answers to reviewers questions or statements:
rmarcano321: Yes and no, it was more the game that inspired me but I'll be taking a few things from the story Evil that men do and add them into here, particularly around Felicia's backstory.
Trey Alexander: Yeah I found it a little odd that Peter wasn't... a little darker for Turf Wars. I mean not even several days prior, Hammerhead, far as Peter knew, blew up Felicia, someone he clearly had strong feelings for still and I'm kinda bummed that Hammerhead didn't play on that when he interacted with Spider-man, taunting him with it. Comics Hammerhead would have in a heart beat, just because he could. Would have made the story darker yeah, but it would have been a believable transition to a darker storyline and hey who knows and even darker sequel down the road. If their planning to introduce Venom and Green Goblin, story's gonna be dark in of itself already so might as well get people ready for it.
cabrera1234: Hammerhead hurt Peter, now he's gonna hurt the man back.
Project Emrys: Uh, okay?
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel characters seen, mentioned or used.
Felicia's funeral a little over a week after the explosion at her penthouse wasn't a very grand affair.
It was just Peter himself, Mary Jane who was there more for Peter than the late jewel thief, Felicia's mother Lydia Hardy who looked even older and more frail than his late Aunt did in her final hours and Felicia's former heist crew, Doctor Boris Korpse and Bruno Grainger, all standing in the rain as dark gray clouds hung over heard with the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. Peter barely listened to a word that was said during the entire thing, everything around him was just a blur, like he was still suffering from some kind of long lasting concussion from the bomb Hammerhead set off. He knew where he was, what was happening around him and sorta understood what someone was saying to him, but at the same time it didn't seem to register in his mind.
Part of it was because if Peter didn't acknowledge it, if he didn't hear the priest talk about Felicia finally being laid to rest after such a hard and chaotic life, then maybe he could fool himself into thinking that she was still alive somewhere, just waiting for the perfect moment to crop up again, like always. But the rational part of Peter's mind, the cold logical side of him, quickly beat such thoughts down. Felicia wasn't enhanced like he was, her body wouldn't have been able to take the force of the explosion, hell his wouldn't be able to either.
She was well and truly gone... all because he wasn't fast enough to get to her in time.
'Why'd it have to be her though?' Peyer thought sadly as he stated at the plaque that had Felica's name, her year of birth and year of death 'Out of everyone, why her? She never hurt anyone, not really. she was just... Felicia'
Perhaps the universe, or whatever unholy monster runs it thought that Peter hadn't quite lost enough yet. Maybe it thought that it needed to take away someone that in all honesty made Peter feel more alive than ever. Felicia made being Spider-man feel like it wasn't some obligation, or some sense of duty, she made it seem like it was a part of his very being. That he could live is life just as much in the suit as he does out of it, maybe more.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter noticed Mary Jane move a little closer to him and gently take his hand in her's and rub her thumb gently over his bandaged knuckles, an attempt to try and comfort him as the ceremony drew to a close and Felicia's mother stepped forward to place a single white Lily in front of the small plaque before Bruno stepped forward and placed her coat around her shoulders before he and Boris led her away. They didn't so much as glance at Peter and for that he was grateful, he couldn't bear to look any of them in the eyes, not after this, especially Lydia.
After Felicia's mother and former crew left, Peter stepped forward with his own flower, a small blue tiger lily, one of Felicia's favorites and kneeled down and placed it next to Lydia lily.
"I'm... I'm sorry I couldn't save you Felicia..." Peter whispered as tears slowly fell from his eyes, thankfully the rain running down his face easily masked them "I tried... god I did but... I guess I just wasn't fast enough again"
He wasn't sure how long he sat there, kneeling in the mud looking at her name. But by the time he felt Mary Jane place her hand on his shoulder and he turned to look at her, his neck 'popped' and noticed how sore his knee felt.
"Come on Pete, let's get you out of the rain" the red head said in a quiet voice.
Peter nodded as he gave Felicia's grave on last look before getting up and letting his girlfriend pull him away, even if deep down he just wanted to stay. They didn't make to too far before Lydia Hardy was in front of them, a glare aimed right towards Peter while Bruno stood behind her, trying to carefully pull the older woman back.
"Mrs. Hardy I-" Peter began before he was cut off by a sudden slap across the face.
"It's because of you my baby girl is dead" Lydia said, struggling to not break down as her mascara ran down her face like black tears, her eyes red from exhaustion and crying so much.
Mary Jane stepped between Per and the elder Hardy, hoping to prevent the woman from taking any more hits towards Peter "Mrs. Hardy, Peter did everything he could-"
"But he didn't" Lydia snapped at Mary Jane with a enraged expression as she pointed over their shoulders towards Felicia's grave "If he did, I wouldn't be burying her today!"
Mary Jane had no response to that as Lydia glared back at Peter with sheer and utter spite "I hope you never know what it's like to lose a child Mister Parker, I truly do..."
And without another word, she turned and left, leaving Bruno standing there, looking as uncomfortable as Mary Jane felt before he gave them both a nod and quickly hurried after the last living Hardy while Peter simply stood there with an angry red mark on his face.
A reminder to his failure.
...
"Do you ever wonder what's on the other side Spider?"
Peter glanced at Felicia as the two sat on the ledge of a rooftop, overlooking a small shipping yard where the Kingpin's men and a few low level crime bosses were meeting at for some kind if sit down. The two had been there for close to an hour in silence when Felicia suddenly sprung her odd question.
"Huh?" Peter sounded, confused by what the black and white clad woman meant.
Felicia turned towards him with a thoughtful look on her face as she crossed her legs at the knee and rested her elbow on her knee and her face on her hand "You know, an afterlife. Do you ever stop and wonder if there is one? Some place we all go to after we die? Or is it just... nothing. After this, that's it. Done"
Peter blinked at this while his hand drifted to the back of his head and began to rub it, a default nervous tick of his "Well... I never gave it much thought to be honest. I mean I'm sure there is something on the other side. Not sure what, but I don't think it's just 'nothing'"
"How can you be so sure?" Felicia asked with a furrowed brow.
"Well... I mean there's Thor" Peter pointed out with a shrug "If he, a god, exists, then why can't an after life too? It may not be quit what they described at church or whatever religious place you go to, but there's probably one there, several maybe. You just uh, gotta die to get to one of them"
"Well that's comforting" Felicia said with an amused eye roll.
"Why so curious about the afterlife?" Peter asked with a curious expression "What, you think this may be the day we get done in or something? Cause if it is, yee have little faith in my amazing quips and jokes. It's honestly the only reason I've lasted this long, the bad guys treasure them as a guilty pleasure and wouldn't be able to live with themselves if I died"
"I'm sure..." Felicia said with a small grin before she leaned forward and planted a small kiss on Peter's covered cheek "Though I think you've lasted this long handsome because you've had me watching your back"
"I'd prefer you also help watch my front, it tends to get hit more often than my back does" Peter replied with a snort.
"I'll keep that in mind Spider" Felicia nodded with a giggle before they both noticed several cars pulling up to the yard "Well, looks like things are about to kick off"
"That they are" Peter said with a nod as he stood up and cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders while Felicia simply extended her arms over her head until she heard and felt a faint 'pop' and let out a moan that Peter thought was a bit too erotic for a simple stretch.
Not that he didn't mid, her actions gave him a great view of her chest and made him think not for the last time what it'd be like to have his face between those wonderful orbs of flesh. She's been dropping hints, at least he thinks she has, that she wanted to have sex with him the past few nights, but Peter wasn't quite sure he was ready for something that intimate with someone he's only known the better part of a month and a half.
"You haven't been with many women before, have you?" Felicia said as she turned towards Peter with a smirk, having caught his gaze on her chest.
Peter blushed at being caught red handed and turned away from the smirking thief "W-What uh, what are you talking about?"
Felicia shrugged "You act all flustered when I do things like that, or you stare a little longer than what most would say is appropriate like you haven't gotten any in a while and that's the closet your getting"
"Sorry" Peter said with a wince, causing Felicia to laugh.
"I said most, not all..." she said with a teasing glint in her eye "In fact, I like you watching me. Does wonders for my vanity"
"Glad to help" Peter said with a cough before Felicia walked up and placed her chin on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his chest. She laughed at how tense he got, how his infamous motor mouth had gone silent. Peter was certain she could feel his heart hammering against his rib cage with how close her hands were to it.
"Easy Spider, I'm just teasing you" she said in a low sensual whisper "You don't mind, do you?"
"N-Not at all" Peter stammered "I-I man it's not very professional but I think we're good enough p-partners that it-"
"Partners, is that all you want to be?" Felicia asked with a small grin "I was thinking we were friends"
"I-If you want to be" Peter said in a shy tone that caused Felicia to giggle.
"I do" she said as she leaned up on her tip toes and planted a small kiss on his mask covered cheek before she stepped back and took a second to collect herself "Come on handsome, let's go shake things us a bit. Then afterwards, maybe I'll do a bit of shaking for you hmm?" Felicia said with a wink as she leaped off the ledge and fired off her grapple and used it to swing towards the yard with a faint echoing laugh that sent shivers down Peter's spine.
...
Half an hour later the two, still dressed in the suit and dress they wore for Felicia's funeral, soaking wet and a little muddied, sat at a small booth at Micks, a small basket of fries between them.
"You gonna be okay?" Mary Jane asked after a few minutes of sitting in silence.
"Do you want an answer or do you want the truth?" Peter responded quietly, not looking up to meet MJ's eyes.
The red sighed sadly "The truth, even though I already know what it is, so I guess there's no point in telling me"
Peter nodded as he stared down at the hinds, the bandages wrapped around his knuckles were red, he'll have to change them later when he got home. Mary Jane said nothing as she stared at Peter with a saddened expression. She felt a bitter sting of jealousy and ager at Felicia even though it was ridiculous to feel something like that towards a dead woman. But seeing Peter, her boyfriend, so broken up over a girl he hadn't seen in the better part of five months, well it ate at her. A selfish part of her wanted to tell Peter that Felicia brought this on her self, that she knew the risks of trying to play someone like Hammerhead, but then she'd look into Peter's eyes and see just how fractured he really was on the inside.
Felicia Hardy's death had well and truly broken him.
"So, you got any leads on Hammerhead?" Peter asked suddenly, dragging Mary Jane from her thoughts.
"What?" the red head said with some surprise as Peter stared at her with an unreadable expression.
"Hammerhead" Peter repeated as he leaned forward, his eyes a little darker than she remembered, a little angrier "He's gone to ground after... after what he did. I can't find him, so I was wondering if you heard anything on your end"
"No... nothing, far as I know" Mary Jane said with a shake of her head.
Yes in fact, she had.
According to several of her sources, with a few variations here and there, she was able to discover that Hammerhead had retreated to some safe house somewhere out in Long Island for the time being. Why, the red head couldn't begin to understand though she believed it may be because he wanted to see how Spider-man would react, how the Maggia intend to react to his attempted take over. Whatever the case, he was gone for the time being and Mary Jane hoped it'd be a long time before he tried to stick his metal plated skull back into the city.
Time that Mary Jane could use to help Peter heal and come to terms with this loss and hopefully recover before that sociopath returned.
'And I probably just jinxed us... way to go MJ' Mary Jane thought with a sigh as she reached out and took Peter's hand "Peter, I'm not gonna pretend to understand what it's like. Losing someone that you... cared about"
Peter said nothing, he just turned his gaze towards the window and looked out at the passing traffic and dozens of passing pedestrians, some in rain coats, others with umbrella and some without any kind of protection from the downpour that was hitting the city.
Mary Jane frowned at this as she leaned forward and with her other hand, grabbed Peter lightly by the chin and forced him to look at her "Hey, don't... don't do that. Don't shut yourself off and bottle all that up inside of you"
"Would you rather I vent it out on some random thug?" Peter snapped before he stopped himself at the look MJ gave him and took a deep breath "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Peter, your angry, I understand" Mary Jane said as she settled back in her seat but keeping her hand on Peter's, ignoring the feeling of the blood bleeding through the bandages "But you can't let this control you. This is the kinda thing hammerhead wants. He wants you to try and come at him when your not in your right mind, he wants you blinded by anger. Because he knows he'll be able to toy and manipulate you even easier than before"
"And he's doing a phenomenal job at it" Peter growled as he turned away from Mary Jane again "He called you know, after I got out of the vault Felicia left me in he called one of his guys and I answered the phone instead..."
"What'd he say?" Mary Jane asked nervously.
"He said I shouldn't worry about the drives that Felicia had or her... that he was gonna blow her sky high when she got back to her penthouse" Peter revealed, the conversation with Hammerhead still perfectly clear in his mind.
"Sounds like he set it off remotely" Mary Jane theorized "which meant he was there, somewhere, that night. Waiting for her, then for you. Waiting until you got close..."
"But that's thing that I don't understand, how did he know where she lived?" Peter said with a troubled expression on his face "Far as I know, the two never met before. Even when she was my partner. And Felicia was always careful about who knew who she was and who didn't. Even I didn't know who she really was until towards the end, before she left"
"Maybe he tracked her down back when he was looking for someone to get him those drives and figured out who she was under that mask of hers?" Mary Jane offered "or maybe he had some cop he has on his payroll do some digging and told him. They had her stuff in lock up for a while, right?"
"Yeah... maybe" Peter said with a nod.
The two settled into a tense silence, Peter brooding over answers for questions that eluded him and Mary Jane worrying about what Peter was going to do now. She's never seen him like this, so vulnerable, utterly beaten, even after May's death. Suddenly Peter's phone went off, or more specifically, the crime monitor program he had on it. Mary Jane sat there as Peter ignored it, his gaze unfocused. After a few seconds, Mary Jane loudly cleared her throat and nodded towards his phone.
"Are you gonna deal with that?" she asked in an unsure tone, Peter didn't look like he was in any hurry.
Peter reached down and pulled his phone out and took a quick glance at it before he shut it off and put it back.
"It's a fire, the police can handle it without me"
Mary Jane blinked at this before she adjusted her seat and hoped she could keep the unease out of her voice "Are you sure? Could be a pretty bad fire-"
"They've been doing fine decades before I came along, and their gonna be decades after I'm done. They'll be fine" Peter said as he turned and looked at Mary Jane with a hard expression "Unless it's Hammerhead or the Maggia, I don't care"
"That doesn't exactly sound like the Peter I know" Mary Jane said quietly.
"Do you want me to go?" Peter said as his eyes narrowed "Is me being here that big of an issue for you? You didn't have to be there, or here, today!"
Mary Jane had to really fight down the burst of anger she felt rise up in her chest at the way Peter spoke to her. In the past, whenever Peter was hurt, be it physically or mentally or even emotionally, he tended to lash out at people. After mentally counting down from ten, Mary Jane took a deep breath and looked Peter right in the eye.
"Your right, I didn't have to be here today" she said as she leaned forward on the table and rested her elbows on the edge "But I came because of you. I'm worried that her death has hurt you far more than your willing to admit. That Hammerhead hurt you worse than your used to. I'm terrified that if I'm not here for you, either as your girlfriend or just a friend, your gonna do something stupid"
"Well I'm not" Peter snapped.
"Your ignoring people in danger Peter" Mary Jane said with narrowed eyes as she pointed towards his phone "That's pretty stupid in my book"
The red headed reporter had to resist the urge to flinch under the glare that Peter shot her before he sighed and nodded, the tension between the two gone and in it's wake, a sense of exhaustion.
"Your right... as usual"
Mary Jane couldn't help the small grin from showing on her face before she took a deep breath and placed her hand on his "Look, just go and deal with that fire while I chase down some leads on the Maggia. I'll call if I find something and if not... you can come over later tonight, okay?"
Peter nodded as he cupped Mary Jane's hands with his own before he took a deep breath and sighed "Okay..."
He slowly stood up from the booth and made to grab his wallet to pay for their fires when Mary Jane waved him off.
"I got it, just go and do what you do best" she said.
"are you sure?" Peter asked, an uncertain look on his face.
"I am, now get going" Mary Jane said with a small shooing motion.
Peter grinned slightly before he nodded and turned and made his way to the door as Mary Jane watched him go with a worried expression on her face. She didn't like lying to him about not knowing about Hammerhead, but he was in no shape to go up against the crazed mob boss any time soon.
After what happened, Mary Jane wasn't certain he ever would be again.
...
The fire as it turned out was a bit to much for the first responders and the entire affair could have ended a lot worse than it did had Peter not been there as Spider-man to help get the last trapped civilians out of the burning structure and save a few cops and fire fighters from being buried alive under a few tones of burning building. A part of Peter was glad that Mary Jane talked some sense into him, about not ignoring anything not related to the Maggia or Hammerhead... but another, smaller, darker part of him was angry that they weren't the ones behind the fire. It would have given him a perfect excuse to start tearing through New York's underworld for them, o at least pay their publicly known Dons a 'friendly' visit.
He also got a call from Miles earlier, the kid, bless his heart, was being a lot more reserved in asking Peter about when they would advance his training. Peter wondered if Mary Jane told him what happened that night or if the kid was as perspective as Peter believed him to be and simply put two and two together and concluded that now wasn't a good time to bother Peter so much.
'Way to go Peter, kid just wants to learn and hepl and yet your giving off the vibe you want nothing to do with him' Peer thought with a sigh as he removed his mask and dropped it on his desk and fell into his seat with a groan.
His suit was covered in burns and small tears from the fire and his hands were starting to hurt again and if the liquid he could feel under his gloves was blood, then some of the scabs had split open again at some point. It was obvious he'd need to wear another suit while this one got repaired, some of Peter's tech worked in conjecture with his advance suit and when he confronted Hammerhead, he'd need every advantage he could get.
'So what to wear until I can get this thing repaired' Peter thought as he sat up and wandered over to his closet, removing the top portion of his suit to reveal a litany of still fading bruises and scars from his impact with the car the night of explosion.
Peter tossed it aside as he opened the door and looked down at a small chest he had with a electronic combination lock. He entered the four digit pin and unlocked the chest before he pulled out where he had better lighting and opened it to reveal the two spare suits he had.
The first was his classic suit, something he hadn't worn since he repaired it after he took down Fisk. The suit lying next to it... was the dark suit that Felicia left him in one of her hideouts.
It was black with red colored lenses and a matching red spider symbol on the front and back that had it's legs bend so that the tips of the limbs would almost meet. Despite it's rather simple appearance compared to his advanced suit, it was made, to his shock and worry, out of a combination of nano-mesh and some sort of next generation Kevlar bi-weave. The nano-mesh was stored mostly in the back where it could produce four spider like limbs while the gloves were fitted with a set of claws for each finger that he discovered were made of Adamantium. The suit also possessed a rather advance biometric scanner that could allow Peter to see the heat signatures of an individual, even though most surfaces and even detect their heart beats.
How Felicia got any of this was beyond Peter's knowledge since he knew for a fact some of this stuff would be something locked deep in some remote classified government complex. He was hoping she could explain but... she wouldn't be doing much explaining now.
Peter shook his head as he reached down and pulled out the mask for the dark suit and stared into it's lenses. The way the mask was designed made them look like he was angry, less friendly and more violent. It was a stark contrast to the friendly persona he's tried to make as Spider-man, someone that you wouldn't be afraid of, not like Daredevil who looked and acted like some tormented violent animal from hell.
After looking into the blank red lenses of the suit for what seemed like hours, his phone's crime monitor went off again. Placing the mask down, Peter stood up and approached his phone and glanced down at the screen before his eyes darkened at what he saw. The Maggia that worked under Hammerhead had just fire bombed a school where one of the other Don's kids went to school. Without another word, Peter turned to suit up, he was done playing responder and defender to Hammerhead and the Maggia.
This time, they were going on the defensive...
...
And done.
Next chapter, Retaliation...
