The beeping of the heart rate monitor was the clock to doomsday. Peter knew it, and he couldn't do anything about it.
The light of the mid-day sun was spilling in through the windows, yet it felt faded and pale.
Mary-Jane was sitting beside him, but she didn't feel real - no doubt feeling her own feelings.
Her hand was on his shoulder, but he didn't feel it.
The steady Beep! Beep! Beep! was the only thing in the world that was this room.
He stared on and on.
Harry was getting thinner, his face becoming more gaunt, the fair complexion that he had now fading into a pale shade. All the while, his hair was growing longer, covering his ears now. He was so still that the only proof of him living was the almighty monitor, singing the same steady, never-changing tune.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
So mechanic,
So indifferent.
Peter's mind kept racing to the events that lead to Harry's circumstance. But in the end, they were all a result of circumstance, cause and effect, and consequence. Knowing Venom as well, would things have really changed if Peter had gotten help earlier? Looking back in hindsight, it seemed that Venom was focused solely on Peter - those moments where it tried to latch onto him.
"Do you think…" He found himself saying aloud, "Things would have changed if I…"
Peter closed his eyes and tried to regain his composure.
"...No."
He opened his eyes and looked at Mary-Jane, whose gaze was somber, sharp with glassy eyes.
"With what we know now, ever since he was…" She gestured to Harry, "...And how Norman did what he did… It… It probably would have happened one way or another."
Peter stared for a moment at Mary-Jane, then looked back at Harry lying still in his bed.
"Yeah…"
A moment later, his phone began buzzing. He looked at it, saw what it was, saw the time, and sighed.
"Another meeting?" Mary-Jane said.
"Yeah. Can't afford to miss any of them."
Mary-Jane ruefully smiled, "Go Tiger, I'll keep Harry from being lonely."
Peter looked back at Harry before standing up, "I gotta go. I'll be back soon, buddy."
As Peter walked to the door, he heard Mary-Jane behind him, "Be careful, Pete."
Peter looked back as he took hold of the door knob and nodded affirmingly. He opened the door and almost walked into Norman Osborn.
"Oh, sorry, Mr. Osborn."
"Please, Peter. Norman is fine."
"Right. Sorry, but I gotta go to a meeting."
"A few words then?"
Peter glanced at his phone, "If they're quick."
Norman flashed a smile, "A busy man now, huh? Its almost… feels almost yesterday you and Harry were side-by-side, basically brothers. And, now…"
He paused. Peter looked back at Harry.
"Peter… I didn't get to where I am today without making tough decisions. Heh, from what I hear you've had plenty of those."
Peter nervously chuckled, "More than I can count sadly."
"Same. But… some decisions… Sometimes we have to do what we need to do, yes?"
"Of course," Peter said, "Even if they are hard to do. Like rent or taxes."
"Right." Norman said, chuckling, but there was a wavering in his voice, he then looked Peter in the eye, "...Right. Exactly right."
Norman paused, and Peter saw that he wanted to say more but kept pausing, likely knowing what to say but the words kept jumbling in his mind, all the right things that kept drifting away. Just as Peter was about to prompt Norman to just say what he needed to say, his phone buzzed again, reminding him of the meeting that he needed to get to.
"Uh, sorry, Norman, I gotta go." Peter said, pointing to his phone.
"Ah! Don't worry, don't let me keep you. You've grown into a fine young man, Peter. I can tell. What we do during our ups and downs will define ourselves for the future. Remember that."
"I will."
Norman pat Peter on his shoulder, "Go on. Don't want your history of being late to catch up with you, do you?"
"Oh, come on…" Peter chuckled, then waved before jogging off.
Norman watched Peter go off before looking back at Harry lying on the bed, Mary-Jane still at his side having watched all of the conversation that had happened between him and Peter. He stepped in, his steps slow and the clicking of his heels seemingly loud, almost at odds with the heart rate monitor, still singing its steady tune.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Norman closed his eyes, his mind taking him back to another moment in time like this, another moment of loss.
He opened his eyes once hearing Mary-Jane getting out of the chair she was sitting in, "I can leave, Mr. Osborn."
"Please, Norman, Mary-Jane. You are his sister as Peter is his brother."
"...Okay."
"Thank you for being with him all these years, Mary-Jane. There were only two things in my life that I ever really loved - my late wife, and Harry. When I lost her, I… and now… The only thing I can do is watch him wither away."
"There must be something out there that can save him." Mary-Jane said, "Have you tried contacting -"
"My people have done the numbers over and over," Norman's eyes darkened and his voice quiet, "Over and over… There's nothing to be done."
Mary-Jane's eyes were wide with shock, her hand hovering near her mouth.
"Please…" Norman said, "I would like to be alone with him."
Mary-Jane stared at Harry for a moment longer before nodding to Norman and silently walked out of the room, closing the door behind her, the clicking of it bringing forth a sense of finality. There, alone, Norman stared at Harry long, the steady beat of the heart rate monitor like drops of water. Steady, not speeding up. The drops of water were from the ice in Norman's soul.
Beep!
One,
Beep!
Two,
Beep!
Three.
He stared and stared. The longer, the more a heat grew within him -
Beep!
One two,
Beep!
Three four,
Beep!
Five six -
His breathing paced, his chest rising and falling faster with every breath, becoming louder, his nostrils flaring as his mind raced back to the one person responsible for this. The heat grew hotter and hotter.
One two three four,
Beep!
Five six seven eight,
Beep!
Norman's hands tightened hard into shaking fists, his nails turning white. A scowl crept onto his face, slowly creasing his face and features into a mask. A mask of hate, anger, and resentment. Then, as the heat within him was reaching its peak, he shut it off, and his face relaxed.
He took a deep breath
Within him, he took hold of that heat, molded it into rock, then pounded it into steel, a different kind of heat forming it into shape with every hit now.
He took a deep breath, "I love you, son. I do what I do because I love you."
His phone rang.
He pulled it out, saw the caller, answered, "Is it ready?" His words were firm.
"Yes, sir. We're waiting on you."
"I'll be there." He hung up and stared at Harry for a moment longer, "I'll be here, son."
Peter swung through the city before landing at the top of the Empire State building as a place to sit to enter the meeting. He pulled a particular phone from his utility pocket, turned it on, and saw the notification of the meeting already underway. He tapped it and soon the phone opened an app that brought up a black screen. A wall of words then scrolled up in river rapids before ending at -
Authorized. Connecting…
Soon, the screen split down the middle to show the camera perspectives of Wilson Fisk on the left and Hammerhead on the right. In the middle, on the borderline, was a small square showing him through the phone's camera.
"Sorry, I'm late. Was dealing with personal stuff."
"Hmph, more personal than the fate of the city?"
"Still know how to talk big despite being ninety percent of the man you used to be." Peter said to Hammerhead.
Who sneered inside the tank that held his head. There was a faint hydraulic hissing in the background of the machine that kept him alive,
"Big talk for someone who couldn't take me alone when I had a body."
"Focus, gentlemen." Fisk said, "We can't afford to be enemies during these times."
"Right." Peter said.
"Hmph." Hammerhead then looked at Fisk, "My boys raided that place you said Willy. Its just as you said."
"Care to catch me up?" Peter said to Fisk.
"Before you had eradicated the symbiote menace, Cletus retreated from New York, taking the red symbiote with him. And from what I hear, you were there when you tried to stop him from leaving with another vigilante - Wraith, was it?"
Peter looked away, clicking his tongue, before looking back at the screen, "How far did he go?"
"All the way to Boston." Hammerhead said, "Turns out he's got influence all the way over there."
"How have neither of you noticed this?"
Fisk leaned forward in his chair, "That is what's so daunting about Cletus, he did all of his activities, outside of New York, under everyone's noses, even through all the dogs and eagles."
"True," Peter said, "Even since those incidents with the red knives, and those kids I stopped, and that time where I saved your guys, there hasn't been any sort of indication of what they're doing."
"That hideout, one of them actually, was being used until recently." Hammerhead said, "My boys didn't find anything but this video they left behind."
"Brace yourself, Spiderman." Fisk said, before both feeds of Fisk and Hammerhead were replaced by a video.
It started with a hard cut of three people -
A middle-aged man,
A young woman,
And a teenage kid.
The video was edited so that all shots of them were put into one screen, all of them being at a claustrophobic close up of their faces. Their expressions were the same of panic and confusion, either glancing around trying to get their surroundings in what looked to be a dark room or saying things to themselves. Given that neither seemed to be responding to each other, that implied that they were all in separate rooms.
Day 1
The words cut suddenly on a black screen in the video before changing -
Day 5
All three of them seemed to have gotten the notion that they were all being recorded and the middle aged man started looking into the camera.
"If…If anyone is seeing this - God I hope you're sane - uh, I'm being kept here by a bunch of crazy people. From what it sounds like, I'm not the only one. But, they mentioned that they injected something into us. Oh God help me… If this is found after I become… whatever I become, please tell my family that I love them."
The young woman, appeared to be breaking down -
"What did I do to deserve this? I was just doing my job - I needed the MONEY!"
The teenager -
"God help me. Save me…"
Day 10
"They… They stopped feeding us… I - I don't know why, but… Its… Funny… How long have I been here again? I keep hearing something, but every time I try to listen it goes away…"
"...Its there. Its staring at me…"
"...Love? Who would ever love me?"
Day 12
The middle aged man seemed to be in some sort of delirium, his jaw dropped, eyes wide and wild, diluted, his mouth opening and closing rapidly in raving, vocal incoherence.
The young woman had her mouth agape and her eyes staring deep into the distance in absolute silence.
The teenager was slightly swaying their head back and forth with a small gleeful smile on their face, their expression vaguely dreamy.
Day 13
All three of them were limp, their eyes drooping and mouths slack. The footage was long as the three shots lasted on their faces. Then, something happened. Their eyes closed, slowly their heads straightened up, they took a deep breath and exhaled.
They opened their eyes -
Milk-white eyes, no pupil, no iris.
They looked straight into the camera,
And smiled.
The video ended.
The cameras of Fisk and Hammerhead returned.
"...What, did I just see?" Peter said.
Hammerhead grinned, more at Peter's reaction rather than the video, "The psycho's weapon."
"The knives," Fisk said, "Was Cletus dipping his toes in the water."
Peter thought back to the kids from that bus shuddering as though they were in seizure and wailing like animals and throwing themselves at him like animals. If what Fisk and Hammerhead was implying was true, then…
"How deep does this go?" Peter asked.
"That," Hammerhead said, "we don't know. And that is what scares us."
"That," Fisk said, "is what's driving us to agree to bury all hatchets for now."
Peter rubbed his face through his mask, trying to wrap his brain around the implication of this revelation.
"Is it just us three?" Peter asked.
"There's a fourth." Fisk said.
"The broad - the Widow." Hammerhead said.
"Her?" Peter said, "She's allied with you? But she nearly killed Spiderwoman!"
"Surprised? Get in line. That's not what she promised us." Hammerhead said, "And that chick is the broad daughter."
Peter became silent, "...You know?"
"We don't know her name or identity," Fisk said, "That was her one condition for her participation. She is even making safe havens for us with her growing family."
Peter didn't sigh, didn't show any sign of relief, he didn't want to give any hints or implications.
But hearing Fisk talk about Widow's growing family, Peter remembered the teddy bear that was in the FEAST shelter when May was still alive. How, every now and then, he would see a kid all alone there.
"If you really cared about New York, you would have done something to help kids."
"New York is a large batch, Spiderman. I couldn't fret over every egg. Not even you could do that, being as spectacular as you are."
Peter shook his head and sighed, "Is it just us? Anyone else?"
"Hate to break it to ya', its just us." Hammerhead said.
"...No one else?"
"Scorpion, Vulture, Electro, even that man who calls himself Shocker were all killed by the Hunters." Fisk said, "Martian Li may as well be no longer viable. The only ones left worth trying are Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn."
"...What if the Underground was willing to help?"
"Ha! Those chumps?!" Hammerhead said, "What'ya gonna suggest next - Tombstone? Guy's gone straight."
Peter paused to think back on what he talked with Rafferty and Lola before Hammerhead got his attention back -
"Snoop around and see if you can find any hideouts that you and your sidekick missed. After all, those Hunters took the tech from those knuckleheads and put it onto their own heat. Since they dipped after their fearless leader died, we might as well steal their homework."
Peter thought back to something he had picked up from that abandoned subway station.
"If I am to be frank," Fisk said, "another symbiote would be ideal."
Both Peter and Hammerhead looked at Fisk.
"What?! A million dolla load'a shit! You want more of that freaky shit crawling around our city?!"
"I have people within Oscorp." Fisk said, "They tell me that Cletus's God came with that black symbiote on that rock you and that other Spiderman destroyed. In fact, that may have been the only thing that prevented Cletus from fully committing to his crusade."
Hammerhead scoffed, "Hate to admit it, but that red stuff's weakness to cold is a little tough when it comes with quantity on our end."
"We're running out of options," Fisk added, "My spies in Cletus's ranks are being picked off one by one, and he knows that we're peeking in on his 'righteous cause.' He's allowing us to see. One of my spies put it straight and clear - every spy that dies is a count down towards his so-called 'Judgement Day.'"
"Then we gotta prepare." Peter said.
"You sure you have no other super friends you kin call on, Spiderman?" Hammerhead said.
"To be fair on them," Peter said, "they are always busy trying to fix other world-ending shenanigans. Symkaria's still fixing their issues, and I heard Wakanda's stuck with a cliffhanger of some sort, and I heard the Avenger's got their main operation cancelled and are scattered around the world - they're always never home, funny enough."
Hammerhead sneered, "On our own, then."
"You never know, you can find friends in unassuming places." Peter said, before a siren in the distance got his attention, "Gotta go. On our next bar mitzvah, I'll share what I got." Peter left the meeting.
He slipped the phone back into his utility pocket and swung off towards the sirens.
"What'cha doing, Pete. You've been staying up late recently." Mary-Jane said, walking into the garage in her pajamas, when she saw the elephant in the room, "What is that?"
"Something that the hunters left behind in that abandoned station Cindy and…" He paused in his work.
"Pete?"
"It, uh… It turns out Widow is Cindy's mom."
"What? But, Cindy said that she died, right?"
"Looks like things are more complicated than that."
"Wait so -" Mary-Jane paused, trying to wrap her mind on this knowledge, "So, if Widow is Cindy's mom, why did she go so far as to nearly kill her?"
Peter took a deep breath, "Your guess is as good as mine."
"And this came from an abandoned station?"
"Their fight went through different places. It turns out that station was used as a base for the Hunters before they left, and this was meant to be used against me."
Mary-Jane set her hand against the pod, looking at what looked to be an incomplete suit through the glass. It was all black and looked to be skin-tight. There was a torso, pelvis, the right leg completed and the left arm almost. There was no mask or helmet to be seen. Peeking out from the incomplete sections and the missing limbs there looked to be material of an under suit of some kind.
There was a familiar terminal of the Hunters nearby as Peter was using his laptop to make mock-up designs.
"...This was being made with you and Miles in mind." Mary-Jane said, "Flexibility, agility, durability… There were even plans to incorporate Scorpion's and Shocker's technology. But… Kraven wanted to fight you himself -"
"Then the symbiote caught his eye." Peter finished, "Cindy's going to be in the hospital for a few more days. Hopefully, I can get this done beforehand."
"Maybe you can get Miles to help you?"
"Maybe. But, I can tell he's having the same trouble as me when I was his age in my Spidey career - losing time. I at least want to give him that. Some moments you can't replace."
Mary-Jane thought back to their memories with Harry, then through that what Norman said. She thought about it, but in the end she couldn't bring herself to say it, not now when Peter was focused on this.
"...Need someone to fit into the suit for measurements?"
Peter jumped in his seat, "What?! Uh, no. No no no! Besides, Cindy's, uh… taller than you."
Mary-Jane chuckled, "Then how about I whip up some coffee, maybe even a late night snack?"
Peter smiled warmly, "I'd appreciate it, thanks."
Mary-Jane pecked his cheek, "Don't work too hard, okay?"
"I won't." He said, then went back to work.
When Mary-Jane disappeared from sight, Peter looked over and reached for the component that he had gotten from the Slayer suit when trying to save the person inside of it. He remembered Cindy's perception-dilation, as best as he was able to put a name to it, and remembered how fast the Slayer suits were moving after releasing some sort of mode.
He stared,
He pursed his lip,
He shook his head and set it to the side, returning to the designs he was working on.
Mary-Jane went back to the house to do what she said she would when she got a buzzing from her phone. A message from one of her sources. She opened the text, saw a picture attached to it and her eyes widened and she covered her mouth.
"Oh my god…"
Just want to be clear, I'm trying to make this a self-contained story as much as I can. The mentioning of Wakanda and the Avengers is just flavor text and references, nothing pertaining to the story.