Fat, cold drops of water were falling into the hair behind his ear, then running down to soak the collar of his work shirt. He shivered, and goose pimples raced behind the latest droplet, causing the multitude of warm bodies surrounding him to press closer, huddling up against his legs, his chest, and his neck like a massive and stifling fur coat.

No, stifling wasn't the right word.

Toasty, homely, sheltering, and safe where much more apt.

Edward Whelan couldn't remember ever being so snug, and he certainly couldn't remember the last time he'd been happy.

He shifted so that he was no longer laying beneath the trickle of water and sank further into the nest of rats that was settled around him. He was afloat in a sea of brown fur, small, scrabbling claws, and wriggling tails, but the squirming of his rat friends didn't bother him. He was so incredibly tired, even though he was sure he'd been lounging for hours now.

Whelan was also wildly hungry and the grumbling pangs in his stomach almost felt like knives in his gut, but there was nothing to eat in the sewers. His rats had tried though, showing up to his nest with scraps and rotten fruit and gruel, but he couldn't eat any of it. That was food for them, not food for people.

And I'm still a person… right?

Whelan wasn't entirely sure anymore. In the past day he'd been a man, then a rat, then a man again, and oh how he missed being a rat. The memories were so vivid. He had ran and leapt and swam and crawled like a rat. He could still feel the power and recall the vibrant scents and sounds of the world that had come with his… transformation, or whatever that had been.

He'd been running on a high, furious with the injustices of his life, and he'd taken it out on everyone he met - truly thought he could have unleashed his wrath on the entire city, or the world, if he could manage it.

But the power was gone now and all that remained was the oval charm around his neck and the maddening, throbbing pain in his nose where Black Cat had kicked him.

She's no hero. He thought. Neither is Spider-Man.

He'd seen the news converge before, read the social media posts and the occasional newspaper. There were dozens upon dozens of stories about the super-pair that was Spider-Man and Black Cat. Together they'd cleaned up many a bank robbery or stopped car-jackings, muggings, or worse. They'd fought villains like that idiot Big Wheel or that giant rhino monster. From the outside, it certainly looked like they were the good guys.

But Whelan had met them, he'd fought them. He'd landed hits and taken a heavy blow himself, and now he was rethinking all he'd heard about them and the villains they'd fought. What kind of life did the bad guys live when they weren't in costume? Most of them were probably as troubled as Whelan was, as alone and brutalized.

No, He made up his mind on Spider-Man and the cat. They aren't heroes. They're just more bullies.

He closed his eyes and pulled his rats to his chest. Maybe, if he slept for a while, he'd wake up and be a rat himself once more.

He must have slept, because his back and neck were aching horribly when he forced his eyes open next. As soothing as his furry companions were, they didn't make the best mattress – even less so now that they were abandoning him.

They left in groups, like chunks being torn from a loaf of bread, chittering and bristling all the while. Something was agitating them. Whelan pushed himself up into the sitting position and rubbed his sleepy eyes, staring into the dark mouth of the sewer tunnel that stretched away from him. Even without his super senses, he could still hear them – footsteps in the dark.

Light appeared around a bend in the sewer, and then a young woman followed.

She was short, with long dark hair and hard eyes. In one gloved hand she held a long flashlight and in the other, a circular stone the size of a hockey puck.

"Stay back." Whelan rasped, clambering to his feet and shielding his eyes from the light she shined on him. His eyes were long-adjusted to the dark underground. "D- don't come any closer."

"It's okay. Don't be scared." Her voice was low and although the words were soft, her tone was quite firm. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Who- who are you?" He was still tired and hungrier than ever and his thoughts came slow. "What do you want?"

"My name is America Chavez." She drew closer still, forcing Whelan back until he came to a wall, cornered. "What is your name?"

"… Vermin."

"Your real name."

"I- I don't…" He didn't want to say what the human version of him was called, so he questioned her again instead. "What do you want?"

"I'm here to help you." Chavez pointed her flashlight towards the ground between them, much to his relief.

With the spotlight off him, he could breathe again. The sewer where they stood still wasn't dim enough for his liking, but he doubted she would turn off her flashlight if he asked. Rats scurried in the periphery of his vision and around the edges of the great, white circle shining on the floor, and he was comforted to know he wasn't alone with this stranger. He looked at her and opened his mouth to speak, but then he felt… something.

There was a pressure in his temples, as if someone was pushing two fingers into either side of his head. Suddenly his mind was filled with images of the past: eviction notices in his mailbox, Shane and his cronies tormenting him, the rat pendant he'd found underground, Spider-Man swaying in front of him, but talking slow and steady all the same…

Whelan flinched, ducking and covering his face with his hands, and the visions stopped. He looked through his fingers at the girl called America Chavez and she frowned at him, brows knit.

"You found it down here? In the sewer?" She asked.

"What? W-what are you talking about?!"

Panic seized him. She couldn't know about his treasure, no one could know about it. The beautiful jewelry was his alone and he suspected strongly it that it had something to do with how he'd transformed before, and was likely the only way he could ever do it again.

As if she'd read his mind, Chavez stepped closer still.

"Calm yourself." She said again. "You're hurt. You need something to eat and a place to sleep. Come with me, Edward, and I promise that-"

"How do you know my name?!" He shouted, voice thunderous in the enclosed space. "You… y-you stay out of my head!"

His heart was racing. She wanted his necklace. There was no other explanation for her being here, for asking the questions that she was. He was not going to let her have it.

The chain around his neck grew hot and the felt the rat pendant start to pulse softly against his chest.

"No!" Chavez cried and she dropped the round thing in her off hand to thrust her palm forward in front of her.

There was a loud crack and the smell of sulfur filled Whelan's nose as orange light erupted around him. Metal chains materialized from thin-air and snapped to him, wrapping his arms to his torso and pulling him off the ground. The cords grew taught and held him suspended, as if they were anchored to invisible posts all around him.

His breath left him in a strangle cry and the chains were tight, so tight he couldn't fill his lungs to scream again and his necklace was cold against his throat and Chavez was walking towards him, the flashlight pointed in his face again and-

"Breathe, just breathe." She chastised, sounding like a councilor, or a coach, or a teacher. Whelan hated all three. "Nice and slow. The more you struggle, the worse it'll get. I told you, I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're- You're a… a witch." Whelan wheezed, writhing in his bonds despite her words.

"Sure, if that helps you. Listen to me, Edward. I know what you found and what you did." She was almost nose to nose with him now. "I know you're probably freaked out by it all, but it's not your fault, okay? I'm here to help." There was not a single second where he believed her, but she continued regardless. "That thing you found is called a Crest and it's magic, like me."

He stopped struggling at her words. So it was true, his treasure was truly that, a treasure, of the magical variety no less. It had given him the power of the rat.

"It's very dangerous." Chavez continued. "Although, I guess you already knew that. You've made a lot of people sick in a very short amount of time."

Good.

"I need you to give the Crest to me." She said.

"No! I won't!" Whelan gasped, tugging at his chains once more.

Chavez just stood back and waited for a minute or two, until his struggles tired him out.

"You have to." She said once he'd stilled once more. "It doesn't belong to you, whatever you might think, and the more you use it without food or sleep the closer it will get to killing you. If you hand it over now, I'll take you somewhere where you can get some help."

I'll die first.

Regardless of whether or not Chavez could read his mind (and Whelan was almost certain she could), she seemed to have decided to call his bluff. She tucked her flashlight under her arm and reached for the backpack she was wearing. She had come for him prepared, with gloves and boots, magic spells, and a large bottle of water that she pulled from her bag.

He watched her drink enviously, his own throat burning and sore. He watched her check her wristwatch and he wondered how long it had been since he'd fought Spider-Man and Black Cat. How many hours or even days had his disease been spreading through the city?

He wasn't going to ask her any of his questions though and he was not going to ask for any of her water.

She was planning to hold him there, chained like an animal, until he gave in and handed over the one thing in this world that gave him power, that made him strong, and special. He wondered why she didn't just take it from him now while he was restrained and helpless, and only one explanation came to mind...

She wanted him to submit, to give up and face the humiliation of surrendering his crest over to her.

The thought made him sick.

How many bullies and tormentors was he doomed to meet?

Whelan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as much as the chains would allow. He focused his thoughts on the crest around his neck and imaged himself as a rat, as Vermin.

"Edward-" Chavez began, but it was too late.

A flash of white light illuminated the sewer tunnel and suddenly Vermin, much taller than Edward been a moment earlier, had his feet on the ground and was straining against the chains that bound his arms. The metal creaked and groaned, twisting against their invisible anchors, and although Chavez's eyes were blown wide, she did not panic.

She raised both arms this time and crossed them in front of her, before throwing them out again wide. Either it was some kind of poorly-timed dance routine or she was casting another spell and Vermin had a pretty good guess which it was. The air around him shimmered and warped, then seemed to solidify. It started on either side of him, converging to the space between him and Chavez, forming a near-invisible wall of magic.

Whelan only had a second to act - and he took it.

He spat at her.

A jet of brown steam shot from his lips and slipped through the gap in Chavez's shield just before it closed. Her arms were still wide from her spell-work so the poison had a clear path right to her chest. The blast knocked her flat on her back.

She didn't get up again. The sudden onset of coughing and shakes wouldn't let her.

And with her down, the chains crumpled and vanished, the same moment her shield turned to sugar glass and crumbled to dust at Vermin's feet. He stepped over to tower over the witch, with rats scurrying around his feet, surging to him now that he was back in control.

"I should kill you." He hissed, stooping to pull her backpack from her shoulders. Besides the water, she'd brought some food: protein bars and dried fruit and jerky. He'd have thanked her if he didn't hate her with every fiber of his being. "I should… but I won't. Not yet. You'll die like the rest, slowly, with the plague in your veins."

He stepped over her, leaving the witch to twist and moan as the fever set in, and raised her water bottle to his lips. As the cold, soothing liquid parched his thirst, a wicked idea came to mind and it surprised him that he hadn't thought of it before…

Water.

He could use the water... if he wanted.

Vermin could picture it in his mind's eye – another series of intense images. He could see the paths that water took, converging, dividing, and pumping into the city through pipes, flowing to every building and home – every person. It was devious and smart and so very efficient.

"V- Vermin…" The witch behind him croaked. "Don't…"

He paid her no mind. He had a plan now.

Something hard brushed his foot as he took another step and he looked down to find it was the small puck-shaped thing that Chavez had dropped shortly after finding him. On inspection, Whelan saw circular marking set into it's face that seemed to shift and move, spinning to point small dots in various directions depending on how he held it. The largest collection of dots were pointed towards his chest, where the crest of the rat sat protected under his suit.

He didn't know what the thing was and he didn't care. The puck turned to splinters in his hand and he left the pieces scattered on the concrete floor of the sewer behind him.


Felicia took Peter's advice to heart and allowed herself to crash as soon as she returned to her bedroom at the dorms. Her roommate had a guest – no, several guests actually, judging by the lively ruckus coming from beyond the door to other bedroom. Blessedly though, the common area was empty and Felicia's own door had a lock, so the chances of her being disturbed were low.

Not zero, but low.

God help any tipsy party-goer who went looking for the bathroom and tried her door though. They'd probably get their eyes clawed out.

Despite Peter's kind words, Felicia couldn't fully shake her towering mood. A mood that only darkened further when she woke up to find dusk settling.

She had overslept.

A quick check of her phone showed that the thing was dead, which explained why her alarm hadn't gone off. Felicia furiously stabbed her phone with her charger and sat on the edge of her bed, fuming as she waited for the screen to light up.

She was supposed to wake up hours ago. She was supposed to have tracked down Vermin and kicked his ass by now or found Spider-Man and made sure he was okay, then either kiss him or kick his ass for making her fret over him.

But what if he's not okay? What if I never see him again?

Her thoughts were traitorous and her phone was taking too long to turn on and the sound of something shattering, followed by a roar of laughter told her that her roommate still had friends over. Apparently they didn't know or didn't care about the highly infectious disease going around, nor the city's advisory to keep gatherings limited.

Felicia closed her eyes and took deep breaths, a meditation technique she'd practiced from a young age to manage stress. Her stomach rumbled and she decided to abandon her phone to search for food in the kitchen, quickly finding a half-empty box of pizza on the counter and purloining several cold slices.

When she returned to her room, her phone had enough juice to boot and she browsed the web as she ate, searching for headlines or social media posts for any word on Vermin or Spider-Man.

It was all but guaranteed that every day someone would post some some blurry photo of Spider-Man, a long-distance shot of him on rooftop on the Upper East Side or a quick selfie outside of the Lincoln Center. There were no sightings though, not of Spider-Man or Vermin, and Felicia willed herself to not take that as a bad sign, even though her brain was now formulating numerous best/worst case scenarios – which fluctuated between Spider-Man being mostly well, but still too sick to be in public, and literally being dead.

The mere thought filled every one of her veins with ice.

She chewed on her pizza, which was actually pretty good, but might as well have been cardboard for all she enjoyed it – her unfocused eyes settled on the bare wall opposite her.

There were only a few options available to her as she saw it: she could wander the night aimlessly searching, she could sit and wait for Spider-Man at their usual hang-out, or...

Or I can go meet Wong like I said I would.

While she doubted visiting the Sanctum and facing America Chavez again would improve her mood, seeing if Wong's research had turned up anything would at least be productive.

She shoved the last of her food into her mouth and her partially charged phone into her pocket, and then transformed.

Black Cat leapt from her bedroom window and hurtled across rooftops, the freshly-rising moon guiding her path back to the Sanctum Sanctorum.

This time, it was Wong who answered the door.

"Come inside." He ushered her in quickly and shut the door behind them just as fast. "I'm glad you came. There have been some… developments, since last night."

"Good developments?" Felicia asked.

"Good and bad." He admitted, clasping his hands together behind his back and rocking on his heels slightly. "What would you like to hear first?"

"I hate when people ask that question. Just tell me what happened, please."

"Fair enough," Wong motioned for her to follow and he lead the way across the main hall, to the set of doors opposite the parlor. He talked as they walked. "I've spent most of my time searching the Sanctum's archives for references to magical poisons and I may have found a lead on an antidote that can counteract Vermin's powers."

"Really? That's great!" Felicia felt an enormous weight lift off her and her mind immediately went to Spider-Man. "We can cure everyone who's been infected!"

It was wonderful, life-changing news, the kind of pick-me-up Felicia would never have guessed would come from visiting the Sanctum.

"Not quite yet, I'm afraid." Wong cautioned, although his words weren't quite sharp enough to pop her bubble. "What I've found will require some… well, it's better explained if I can just show you."

He guided her from the entrance hall and down a dimly-lit hallway, eventually leading to a large, oaken door. He pushed it open to reveal a vast space shaped like a round amphitheater. Felicia and Wong stood on level with the top-most row of tiered benches, which lead downwards to a wooden platform in the center of the room.

The audience room was mostly empty, with the benches all bare. The stage in the middle was host to a pair of tables though, one of which seemed to be standing inside a dome-shaped chain-link fence, along with someone that, even from a distance, Felicia could still recognize as America Chavez.

But something was… off about her. She stood at an angle, propped against her table, stiff as a broom handle, and wavering as if the slightest gust could knock her over.

Wong led the way down the benches, taking long strides, and Felicia followed cautiously.

Eventually, they all stood on the center platform and Felicia saw that what she'd assumed was some kind of chain fence, was actually a shifting, glowing, and very magical-set of runes that crissed and crossed over each other, forming a sort of web over Chavez. Up close, Felicia was stunned by the young sorcerer's appearance.

Chavez caught her staring.

"What?" She wheezed, breath shallow. "Why- why are you looking at me like that?"

"I have to say, you're looking pretty rough." Felicia answered truthfully.

Chavez gave a small huff, not quite a laugh, and turned to brace herself over her table, examining a collection of heavy tomes that were arranged there.

"One piece of good news is that America located Vermin." Wong said, looking uncharacteristically stern. "I'm sure you can guess the bad new."

"She's been infected." Felicia surmised.

"Ding, ding… we have a winner." Chavez drawled, rolling her eyes. She coughed then, leaning even more severely where she stood. "It's… not as bad as it looks… just-"

She trembled and then bent to vomit in a bucket resting on the floor by her feet.

"No, it looks pretty bad." Felicia wrinkled her nose and inspected the dome surrounding Chavez. "So you're in quarantine then?"

"She should be in bed," Wong corrected. His mouth was a flat line, thin as his mustache. "But apparently my authority as guardian of the Sanctum only extends so far." He tapped the cage with his finger and the magical strands let out a soft pling like the string of a guitar. "This cage will keep Vermin's plague from spreading from her to us, although I'm afraid there's little I can do to help her symptoms, and her condition has only worsened since I found her."

"You shouldn't have gone after Vermin alone. He could have killed you." Felicia couldn't resist chiding as Chavez straightened up from her bucket and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She didn't say anything in response, just leaned against the table, head resting on the wooden surface along with her books and her eyes closed. Felicia turned to Wong. "Where did you find her? Is Vermin still there now?"

"America was hurt, but she was able to summon me underground." Wong explained. "Vermin is using the sewers to get around the city and to hide from law enforcement. I strongly suspect he's still underground, but finding him will be difficult. We no longer have the compass that can track crests."

"Well that's just wonderful." Felicia found that she was grinding her teeth. "What other good news do you have? I just can't wait to hear it."

Wong explained that, while Chavez's encounter with Vermin certainly could have gone better, she did learn a wealth of information about him. Wong recounted what they knew of Edward Whelan's life up to becoming Vermin, culminating with the attack on his despicable coworkers, who were the first to get a taste of his poisonous power.

"As for what he's planning next," Wong finished. "It seems his is indeed set on infecting as many people as possible, with the most efficient method being to poison the city's water system."

"And he knows… just how to do it too." Chavez spoke weakly, lifting her head finally to look at them. "He knows how drinking water comes into the city… where the aqueducts feed into reservoirs, then tunnels. There's a… huge valve chamber under Van Cortlandt Park. That's his target."

Felicia had to take a moment to process all of this.

"That… is a lot of information actually." She said after a moment. "Vermin actually told you all of this?"

"No, uh- not exactly." Chavez suddenly seemed very uncomfortable and Felicia suspected it wasn't because of her illness. "He… Vermin, I mean… I sort of- I can, um..."

"America and I have ways of getting information." Wong saved his apprentice from answering what Felicia considered to be a pretty straightforward question. "She risked her life to get this knowledge from him-"

"But how though?" Their vagueness was bothering Felicia and she pressed further. The answer seemed important. "How did she find all this out? Can you and her read minds or something?"

Neither of them said anything and she her pulse quickened ten-fold.

"You can read minds?" She asked directly.

Another second of silence passed, with just Wong and America looking at her, and then she was certain, as ridiculous as it sounded:

"You can read minds."

"In a way, yes." Wong finally admitted, and he was frowning still, more seriously than ever before. "It's more complicated than that though. Thoughts are not like words in a book. What we can do is more like-"

"Have you ever read my mind?" She cut in, and this time the ensuing silence was devastating.

Wong opened his mouth, but – for the first time in as long as she'd known him – it seemed that his words had failed him, and he closed it again. Felicia turned to Chavez, but she wouldn't meet her eyes and the guilty look in her face was more than answer enough.

"You… you have, haven't you?" Felicia's voice was quiet, but she knew they both heard. She didn't know which of the sorcerers to look at, and she found herself taking two steps backwards, away from them. "How? How could you? That's not okay!" She shouted at them. "How many times?!"

"Miss Hardy, please calm down…"

"Answer me!" It made sense now, how they sometimes knew things that she was sure she hadn't told them, how they knew the details on how Spider-Man had gotten sick, how they sometimes seemed to be looking straight through her.

She had seem them work all kinds of magic before, use countless offhand spells and odd artifacts, but mind-reading wasn't something she'd ever considered them capable of. She wondered now if maybe they were even the reason the thought hadn't occurred to her sooner. Could they stop her from thinking certain things? Could they influence her thoughts? Make her think anything they wanted? Were they inside her head at that very moment?

She felt very exposed, violated, stupid – Stupid for ever thinking she could trust these people that she hardly knew, for thinking they had ever trusted her

"You're sick." Felicia spat and they were both still just staring at her, saying nothing. "And I mean sick in the head, both of you. You act so high and mighty, like you have some glorious purpose. You treat me like shit, but the whole time you're poking around in other people's brains, like you have the right-"

"We do what we have to do." Chavez snapped, but at least she had the good-grace to still look somewhat shameful. Her tremors had momentarily abated, replaced with a steely resolve. "You have no idea the… the responsibility we've been given by the Sorcerer Supreme. We have to do everything in our power to protect this reality while he's gone."

"Bullshit! You keep saying that, but you both do nothing but stay here in your precious Sanctum. Who's actually out there fighting super-villains every day?" She asked, then answered. "Me! Me and Spider-Man! And you've never offered to help, you've never trusted me!"

"Why would we trust you?" Chavez pushed herself away from her table and staggered towards her, stopping when she came up against the wall of her dome. "On what world would you think that you've done anything to earn our trust?! That crest you wear," She jabbed a finger towards Felicia. "The one that you flaunt – you stole that from us. You're a crook and a thug, and if I had it my way, we would have forced you to hand it over a long time ago."

America was lucky. If it weren't for the barrier, Felicia would have rushed her and wrung her neck with her bare hands, crests and sickness be damned. As it was, Felicia trembled with rage and a sudden, sickening paranoia. Her fingernails carved deep lines into her palms as she clenched her fists and there was a burning sensation in her eyes that she vaguely recognized as the beginning of tears, but she hadn't cried since she was a child, not even when her mother and then father were ripped from her life in quick succession.

She doubted she even was capable of it.

"I'd love to see you try." Felicia hissed. "That is, if the disease doesn't get you first…"

"Please, listen to me for a moment." Wong interjected. He was massaging his temples as if he had a headache. "I understand how you feel, Miss Hardy." At her scoff, he quickly added. "And I understand if you don't believe me when I say that, but truthfully, I do know how you feel. My introduction to the order was much like this. America is right though, on a few counts. She and I must use all manners of magic to safeguard this realm and if you don't notice our protection at work, then that means we're doing our job right."

He stepped towards her gingerly, hand raised as if to clasp her shoulder, but she stepped out of his reach, her eyes flashing. Slowly, he lowered his hand.

"I'm sorry, Felicia." He said. "I'm sorry that we broke your trust."

Not forgiven. She thought, but said nothing.

"Through whatever means you came to hold the crest of the black cat," Wong continued. "You've proven to be responsible with it's power." He ignored the way Chavez spluttered indignantly behind him and kept talking. "I know it will not be easy, but we must continue to work together to stop Vermin, surely you understand that, Felicia."

Felicia wished that he would stop saying her name. It was a tactic meant to disarm her, she'd leaned from her criminal psychology classes.

She also wished that he wasn't right.

"Do not," She began, voice hard. "Read my mind. Do not touch me. Don't even look at me the wrong way. Got it?"

She waited until Wong nodded.

"I don't care what you think of me – either of you." She continued, shooting a glare at Chavez. "You told me that crests choose who gets to wear them. Well, this one chose me and I'm using it to help people. It's mine, and I'm going to use it to stop Vermin and then after I've done that… we're done here. I'm not working with you anymore."

Chavez opened her mouth to say something, but Wong beat her to it.

"That's fair." He said. "We can't ask you to trust us again."

"Right."

"And we won't try to take your crest."

"Good."

"On one condition," Wong clarified, and she stiffened. "You must bring the crest of the rat to us after you've taken it from Vermin." His words were measured and his voice was quite steady. Chavez, on the other hand, looked ready to explode. "Does that sound fair, Felicia?"

"Fine." She agreed. "But that's it."

He raised his hand for them to shake on it, but she only glared at it until he lowered it again. She'd demanded no touching and already, it seemed, Wong was forgetting her terms.

I won't let my guard down around these people again.

"About the time we first met," He said slowly. "I made you an offer. Do you remember?"

She did remember, and when she nodded, he gave a small, dry smile.

"It still stands, you know?" Wong continued. "I'm sure we haven't swayed you to our cause with all this, but things really would be a lot easier if you joined the order, if you became an apprentice sorcerer like America."

Felicia swallowed heavily.

"I… That's not going to happen."

She didn't have to think about it again. She knew what that would mean, what she'd have to give up. At her refusal, Wong only smiled softly and nodded to that he understood.

Felicia decided it was time to get back to the matter at hand.

"So… Vermin is going to attack this water tunnel under Van Cortlandt." She said. "Is he on his way there now?"

As much as she was ready to go find Vermin and end this, she didn't want to face him alone. She needed Spider-Man, needed more than anything to know that he was okay, and if there wasn't enough time to do that, then she might actually start crying for real.

"He's still weak." Chavez answered, looking supremely glum after the recent conversation, and coughing between most words. "He transformed to fight me, but he'll need to rest and recharge… We should have a few hours before he's ready to attack."

"Tell me about this cure you found." Felicia demanded of Wong. "You said that it wasn't ready to be used or… something?" Her thoughts were scattered, still on mind reading or mind-control and everything else, but she tried to focus. "Explain everything to me."

And he did. Wong told her how his research had led to the long history of magical diseases, categorized for hundreds of years by fellow sorcerers. One account, detailed a disease with similar symptoms to Vermin's plague, with mysterious origins, that seemingly linked it's spread to the use of an ancient artifact.

"Or crest?" Felicia guessed.

"Exactly." Wong led her over to his table, where he indicated a large book he had open there. "The sorcerer who documented this disease hypothesized that the artifact rumored to cause this disease was the rat crest, but was unable to prove it. She did, however, manage to cure the infected with this rare herb."

Wong showed her the thing, a brown and shriveled conglomerate of leaves and stems inside of a glass vial the approximate shape and size of a soup can.

"The Sanctum Sanctorum keeps a library of plants and fungi with magical applications." Wong said. "It's lucky that we had this particular herb on hand. It is called Yellow Claw and it's extremely rare."

"But you said that we can't use it."

"Not yet, at least. As is now, any solution we tried to make from this plant would be ineffective. It needs refining."

"Can you do it?" Felicia asked. "Could you refine a cure from this thing?"

Wong looked at her a little sheepishly.

"I'm afraid I can't." He admitted. "This type of science is its own kind of magic that is outside my skill-set, unfortunately. This here is also all we have of the Yellow Claw, so we cannot afford to experiment with it."

A dead-end then, or so it seemed. Felicia stared at the vial in Wong's hand. Now that she knew the herb's name, she could see that some of the leaves had a yellowish-tinge to them. The color reminded her of the neon glow that had shone from Vermin's eyes.

If Chavez was right, and although it pained Felicia admit she probably was – then all Vermin needed was some sleep and a decent meal and then New York's water supply would be tainted and the whole city would be incapacitated, and then…

A lot of people will get sick. A lot of people will die. She knew. And there's no way for us to make a cure. No one that can-

"Oscorp announced this morning that they're working on a cure." Felicia said suddenly. "If they had this Yellow Claw, they could refine it. Right?"

"Oscorp…" Wong grimaced with distaste. "They wouldn't be my first choice, but… maybe. They certainly have the resources."

"I wouldn't trust them…. with my dry-cleaning." Chavez chimed in. She had taken to sitting on the floor by her puke bucket. "Let alone this extremely rare and valuable flora."

"What if I could get this to someone at Oscorp that I trust?" Felicia reached out took the Yellow Claw from Wong, who allowed it be pulled from his grasp. "Someone who would make sure it was used for the right reason."

"Do you really know someone like that?" Wong asked.

"Yes." Felicia said, holding the vial to her chest. "I do."


Peter Parker wasn't sure what to do with himself.

He paced his bedroom, striding from the bed to his desk and back again. His police scanner was turned on and he'd took a little time this afternoon to fix the spotty connection issue, so now the room was periodically filled with streams of police chatter. It was a slow evening though, with only a few minor calls, some of which did involve people infected with Vermin's plague, but none about Vermin himself.

Peter had left the ESU campus and spent the rest of his morning underground searching for the villain.

Spider-Man had been down in the sewers before. Only a few months after he'd started out as a hero, he'd actually spent two whole days down there leading a search for a lost child whose mother assured him had slipped down a storm drain while playing. It was only when Spider-Man had come above ground again, near-tears because he hadn't found the damn kid, did the mother realize she hadn't checked the coat closet in their flat. Sure enough, the child was there, half drunk on sugary soda and completely miffed as to why everyone was so happy to see him.

Spider-Man had cried then, partially from joy, but also because he knew it'd be weeks before he got the smell of the sewer from his nose. It clung to him like a second skin, but at least he had learned about natural deodorizers then (baking soda for his suit and apple cider vinegar for his hair).

His time in the sewers this morning had brought back those memories and he'd had just about as much luck finding Vermin now as he'd had finding that kid back then. Both times, Peter had left the sewers feeling dejected and tired and reeking.

And with Vermin nowhere to be found and Black Cat equally elusive, Peter had decided there wasn't much to be done except head home to regroup and try again later.

May had texted to let him know she was still at the hospital and would likely be there for the foreseeable future. Vermin's plague had people streaming into clinics all over the city, beds were filling up, and staff were starting to fall ill too.

Peter felt helpless.

But there wasn't time for wallowing. He had to do something, and he was pretty sure that finding Vermin was the key to ending all this.

He made one last circuit around his room and came to a stop at his bed. The Spider-Man suit that he was wearing when he'd gotten sick had been placed into several tightly-sealed plastic bags and stowed in his closet. He had plans to burn the thing later, but in the meantime, he had a couple of backup suits he could wear

Peter stripped down to his briefs, tossing his clothes to join the already sizable pile in the corner, and then crouched low, flattening himself so that he could reach the dark space under his bed. He had just wrapped his fingers around the handle of his father's old briefcase, when a sudden noise made him freeze.

Tap tap tap.

He lay still for a moment, head and shoulders still crammed beneath his bed, listening with keen ears.

Tap tap tap tap.

Then noise came again, more insistent this time, and Peter realized where it was coming from. He left his briefcase where it was for now and shuffled out from under the bed gracelessly. Kneeling on the floor, he turned to his bedroom window and sucked in a sharp breath.

Black Cat was crouched on the fire-escape, one of her claws poised to tap on the window again.

They were both still for a moment, staring at each other and Peter's mind was a maelstrom of panicked thoughts, including:

She's here?! She's okay! She knows who I am?!

But no. She couldn't. It wasn't possible.

He'd been careful.

He'd learned long ago, the hard way, that his two lives needed to be kept apart and that no one could know who he was beneath the mask, especially the people he cared about. As a rule, he and Black Cat kept whatever they shared about their alter-egos vague.

They had agreed that no matter how curious they were about the other, they wouldn't pry.

And yet – she was here, staring at him, waiting for him to…

TAP TAP TAP.

She rapped her claw on his window again and Peter clambered quickly to his feet, fighting to keep his facial expressions under control as he crossed the room. With slightly wavering hands, he unlatched the window and slid it open.

Black Cat's long, snowy hair shifted in the evening breeze and her golden eyes with their vertical slits were wide as she looked him over head to toe. If Peter wasn't so worried about his blown identity, he might have noticed how her eyes lingered on his state of undress and how her cheeks pinkened ever so slightly.

"P-Peter Parker." She gasped. Her breaths were heavy, like she'd just sprinted a long distance. "I need your help."