Mark jumped out of the back of the truck as it came to a halt. The others with him quickly began unloading the rest of the equipment.

"Come on guys, put your backs into it!" he yelled somewhat gleefully.

"Easy kid," came a voice from the shadows. Mark spun around to find none other than Hammerhead emerging from the shadows. "The boys don't tend to like it when some young punk thinks he's suddenly in charge."

"I should be in charge," Mark asserted, "and I'll tell you why: I just took out Spider-Man."

Hammerhead met his boast with an intense stare of skepticism.

"Is that right?"

"Oh, it is," Mark assured him, "and, we got everything that we needed too. Look!"

Mark gestured towards all the lab equipment the other men were unloading and taking into the warehouse. He glanced back towards Hammerhead, a curious but stern look on his face.

"Well, I'll at least give you this part, kid," he said. "The big boss will be happy about this, given how critical this is for our new operation. However, if Spider-Man really has been taken care of, where's the body?"

"I'm sure there's nothing left of him," Mark boasted, "not after what I did to him."

Hammerhead just chuckled to himself for a moment, which made Mark suddenly feel uneasy.

"Alright, kid, I'll say I believe you for now," the man spoke up. "But if I see a news report about Spider-Man swinging through the city tomorrow..."

"You won't," Mark quickly spoke up. "I promise."

Hammerhead then suddenly grabbed Mark by his jacket, violently pinning him up against the wall.

"Little man, what's that bad habit of yours that we've discussed before?"

"N-never interrupt when you're talking," Mark remembered.

"Exactly," Hammerhead replied, relinquishing his grip on Mark and straightening his jacket.

"Now, as I was saying, if I see a report of Spider-Man swinging through the city tomorrow, you're going to learn a lesson the hard way about making claims that you can't back up, especially when it comes to the bug. You know the danger he poses to our operation, and that's why we gave you that fancy skin and all that came with it. But like I said, I'll choose to believe you for now, and if a couple days go by and the wall crawler is nowhere to be seen, we can talk more about your future. But for now, don't go around talking a big game and making enemies among your peers, got it?"

"Yes sir," Mark replied, his confidence shot down compared to even two minutes ago.

"Good," Hammerhead affirmed, "now, you're young and strong, so why don't you help the boys offload the equipment?"

Once the world started coming into focus, Peter slowly tried to sit up, shifting over so that his legs were resting on the floor. He was still a little sore, but for the most part, his body's healing ability seemed to have done its thing. Granted, the real test would be the first time he suited up and tried to swing, but he would get there in time. Speaking of time, he realized he'd likely slept in a bit, so he reached over and grabbed his phone to check the time. However, in addition to observing the fact that it was nearly 10:30 A.M, he also noticed that he had a text, so he opened it.

"It's Detective Lee. When you get this, meet me on the roof of the old bank building in Midtown. We need to talk."

Observing that the text had been sent over an hour ago, Peter got up as fast as his current willpower/energy level would allow, fighting through his remaining soreness as he put on his Spider-Man costume. Slipping on his mask, he then leapt out the window, firing a web and swinging off. As he made his way to the rendezvous point, he was starting to realize how weak he was really feeling; he hadn't eaten much the night before, and his enhanced metabolism seemed to be getting the better of him already. He made a mental note to text M.J. after this was over to see if she'd be interested in an early lunch or something. Yeah, something Italian sounded good, really good.

As he came near the location of the meeting spot, Peter made a point to put his food-related thoughts in the back of his head for now. He could see the detective standing near the center of the rooftop in question, so he pulled on his web, angling his swing so that he gracefully descended, ending up almost right in front of her.

"You sure do know how to keep a girl waiting," she said, her arms crossed.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he apologized. "It was a bit of a rough one last night."

"So I hear," the detective replied. "There wasn't much of anything left of that warehouse, most notably its contents."

"What was that stuff anyway?" Peter questioned. "I never did get a good look at it before Fire Boy attacked."

"According to the manager of the facility, they were temporarily storing some in-transit medical equipment," the detective explained. "He said that the most notable thing that was missing was a prototype machine capable of injecting multiple patients at once with a controlled substance."

"Well, that doesn't sound good," Peter remarked.

"The idea was that it could be used to speed up the human trial portion of a new drug or vaccine," Detective Lee explained, "but given who's hands it's likely in now, I have a feeling whatever it would be used for won't exactly be FDA approved."

"Yeah, crime lords aren't exactly known for their adherence to things like that," Peter replied. Though he was trying to maintain his quippy demeanor, a concern was brewing rapidly in his mind. What would Tombstone need such a device for in the first place? Was he just planning on turning around and selling it to the highest bidder, or was he cooking up something new of his own?

"We're working on some leads to where they might have taken it," the detective explained, "but there's another thing that I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay?" Peter questioned. The somewhat pointed manner she said that in filled him with even more concern.

"Coming back to the Allan girl," the detective began, "I decided to run a background check on not just her, but her family. For the most part, her family's pretty clean... until I got to her brother."

It sounded like Peter's theory was about to be confirmed.

"What do you mean?" he questioned.

"Well, after high school, it seems like he kind of fell in with the wrong crowd," the detective explained. "Early on in college especially, he started to develop a record."

"Anything serious?" Peter questioned.

"Nothing too severe," she answered. "Mostly just some petty thefts, but a lot of the people he was running with belonged to some of the most notorious gangs in the area."

Peter just nodded, trying to take all of this in. While it didn't confirm specifically that it was Mark behind the new shiny and fiery opponent of his, things were starting to point to his involvement in all this somehow. Had he really betrayed his own sister like this?

"Anything else you got?" he finally asked after a moment.

"Not at the moment," she replied, "but something tells me that you do."

"Excuse me?" Peter questioned.

"You were really insistent on meeting with me when this all started to try to point me in a particular direction," the detective reminded him. "Is there anything else that I should know right now, even a theory?"

Peter's mind scrambled to properly answer his new partner's question. He really didn't know how much to share; the woman clearly had a knack for the whole detective thing, and if he passed along too much information, he feared that she might figure out his connection to all of this, even if it was somewhat abstract.

"Spider-Man," the woman spoke up when he took too long to respond, "let me make something clear to you: I don't care how or why this case is personal to you, and I don't care who you are when you're not swinging around the city in red and blue spandex. Normally, someone like me would be suspicious of your kind, but I'm choosing to trust that you're wearing that mask for a reason, and that's to protect the people closest to you. You have my word that I will not look any further than I need to, but only enough to do my job."

The sincerity of the detective's words helped put Peter a little more at ease, so he opted to take a leap of trust.

"When I was fighting this new 'Molten Man,' I overheard one of the others call him, 'Allan' at one point," he explained.

The detective's eyes widened.

"So, you think Mark Allan is this 'Molten Man'?"

"It's what seems to add up, especially after what you've told me," Peter reasoned. "There's more too: I can't say how I know, but Mark had been coming to see his sister in the days before she was arrested."

"Really?" the detective asked.

Peter nodded.

"Supposedly, she didn't seem like herself after seeing him; she seemed stressed and on edge a little."

Detective Lee shook her head, burying her face in her hand for a moment.

"My my," she said, "this thing just keeps getting worse and worse. I hate to think of where this could all be heading, but I'm going to do some more digging."

"I'll keep an eye out on my end too," Peter said.

"Thank you for trusting me," the detective said. "I honestly didn't know how this conversation was going to go, but I knew that, if we're going to make this new partnership of ours work, we would have to be completely honest with each other when it comes to the important stuff."

"Agreed," Peter replied. "From now on, I'll be an open book... well, maybe more like a cliff notes version. Those usually have all that important stuff you were talking about anyway, just without the extra fluff."

The detective then did something Peter hadn't expected: she let out a slight chuckle. It wasn't a full laugh, but given her more serious demeanor up until this point, he was definitely counting it as a win.

"Alright," she said, "well, keep going on your end, and let's stay in touch."

"Sounds good to me," Peter replied, giving a thumbs up. "Thanks detective! You need a lift? I'd be happy to at least get you to a taxi."

"No thanks," the woman replied. "I was never a big of fan of Bunji jumping anyway, and I have a feeling that this would be even worse than that."

"Fair enough," Peter conceded. He then leapt off the building, firing a web and swinging away. As he did, he ran back through a lot of the information they'd shared with each other: Mark Allan had something of a trouble past, or at least a young adulthood, his path towards potentially becoming Molten Man possibly being set up much further back than he ever could have suspected.

How was he going to break all this to M.J... and more importantly, how would she break it to Liz?

A loud banging at the door to his apartment awakened Mark, who stirred from his bed. He'd allowed himself a long night of celebration after his success the previous night, resulting in him sleeping in later than he'd intended. The banging persisting, he forced himself out of bed, walking over towards the door.

"Coming!" he yelled. His tiny apartment didn't result in a long walk to the door, something else he was looking forward to changing. However, when he finally opened the door, he was surprised to be greeted by none other than Hammerhead.

"Woah, what's the matter?" the man asked. "Late night for the young gun?"

"Maybe a little," Mark conceded; he got the sense that Hammerhead likely considered such things below himself, so he quickly moved on. "Do you have a new assignment for me?"

"All I've got for you is a question: have you seen the news?"

Mark squinted, tilting his head in curiosity as to why the man would bring up something that random. The scowl on Hammerhead's face told him that he was serious though, so, leaving the door open, he walked over and picked up the remote to his TV, turning it on. Finding a local news station, Mark nearly felt his jaw drop to the floor when he saw footage of Spider-Man saving a young girl after a fall through an open window. The report indicated that this had happened not even ten minutes ago.

He turned to Hammerhead, the look on his face practically screaming that he was fired... or worse.

"Hammerhead, listen..."

The man quickly grabbed him by the back of his neck, slamming him down onto a countertop.

"I told you what would happen if you talked a big game but didn't deliver," Hammerhead practically growled into Mark's ear. "You're pushing your luck more and more kid, and this time, you pushed it too far."

"Wait!" Mark pleaded, his right cheekbone getting squished into the granite counter. "Give me one more chance' I just need one more injection, and I'll finish him!"

"Forget it, kid; you're done with Spider-Man," Hammerhead proclaimed. "But that's only the beginning of the messes that you've been leaving in your wake."

"What do you mean?" Mark questioned. He was then thrown back up to his feet.

"One of our guys on the force is saying a particular detective has been looking into you recently," Hammerhead explained. "Your past is catching up to you, kid."

"I can fix it," Mark quickly reassured him. "I'll do anything you say; just tell me what to do and I'll do it!"

"Well, your sister's trial starts tomorrow," Hammerhead replied. "So, here's the deal: if they call you to the stand for any reason, you're to say exactly what we tell you to say, nothing more, and nothing less. After that, I'll decide if we still have any use for you or not. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," Mark replied, fighting against a swallow. "Absolutely."

"So, you and this detective are on a texting basis now, huh?"

"I guess," Peter replied just before taking another bite of his pasta dish. "She seems to think so anyway."

"Wow, I'm almost tempted to be jealous," M.J. teased, prompting Peter to give her a look. She chuckled lightly before continuing. "What did she want to talk about?"

Here came the hard part.

"She wanted to talk about last night," Peter explained as he swallowed, "and... about Mark."

M.J.'s expression shifted to a more focused, serious look.

"What did she say?"

"Well, for starters, Mark seemed to have fallen in with the wrong crowd after high school," Peter answered. "He has a record, M.J."

M.J. looked off to the side, her jaw dropped in shock.

"I can't believe that," she said. "Mark always seemed like a good guy, and Liz never mentioned anything before."

"Maybe she didn't know," Peter insisted, "or at least not until recently."

"I hope you're right," Mary Jane replied. "Either way, I don't know how I'm going to talk to her about this. If he's involved somehow in what's happened to her, it'll destroy her even if she doesn't know already!"

"Yeah," Peter replied. As much as he felt for his wife right now, he felt for Liz too. He knew what it was like to find out family secrets where they ended up being a part of something that wasn't so noble, even if inadvertently.

"I don't know if I'm ready for her trial to start tomorrow," M.J. said, leaning on her elbows and rubbing her fingers over her eyes anxiously. "I had to deal with a couple more upset customers just this morning so far; I feel like I need to attend the trial, obviously, but I hate the thought of leaving the girls there to deal with it by themselves."

"They know how close you two are," Peter insisted. "I'm sure they understand."

"Yeah, but it doesn't make me feel any better," M.J. explained.

Peter was about to reply when his phone started ringing. He looked to see that it was his Aunt May. He was surprised to see that she was calling him right now, given that her shift was supposed to start any minute.

"May?" he questioned upon answering. "Is everything okay?"

"No, Peter, it isn't," she replied. "Come to the hospital; Flash is here, and...it's bad."

Hope you're still enjoying this! Thanks again especially to those of you who've been following this series from start to finish. You all are amazing!

Continuing to pray for you all; stay safe and healthy!

"'But what about you?'" He asked. "'Who do you say I am?'" Simon Peter answered, "'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'" Matthew 16:15-16