answers to reviewers questions or statements:
CRUDEN: Yep.
Project Emerys: Well MJ is smart enough to know that Peter needs time to grieve, not go waging a one man war on Hammerhead and the maggia.
Trey Alexander: I'm basing the Dark suit off how i have it set up in the game, with the iron spider arms and improved bio scanner. The Adamantium claws are just something I decided to add on my own cause the dark suit gloves look like they have actual claws on them.
Thng ip Vng: He wont be in this.
DarkThunderbird1604: Honestly, I'm debating on how to go about that. I have two versions of this story laid out, one is which she lives and the heart wrenching drama associated with that, the other being she's actually dead and the heart wrenchingness of that. It'll be a while till I get to the point of the story where I gotta pick one or the other but if I did go with her having faked her death, pissed would not be doing Peter's feelings on her manipulation justice, not even close.
anoyak111: Harry at the very least. Might be what triggers Osborn to become the Green Goblin in a later game.
Disclaimer: I don't' own an Marvel characters seen, mentioned or used.
Peter wasn't very familiar with Maggia hideouts or their 'legiteament businesses' or their more ill-legiteament endeavors on account that until recently, they haven't been a major problem or had much of an impact on the criminal element in the city with Fisk as the Kingpin of Crime. So having little top go on, Peter decided to go to the one place that he knew various members or associates of the crime family alliance tended to visit more than most places.
The Bar with No Name.
It was considered neutral ground by many of New York's criminals, a place where they could go and unwind and relax without fear of having the cops called on them. The only rules were no fighting, no weapons and if you had powers, they were forbidden from being used. Despite the criminal element's less than obedient nature, surprisingly, the rules were followed, if only because if the bar's owner or bartender didn't beat you to within an inch of life, the various other, more violent patrons, would if not outright kill you because you tried to make a mess of their 'safe zone'.
So when Peter decided that he was gonna pay the bar a visit for information on any major Maggia holdings, he wanted his suit stocked to the brim with web fluid, a few web bombs, some extra electric web cartridges and the four spider legs that could be deployed were functioning. He did a quick check of his suit and equipment as he stood on a ledge that overlooked the alley that housed the entrance to the Bar before taking a deep breath as he raised his arm and shot out a web line to swing down on.
'Okay Pete, just go in, ask around and leave. That's all your here to do. Find information on Hammerhead and the Maggia' Peter reminded himself as he swung down into the darkened alley and landed in a crouch without a sound 'Hopefully there's no Rogues in there. Regular run of the mill thugs I can handle down there. Guys with enhanced powers on the other hand, on top of the regular run of the mill thugs, not so much'
Peter glanced around cautiously for signs of anyone approaching or leaving he bar before he silently crept towards the door, a single light just over the frame shining down for anyone wanting to get in to find it in the dark alley. He could hear a cat meow in the distance along with muffled barking from nearby buildings that allowed dogs and the traffic behind him going on about it's usual routine.
Peter came to a stop before the door and stared at it for a few seconds before he took a deep breath and knocked on the door and waited for someone on the other end to answer as his mind wandered back to a time he did something vaguely similar to this.
Only then, he wasn't alone.
...
Peter had his reservations about what they were doing, about what they going to do.
"Are you sure this is a good idea Cat?" Peter asked with uncertainty as he stared down at a strip club that was owned by the New York chapter of the Dogs of Hell.
Felicia gave Peter a bemused look as she leaned against an air conditioning unit and folded her arms across her chest "You said you wanted to stop these guys from trying to distribute their 'product' in Queens and Manhattan right?"
Peter nodded "Yeah, but attacking them like this... I don't know, wont that makes things worse?"
"Like force them to push back?" Felicia asked with a raised brow before she shrugged "It could, or it'll convince these Hell's Angels washouts to fuck off with their shit and go somewhere else"
"Yeah..." Peter said with a troubled expression under his mask.
Felicia's grin fell a little as she pushed herself off the air conditioning unit and placed her hand on Peter's shoulder "Hey, trust me. They aren't gonna retaliate if that's what your afraid off. They don't have the man power out here like they do out west. And their about to have a lot less once you and I are done with these guys"
Peter glanced at Felicia and nodded as he took a deep breath and ran a quick check of his web shooters to make sure they were fully loaded and working. Once he was sure his equipment was ready, he turned towards Felicia and nodded "All right, let's go shut down this dog house once and for all"
Felicia couldn't stop the snort from escaping as she turned to fire off her grappling hook "Okay mister tough and intimidating"
Peter didn't get a chance to respond as Felicia swung towards the club, her target the bouncer standing beside the door. Peter's target was the door beside the man and brought his knees up to his chest as he swung towards the door before shooting his legs out just as he was about o hit it. While he breached the club, Felicia slammed into the bouncer, her wedged boots striking the man in the chest hard enough that Peter was certain a rib cracked and slammed him into the wall with a painful 'thud' followed by a pained scream. The scream however was drowned out by the sound of Peter kicking in the door, cracking it into several large pieces that went flying and hit two bikers that were already on their way to the door with a gym bag in each hand. Peter couldn't help the grin from forming under his mask as he landed in a roll and sprung up between the two startled men and grabbed them both by the napes of their necks and slammed their heads into one another, knocking them out or at the very least disorienting them.
"It's the fucking bug!" another man yelled over the sound of the music playing as he and several others shot up from their tables, drawing a wide assortment of pocket knives and small revolvers or pistols.
"Hey guys, nice place you have here, heard it was real pet friendly. You don't mind if I brought my cat do you?" Peter asked as he rolled his shoulders as he took a quick scan of the room and counted at least seven Dogs of Hell bikers visible, all spread out around the room with six strippers all rushing for cover.
At that moment, Felicia emerged in the door way with a pair of flash bangs in her hands, the pins pulled, and threw them into the room. Peter watched as the two small non-lethal grenades hit the floor before going off, blinding the various biker men while he leaped into action.
'Thank you glare reducing lens upgrade, courtesy of me studying and copying Mysterio's latest fishbowl of a helmet' Peter thought with a grin as he sent a punch into a rather overweight looking man, sending him flying into another biker who in turn fell into a table, breaking it.
As the rest stumbled around, trying to regain their bearings, Felicia fired her grappling hook at one man as she ran towards him, grabbing him by the wrist that held a pistol and yanked him towards her as she leaped over him and pulled. The result was the pistol in the man's hand snapping up and hitting the man clear in the face hard enough to break his nose while Felicia kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him to the ground. Without pausing, Felicia flicked her wrist and had the grappling hook unlatch itself from the moaning biker and swung her arm up, the hook still loose and whipped it into the face of another man, leaving several shallow cuts on his face.
'Ouch, that's gotta hurt' Peter winced at the sight as he sent a punch into one man's face while he shot several web bullets at another, one to cover his gun in webbing and prevent him from shooting, the other to cover his eyes just as he started to see straight again and the final one to his foot to catch him and cause him to trip and fall over.
As Peter turned to see how many more bikers there were, he felt his spider-sense go off and heard a distinct click of a gun's safety going off and turn just in time to see a stripper, without a top on and giving Peter a full view of her chest, aiming at him with some sort of magnum. Under normal circumstances Peter would have either disarmed the person holding the weapon with a well placed web line or just blitz them and deliver a hay maker to their face, but since the wielder of the fire arm was a half naked woman, Peter found himself hesitating to move. Not because it was a woman, he learned the hard way that when it comes to criminals, their gender meant jack when they were trying to fill you with high speed lead, it was because she was well... topless.
"Uh, before you shoot me could you put a top on-" Peter began before Felicia was suddenly beside the woman and delivered a rather painful punch to the woman's jaw that snapped her head to the side and sent her tumbling to the ground.
Peter blinked at the downed stripper as the gun slid from her hands before he noticed Felicia's somewhat amused grin.
"So the Spider does have a weakness, boobs. Good to know" she teased with a wink that caused Peter to blush.
"W-W-Well she uh... and she didn't have a uh..." Peter tried to formulate a response as Felicia shook her head with a laugh.
"It's fine Spider, it happens to the best of us" she said as she walked by and patted him on the shoulder "Come on, we still need to clear out the basement"
"R-Right" Peter said with a cough as he leaped to the ceiling and followed Felicia though a curtain hung in a doorway and into a dimly lit hall with a stair case at the end of it going down.
The two descended down the dark stair well with Peter crawling along the ceiling while Felicia cautiously made her way down by foot. They stopped at the base of the stairs and peeked through the entryway to see a singular hallway with four doors, all closed, on each side and a single double door at the other end f the hall. Peter looked down at Felicia and nodded when they made eye contact before he crawled farther out into the hall and fell with a near silent 'thud' before he pressed himself against the wall next to the door and listened in while Felicia made her way to the door opposite his and pulled out a little snake cam that was connected to a phone that she had acquired specifically for it.
"You hear anything?" she whispered as she had the cam slip under the door and scan the room in both thermal and night vision before she pulled it back and made her way to Peter's door an did the same.
"No" Peter responded back quietly as he went to the next door with Felicia went behind him.
It took a few minutes, one of the rooms had another door in it that they had to check and were thus forced to pick the lock and enter the room smelling of sex, alcohol and whatever drugs the previous occupants were using before they vacated it. A quick check showed that the door only led to a small bathroom with a shower that was remarkably clean despite the state of the room it was connected to.
"Wow, I'd almost want to have sex in this thing" Felicia said as she ran a clawed finger across the glass of the shower door with a smirk.
"Something tells me if you ran a black light through here, you'd be burning that little claw" Peter said with a snort as he tried to ignore the aroma of drugs in the room.
"Probably" Felicia said with a chuckle as they exited the room and approached the last door at the very end of the hall.
Just as Felicia was about to slip her snake cam under it, Peter felt his spider-sense go off just as he heard the faint clicks of guns behind the door. In a blur, Peter grabbed Felicia and leaped up to the ceiling and used his body to shield her as multiple bullets tore though the door, sending splinters of wood flying, some of them hitting Peter in the back. After several seconds, the bullets stopped and Peter and Felicia waited silently to see if the bikers inside would come out or not.
"Think we got them?" one of the people inside asked.
"Maybe, go check" another said.
"Fuck that" the first voice said with a scoff "You check, I'm staying here where I know it's safe"
"Fine then you fucking cunt. Oi, Phil, Leo, go check" the second voice said with annoyance.
"Fuck that noise" either Phil or Leo said with a snort.
"Man, I ain't going out there with a boner like this, you check" the other voice said with a grunt as the sounds of a belt being fumbled with could be heard.
"C-Can I go now" a woman's voice said, quiet and terrified.
"You can get after you finish blowing me, not before" one of the voice said.
After a few seconds, Peter slowly lowered Felicia to the ground before he made his way in front of the door, still attached to the wall and waited. The two shared a nod as Peter cracked his knuckles while Felicia took a deep breath and looked up at Peter.
'On three' Felicia mouthed as she held up a three fingers and began to slowly count down before she kicked in the door and stepped back as Peter swung in and kicked the biker with a shotgun in the chest, sending him flying into table a near the center of the room stacked with cash while Felicia moved in behind him and threw a bola at the other biker that was raising his rifle to shoot Peter in the side.
The stripper that was there let out a scream as she flew to the floor as the remaining two Dogs of Hell aimed their pistols at Peter and Felicia with snarls and squeezed the triggers.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Peter winced at the volume of the gunshots in such a closed space, which was made even worse with his enhanced hearing. Thankfully his spider-sense, which his body was so attuned to that it practically moved his body on its own if his mind was too distracted, and had him leap into the air with a helix flip and shoot two web bullets at each man, hitting them both in the face and covering their eyes. Both bikers let out startled yells before they were silenced by Felicia leaping over and sending a kick to one man's head while she delivered a powerful elbow to his gut before grabbing the back of his head and bringing it into her knee, breaking his nose.
As the two remaining men went down, Peter scanned the room to see if there was anyone else in there besides them before he let out a breath and relaxed.
"Guess we got the last of them. And hey look they have a few kilos of Coke in the corner that we can show to the police" Peter said as he glanced at Felicia "Not a bad night huh?"
"Well... it's not the worse date I've been on" Felicia said with a laugh as she looked around at the various destroyed furniture and a stripper in the corner looking at her and Peter with wide fearful eyes as they stood amongst a bunch of beaten bikers "Though I have to say this is the first date that I've been on since middle school that didn't end with me a few articles of clothing off and my lips around a dick"
Peter blushed as he adverted his gaze from the smiling woman as she gave him a very suggestive smile that caused his heart to skip a few beats "Uh, t-that's uh, good to know I guess?"
Safe to say, this was the first drug bust that left Peter needing a very cold shower... and it wouldn't be the last whenever Felicia was with him.
...
Peter couldn't stop the small smile from growing on his face at the memory before he heard someone on the other end of the door and took a deep breath as he waited for the little slot in the door to open.
"What the hell do you want?" the voice behind the door asked after the little slot opened and the man inside saw who was standing there.
"I'm here for information" Peter said as his lenses narrowed "After I get it, I'm gone"
"And how do you intend to get that info?" the bouncer asked with suspicion.
"The old fashioned way... ask" Peter replied with a growl of annoyance.
His response was met with silence before the door slot closed and Peter heard faint mumbling on the other side. After a few seconds, locks were heard being unlocked and the door opened to reveal a tall thin man with a scowl on his face. He stepped aside to allow Peter to step though before he shut and locked the door.
"Fine, but you know the rules bug. No powers, no weapons, no fighting. Ever" the man hissed as he secured the door.
"Like I said, I'm here for information" Peter said as he made his way down the stairs towards the bar, he could hear more than a dozen people talking, some kind of jazz playing and the sounds of a few pinball machines that they had set up going off.
The moment Peter stepped into the bar proper, the conversations stopped and every pair of eyes turned towards him. Peter scanned the crowd for anyone noteworthy. He noticed Boomerang and White Rabbit in one corner at separate tables keeping themselves and the Beetle, he couldn't tell if it was the guy or girl one, in another corner. And over two dozen 'regular' criminals, mostly small timers that at worse spent a few months in jail for theft. Peter gave the crowd another glance before he silently made his way to the bar, ignoring the glares and whispers from the various bar patrons around him.
"Well look who it is..." the bartender said as Peter arrived at the bar and took a seat.
"Not looking for trouble, just want a glass of water. Try to hold the spit if you can" Peter replied, causing the bar tender to snort.
"Here for just a glass of water? What, you wanna enjoy a drink with people that you spend your spare time beating to a pulp"
"Don't brake the law and you won't see me" Peter said with a shrug as he looked behind him and saw White Rabbit was looking right at him with an unreadable expression.
He quickly returned his attention to the glass of water placed in front of him before he looked up at the bartender "So, any Maggia stop by recently?"
"Not that I'm aware of" the man said with a shrug as he picked up a glass to clean "I don't really get involved with the Mob anymore since one of the Dons from the Maggia had my half brother castrated and his wife raped to death"
"Jesus..." Peter whispered with a shake of his head.
He knew the Maggia could get brutal, but eh thought they had some sort of class to them. Then again, Jameson has said plenty of otherwise on his podcast.
"Why you interested in the Maggia any way?" the man said with a frown.
"Their getting out of hand" Peter said as the sound of the explosion at Felicia's penthouse echoed through his head.
The bartender stared at Peter for a long time, his eyes searching Peter's red lenses for something to read before he nodded "Yeah... I guess they are"
"Do you know who might have any kid of information on them?" Peter inquired, tapping his fingers against the surface of the countertop.
"I might..." the bartender said with a frown as he noticed Peter's claws digging into the wood on his countertop every time they hit it "Questions, are you gonna be civil to them?"
"I will if they are" Peter said.
The bartender quirked a brow at this before he nodded "All right, stay here then. I'll go let him know you wanna talk"
"Can't I you just tell me where he's at and I'll go talk to him there?" Peter asked.
"He's in the VIP lounge we've recently had set up. Unless your staff or a VIP member, you can't go back there" the man revealed.
Peter furrowed his brow at this "How do you get a VIP membership? Not get arrested?"
"No, you just gotta pay thirty grand to get it" the bartender said with a shrug as he placed the glass he was cleaning down and made his way out from behind the bar to a metal door on the wall that looked like it was made for a vault rather than a bar for criminals.
'Hmm, maybe that's why it's made of metal' Peter thought as he glanced at his glass of water before pushing it away.
"Are you here for Hammerhead?"
Peter tensed before he slowly looked over his shoulder to see White Rabbit standing there. Now that she was closer, Peter could see the exhaustion in her eyes and her voice was a little hoarse, probably from crying so much. The wall crawler was a little confused on why that would be before he remembered that Felicia and White Rabbit were close friends and before Felicia decided to be his 'partner', they pulled a few heists together.
"Yeah..." Peter said with a small nod.
"What are you gonna do when you find him?" she asked as she sat down next to him and folded her hands in her lap.
Peter didn't respond as he saw the bartender emerge from the metal door with a man behind him that apparently knew about the Maggia. At first glance Peter could tell the man was connected to them, he was dressed in those eye sore suits they liked and he walked with a sorta swagger that all Maggia had, at least the lower ranked ones. White Rabbi followed Peter's gaze and her own expression darkened as the bartender stepped aside and gestured to Peter.
"Spider-man here wants to talk to you about your... associates" the man said evenly as his eyes flickered between the two parties.
The man scoffed as he eyed peter up and down "And what makes you think I'm gonna say anything bug? What, you think I'm gonna tell you jack shit because your acting like some emo faggot now? Man fuck off and I'll pretend I wasn't just dragged out of the best game of poker I've played in a while-"
Peter was a blur as he sprung up from his seat and seized the man by the neck and hoisted him up into the air with a growl. White rabbit jumped out of her seat and took several steps back while the bartender immediately went to the bat behind the bar. Everyone else in the bar stood up and pulled out either a gun or knife at the sudden actions of Spider-man. Boomerang was quickly making his way to he exit while the Beetle remained where they were at, watching the whole scene with a glass of something in their hand.
"Put Anthony down web head" one of the patrons said as he aimed his Glock at Peter "Just because Hammerhead went and blew your whore up doesn't give you a right to come in here and screw with us"
A pin could be heard dropped with how silent it became as Peter's head slowly turned towards the man that spoke to him.
"And I'm out" Beetle said, their voice male.
The armored mercenary stood up and quickly made his way to the exit as Peter kept staring at the now sweating man. White Rabbit shot a glare at the man that spoke and would have gunned him down with the gun built into her umbrella if she didn't leave it at home.
"What... did you just call her" Peter said in a very quiet voice that could barely be heard.
"Hey Jim, you might wanna" one of the patrons near the now identified Jim said before said man spoke.
"Y-You heard me" he stuttered as the red lenses of Peter's mask glared at him "J-Just because your whore is dead-"
Peter interrupted the man by throwing Anthony at him and having his suit deploy the four spider limbs just in time to block a swipe from the Bartender's baseball bat. The man's eyes widened like saucers before one of the limbs sliced through the bat with it's bladed edge, cutting it clean in half before it slapped the man back and into the bar's counter.
And then, all hell broke loose.
…
And done.
Next chapter, Walter Hardy...
