his wings. The light reflecting off the four longest wings verified that they were actually sharpened swords.
Toomes was rising up off the ground and Spider-man was bracing for an attack. Suddenly, all five foot, six inches of the Wasp appeared above the winged menace. She crashed down on the Vulture's back and then disappeared. Again, surprise was her great advantage.
Toomes went down, but stopped short of hitting the ground.
"How… did you do that?" the astonished Toomes asked the web-slinger.
Suddenly, as if a mighty invisible hand had grabbed the Vulture, the villain was shot backwards into the nine-foot wide, five-foot high front window of the city bus directly behind him.
"Time to join in the fun, web-brain," Wasp yelled.
The young hero leaped through the front window and into the bus. He raised his web-shooting wrists, but Toomes' steel wings took out the rear window in a wild attempt to flee.
"THIS IS MADNESS! " The Vulture screamed. As he took off, his words began to diminish in volume. Still Spider-man made out one of the Vulture's scream. "You've develop some strange, unseen power."
The Vulture raced out of view.
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Spider-man said in disbelief.
"Naw, you don't have enough brains to be that." The tiny heroine responded. "But you do have enough to help me clean this idiot's clock."
The idiot that she referred to was the advancing Stilt-man.
Spider-man responded, "Okay, you ditzy dame, I'll take care of this. Eh, not that I need him, but where's your tree-sized squeeze?"
As his powerful legs launched him forward, Jan was left asking the same question. The battle continued with Stilt-man's destructive boot missing Spider-man time after time. The Wasp hated to admit it, but that Spider-bum's speed was impressive. Even her eyes had problems following him. In one leap, the hero ricocheted off of the third floor of a building and rammed into his opponent, feet first.
When the Wasp performed that same maneuver, it sent Stilt-man stumbling to regain his balance. But Jan had the element of surprise in her favor. The much stronger Spider-man could only make the metal terrorist backpedal three steps.
It was apparent to Jan that neither combatant was gaining an advantage over the other . Oh where was Hank? He would take care of ..
"WHAT THE HELL," her mind screamed at her. "AM I STUPID?" She had banged upon Hank's door back at the penthouse and demanded that he join her in the battle. But during all this excitement, Jan hadn't used her cybernetic messaging unit under her hood. She mentally sent out an S.O.S. to Hank and all neighboring ant colonies.
Hearing a familiar rocket launch sound, Jan turned around. Sure enough, Spider-man was spinning, leaping and dodging himself clear of two of those dangerous 18-inch long guided missiles. Again, she hated to admit that his acrobatics were amazing, but whether he was on the ground or in mid-leap … WOW!
Still, Spider-creep was human. He would eventually get tired and the zigzagging missiles showed no let up in determination. If one of them could tear a vehicle to metal shreds, Spider-man was in deep sh - t.
Stilt-man had his foe on the move. He was so occupied with dodoging the missiles that he couldn't get a good web-shot at his foe. Now, renewed police fire was doing the same to the metal a - s face. They prevented any metal leg attacks on Spider-man.
Wisely, the hero moved away from the flying police bullets in fear that a shell would trigger a missile explosion. But that's exactly how the Wasp planned to increase the odds in the favor of her temporary partner.
The valiant heroine waited until one of the unrelenting rockets was a safe distance from the youthful adventurer before acting. She spotted her opportunity. One rocket made a wide turn to resume the attack. The Wasp aimed her gun. Instantaneously, the missile was nothing but a deafening roar and an eye-squinting blast.
The gun fire ceased. Jan knew that it meant that the police was retreating again. She hurled herself towards the face mask of the towering terrorist. She had to hit him just above one eye slit and wait for the result.
Suddenly, Spider-man, web-swinging away from the last rocket, leaped on Stilt-man's back.
"If I go, I'm taking you with me, you tin can turd."
The Wasp knew what Spider-man had done in drawing the missile back to the Stilt-man. She cleared out.
Spider-man's senses started to tingle, and he let go. As he fell away he heard a hum. He surmised, the bastard had equipped his armor so that he could electrocute anyone who dared to hang on to him.
Two breath-taking leaps later, the youth found himself standing between the two ends of a squad car that a previous explosion had split.
He grabbed the front half of the vehicle with both hands. Hearing the whistle of the approaching rocket behind him, Spider-man jerked his body backwards. His arms went with the momentum and hurled the heavy mass towards the missile. The missile was stopped, but the explosion sent metal shrapnel into Spider-man's direction. If it wasn't for the other half of the car that shielded him, the hero would have been decapitated.
"Boy, that sure was a dumb move," he said to no one in particular.
"It sure was," Wasp said. "You must have cobwebs for brains."
He was surprised that she had been that close to him, but then she was probably going to explode the rocket in the same mysterious way that she had dumped the first one. Spider-man could have said thanks, but she was becoming a wise-a - - critic. So his gratitude came out as:
"Aww shaddup. For a tiny witch, you've got a biiiig mouth."
The two males again engaged in battle. Spider-man threw a blanket of webbing over his opponent, but thanks to his armor's electric charges, the netting quickly burst into flames and fell off of him.
The Wasp had not stopped sending her distress calls. Jan looked up to the 59th Street Bridge's road way. Nothing. Maybe Henry was already on the island. She looked to the north, west and south. Again, there was no sign of her powerful beau.
She turned back to the battle. What the hell was in Spider-man's hand? Was it a weapon? It couldn't be a camera. He kept aiming it at the Stilt-man, but nothing was happening. Spider-man threw it away four times, but each time he'd shoot a web-line, catch it and then pulled it back to him- WAIT! It ISSS a camera.
No, she said to herself. Get a hold of yourself. Spider-man isn't crazy, just obnoxious.
The Wasp was going to find the one person who could match the elongated killer height-for-height and punch his lights out. Spider-man would have to fend for himself for a while. She was going to cross the bridge back to Queens. Hank had to be at the opening of the expanse—he had to be.
Though she moved at an incredible speed, the remnant scene of the first battle didn't go unnoticed. Even as her body moved forward, her head moved down and slightly towards her right armpit as her eyes were momentarily fixed on the ambulances and the increased police presence where the first officers were slaughtered.
She made it to the Queens side. She flew twenty yards to the right and then forty to the left. Where was he? She stayed there waiting as long as she could. Then with her already anxious feeling taking a spike up, Jan flew back to Manhattan.
She was whizzing by the metal bridge girdles when she spotted something incredible. Spider-man was teasing and leading Stilt-man back onto the bridge. The Spider-jerk leaped and hung onto one of the steel support cables.
"Are you f - - king crazy?" she shouted by his ear. "You're bringing him here?"
Breathing heavily, he responded, "Look, … Madam Moron, ….I don't plan …on having to… pick up pieces of myself …after I finish… this fight. Here, .. in enclosed .. area, … he won't likely launch …his missiles. Too great …a chance that they… will hit cables … and girders. But hey,… if you miss… the explosions,… you can step in … take my place."
Spider-man gulped an then said, "Don't worry, Tiny Twit…. I'm getting…. him tired."
"You're getting HIM tired," she asked incredulously.
Both scattered in different directions just as their opponent's deadly kick narrowly missed them.
The Wasp dove down to Spider-man's shoulder and held tightly to his mask with her hands.
"Look behind you, dummy," she charged. The young hero's chin made contact with his left shoulder. He saw the flashing lights, the stretchers and the long sheets that he assumed were covering dead bodies.
"He already has and will launch his missiles here," Jan continued. She saw the camera-like object in Spider-man's hand, but ignored it in the face of the dire circumstance.
She said, "You just spin him around so that his back is towards the water and let me try my plan."
Spider-man nodded and leaped away.
The police who surrounded their dead partners drew their guns at Stilt-man. Jan appeared in her full human height before the police. She waved -down their attempts to shot the villain.
"Don't bring attention to yourself. Spider-man and I have a plan to dump him over the side. Don't fire until I signal you that we have failed."
Then she disappeared before their eyes.
Spider-man jumped from his right, to his left, but Stilt-man kept his back away from the river.
"No, no," she shouted at the youth, "Keep him away from the ambulances."
At that same instance, Spider-man's webbing hit the left shoulder of Stilt-man. The hero gave a pull.
"YEEEAAH!" The wasp yelled. Spider-man had turned the killer's body around to the right position, before the web fell off in flames.
This was her chance. The Wasp moved in at a rapid pace, but then she stopped at the sight of two un-launched missile heads. They emitted a thin red glow where the rounded shapes met the metal backpack.
The tiny heroine's instinct took over. The Wasp aimed her weapon at a particular point in the path that that she figured the missile had to take to circle around the Stilt-man and hunt for Spider-man. A second after the first rocket shot out its circular travel led it a few yards in front of its sender.
She shot. It exploded. Stilt-man was caught in the unexpected force of the explosion and he was thrown out of the bridge and over the river.
The Wasp and Spider-man saw the monstrous figure hit the water with a big splash. They both knew that the armor would bring the killer down into the depth, but neither of them cared for the murderer's safety.
They won. THEY WON!
Suddenly Spider-man turned his head towards the ambulances.
His sense tingled madly—something was disastrously wrong. The Wasp, who must have spotted the danger, raced towards the area with Spider-man behind her. There on the ground was an unexploded rocket. Its sides were spitting out sparks. IT WAS GOING TO EXPLODE!
The rescue workers were going to die. The Wasp and Spider-man continued their dive towards the bomb. Both heroic figures thought to throw it away from the bridge. But when the sparks increased in brightness and they hadn't yet laid hands on it yet, they thought that they also were going to die.
Suddenly, a white and blue blur flew over the bomb. Spider-man and Jan, in her normal height, hit the floor exactly where they last saw the bomb. The next second, there was an explosion in the air— it was over the water, far away from the bridge.
Jan got up with a bruised shoulder and saw the wide, muscular back of Captain America looking into the direction of the blast.
The Wasp screamed "Cap. Cap…. You saved us."
She turned him around and wrapped her arms around him. At that unguarded moment Jan couldn't help noticing how big, and muscular, and… GOOD his body felt against hers.
She barely noticed the flashes coming from the sides—the photo flashes from two News Helicopters and a steady light above them coming from a TV News Chopper.
All she could think about was this hunk of a super-stud in her arms. She pulled back to look into those dreamy eyes that she always loved. Her heart was pumping quickly and her lower region was emitting a primitive, animalistic evidence of her desire.
She brought her face close to his, but he nervously pulled his head back. That was a great turn-on for her. Wearing a sensual grin, she grabbed the back of his head and brought it forward to her. She wet her lips. Then she sucked in her bottom lip. It was all primal instincts, but a part of her wanted to torture him into a sexual frenzy… he would be rewarded for it, in time. Like in six long seconds, or so.
She forced her smiling lips into the shape of an open-mouth kiss. Her legs straddled his right leg and she pressed womanhood against his thigh. Her lips moved in slowly to torture and reward.
Suddenly, that exciting sexual spell that she happily surrendered herself to was broken.
From the corner of her eye Jan saw a huge red figure. She turned, but when she faced that direction, it was gone. She hadn't yet released the back of Steve's head when she realized that it wasn't her imagination.
"Oh, my God," she said with a gasp slightly above a whisper. "Hank."