dynamics, 3
Like both Peter and Daisy had said, two weeks was enough time for Gwen to start adjusting to their new reality of being an Inhuman with superpowers. That part of Gwen’s life was starting to settle down, and they’d even done a couple of basic patrols with Daisy over the past week. It was just simple stuff – finding and stopping petty crimes before the police got there to make things worse.
Gwen had even seen the schematics Harley had drawn up for a specialised suit that would store and adapt to her electricity so she would have even freer control over her powers. That was exciting, and Gwen looked forward to it being completed sometime over the next few weeks. Their current suit, which was mostly a black and yellow bodysuit with some very basic electrical conductivity management worked in plus one sleeve looking like a nonbinary flag and the other one looking like a lesbian flag, was definitely enough for now though.
It wasn’t the powers weighing down Gwen’s mind, or the suits, or going on patrols or anything like that. It was the fact that Gwen’s so-called parents had lied to her about her own heritage for her entire life. They were already shitty enough as is, but this was just… it crossed too many lines. It was the difference between Gwen putting up with them in favour of financial support and Gwen no longer caring what happens as long as they could say their piece. Which needed to happen, soon.
The anger wasn’t going to subside on its own, anyway.
The Gays + Harry
Gwensbian: so
Gwensbian: i’m gonna do it
Gwensbian: soon, maybe in a few days
Rix2: oh damn
Rix2: we here for you, lean on us if you need to
Harold: seconded
Harley Gayvidson: thirded
Beter Barker: fourthed
Gwensbian: thanks yall
Gwensbian: i just
Gwensbian: i need to get it over and done with
Gwensbian: those fuckers dont have the right to get under my skin this much this long
Harold: damn fucking right
Harold: look, it’s a messy situation and probably the only right answer is to think it through and do what feels best
Harold: and you’ve thought it through
Harold: our texting until 3am conversations speak to that, truly
Harold: t r u l y
Gwensbian: …yeah
Gwensbian: idk whether to hope i earn my blue laces or hope i dont
Beter Barker: oh damn
Beter Barker: uh
Beter Barker: i vote no murder
Beter Barker: but
Beter Barker: maybe trash the guys car or something
Harley Gayvidson: blue laces?
Rix2: oh you sweet summer child
Beter Barker: ill tell you later
Harold: not that im encouraging it or anything but
Harold: I can afford a very, very good lawyer.
Gwensbian: witchboy u are my saviour
Harold: Sorry what was that?
Harold: That sounded like somebody who doesn’t want a very good lawyer.
Gwensbian: bro just embrace it the internet has spoken
Rix2: lmao
Harold: smh my head
At the sound of a heavy door in the containment and training facility – recently renamed ‘The Playground’ – gliding open, Gwen set their phone down and let out a heavy sigh. Right now, Gwen’s focus probably needed to be elsewhere. Daisy was never too harsh about Gwen being distracted – definitely not as harsh as she was with Harry, Harley and Riri – but Gwen still felt like they needed to sort their priorities out better. There was time enough to be angry and upset and mull over the family situation, and there was time to focus on training.
Gwen had latched onto the idea of vigilante stuff easily, without it even having been expected of them, so they just felt like they should be able to get into it more easily than this. Damn ADHD did not like being told what to focus on sometimes, though. Well, maybe a few laps to clear their head would help. So, without asking or being asked, Gwen got up and started running. She only channeled a small amount of her powers, both because it was a good control exercise and because she didn’t want a rush, she wanted rhythmic pacing.
Daisy simply jumped over Gwen’s path altogether, and moved to wait in the centre of the room until her younger sibling was ready to get started. Gwen appreciated that about her; Daisy actually respected the fact that Gwen knew what they needed. Something their supposed parents had failed to achieve, time and again.
When four laps had sufficed to get Gwen’s head out of the angry spiral of thoughts, they simultaneously pushed electricity out of their hands at a gradual pace and slowed down to a walk. Being able to actually control how much electricity to shove out was one of the most valuable superpower-related things Gwen had learned to do in these last couple weeks. It gave her far more control over her own movements. She wasn’t perfect at it yet, but definitely improving, judging by how it hurt less and less.
“Doing okay?” Daisy asked first when Gwen came to join her.
Gwen responded by dropping their head down on their sister’s shoulder. They’d definitely gotten pretty used to the idea of having a sister, and it was nice. “Eh. Can we talk about it after?”
Daisy nodded, wrapped an arm around Gwen’s back and gave them a small, comforting squeeze. “Yeah, ‘course. It’s just us for now, but Harley and Bobbi are-”
“-gonna swing by towards the end, yeah?” Gwen finished her sentence, and then flushed a little. “Sorry.”
Daisy shrugged, and stepped back. “I know how it is, don’t sweat it. And yep. I told Bobbi that if she gets here early to just jump in, so she might crash our session later. Plus, she’s skipping town tomorrow so maybe she’ll want to have a little fun!”
“Because fun means ganging up on the newbie and making me fend off both of you at once, huh?” Gwen jabbed back teasingly, and directed some electricity to flow through their body and dance out of their fingers just for the sheer stimulation. “So, sis, what’s first for today?”
When Daisy let loose a wide grin, Gwen immediately knew she was in for something gruelling.
“Well, Harley walked me through a bunch of the system schematics for the Playground last week and I’ve been messing around with some of the functionality here in my spare time, and I’ve cooked up something just for you. Something you haven’t worked on much is victim rescue work. It’s a little trickier for you because of the way your body emits high voltages when your powers are in use. You’ve already gotten pretty good when it comes to focusing where it goes, and this scenario I’ve whipped up will put that to the test.
“Essentially, I’ve set up a handful of different environments that have mannequin-civillians placed in various locations. Somewhere in the room, there’ll be a section of floor lit up green that you need to get all the civillians to. The mannequins are set up so that anywhere you’ve leaked a voltage level that’s hazardous to regular humans and in contact with them, they’ll turn red. The darker the red, the greater the damage. There will be a timer up on the ceiling to indicate how long you have to save them, but you won’t always be able to see it. Your goal is just to get all the hostages to the green zone before the timer ends. You don’t have to race and try get the fastest time, just beat the timer. Oh, and there’ll be various hazards and obstacles in the way. Make sense?”
Gwen chewed through all the information in their brain. There were bits of Daisy’s explanation that she half-missed, but really just needed to wait a bit for the information to properly load and process. Once it was all there, they nodded. “So, grab the civillians, don’t injure them, don’t run out of time. This would be much easier with Harley’s improved suit design.”
Daisy chuckled. “Of course it would, that’s why I’m having you do it now before you get the suit. And I’ll probably ask you to do this exercise every now and then after you get it, too. With a suit that can block and channel electrical flow only to the places you want it, you risk getting complacent with your powers. This is so that you don’t.”
“I know, I know,” Gwen waved her off, without any ill intent. “I do get it, really. Honestly, I-”
And then Gwen’s brain just latched onto something, and both siblings stopped talking. In about ten seconds, Daisy was going to ask Gwen what they’d just realised, but for now Gwen had some silence to process the thought that had just occurred to them.
It was about their suit, and had come up out of almost-nowhere, a delayed little lingering idea while Gwen thought about how convenient it was going to be. The way Harley’s theoretical design worked was purely mechanical; a clever rigging of conduction and batteries and a half-power mini arc reactor that would allow Gwen to freely leak electricity and be able to trust the suit to pick it up and hold the energy in storage for when it was later needed – because apparently as well as releasing electricity, Gwen could also absorb it to boost their powers a little bit more.
None of it was biochemical. Not one shred of the suit’s design. But if Gwen could biopsy some of her skin and take a blood sample as well to study and get a sense for how the electricity was conducted and perhaps even generated around her body, in theory she might be able to design a semi-biological conduit of sorts to work into the suit to at least double its efficiency.
“There are a lot of ifs,” Gwen started vocalising even without Daisy needing to prompt them, “but I have a few ideas that might help with my suit. I don’t think Harley’s workshop has the equipment I need to test this, but I can totally ask Harry to get me into one of Oscorp’s biochem labs for everything I need.”
Daisy’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh. I’ll do a sweep of their servers whenever you’re done to make sure any data left behind gets wiped, if you’d like? I can’t promise to understand whatever the science is, but do you want to write it down somewhere before we get started?”
Gwen blinked. Their brain caught up with Daisy’s suggestion. “Yes please, and shit, yes. Fuck, I haven’t even studied half of this stuff so I’ll probably be up all night tonight just reading the relevant papers, and science lit fucking sucks for easy readability.”
“Noted.” Daisy smirked, and pointed towards the back exit. “There’s a pen and a pad of paper sitting on that crate in the back of my van, and I’ll have the first scenario map set up by the time you’re back.”
“Okay!” Gwen shouted excitedly, but by the time they’d finished the word they were already standing outside. Three minutes later, she had a stack of four sheets of paper with various diagrams and dot point notes scribbled about. For good measure, Gwen also took photographs of each page on her recently quadruply-secured phone. The perks of having a big sister who was an expert at hacking and cybersecurity were great and many.
As it turned out, rescuing civillians and not leaving them with electric shocks and burns was hard, and it was even harder when Gwen had two very skilled elite agents pretending to be villains and getting in their way. It was even harder with mountains of fake-rubble and raging fires, but then again the pressure from the fire did help Gwen think more clearly. At least there was that.
Once Gwen had run through all of the courses twice, and managed to save most of the civillians with only light damage done to them until Bobbi had joined in to make everything harder, Daisy deactivated the training program and the two of them left the Playground so that Harley and Bobbi could train more freely. They took Daisy’s van back to Gwen’s apartment and settled down with some tea before starting into the heavy conversation.
Gwen was sat on one end of the couch cross-legged with tea in her hands, and Daisy was mirroring the exact same posture at the other end of the couch. It was comfortable, and felt siblingly enough that the emotional conversation was far easier to delve into.
“Seeing as it’s Saturday now, I’m thinking of going to confront them on Tuesday afternoon,” Gwen declared without any kind of icebreaker. “It’s the best timing to catch them both at home unawares, and fuck if I’m gonna let them prepare for this.”
“Okay,” Daisy acknowledged, and took a sip of her tea. She’d made chamomile for both of them, because it was nice and calming. “Want me there?”
Gwen’s eyes lit up in delight. “Oh that’d be incredible. What better way to make it clear to those fuckers what’s going on than for you to show up with me?”
Daisy tilted her head a little to the side, and her eyebrows raised. “Yeah, I guess there’s that. I’m definitely happy to come with as emotional support. What about Harry?”
“Nah,” Gwen shook her head, “Harry has a history of not liking my parents.” Gwen then paused, and made quotation marks with their fingers. “Well, ‘parents’. I think with something as heated as this, he might do something unwise. Well, the two of us together at a time like that will either keep each other in check or really, really not. But I’ll see about going to stay with him afterwards to cool down.”
“Gotcha,” Daisy smiled. “Well, what’s the plan? Anything you wanna run by me?”
Gwen paused to think about it. They both did and didn’t have a plan. Just showing up and having a checklist of things to confront their ‘parents’ about didn’t feel like a particularly complete plan. “Well, I’ll show up a little after five when they’re both home, tell them I know about Jiaying, and probably yell at them a bit for that. Then there’s all the other things to yell about, like all the queerphobia and transphobia and just how generally bigoted they are, among other things. I’m honestly not sure how I want it to end.”
Daisy set her mug down on the nearby coffee table. “Want me to be super blunt?”
Gwen nodded.
“Do you want to cut them off for good?” Daisy then asked.
Gwen clicked their tongue. “Well… I’d love to, but I’m also not opposed to milking them for some more money, seeing as I have rent to pay and all that. I don’t exactly have a job, or have much saved up of my own. I was kinda planning on trying to get a teaching or research assistant job at college after a semester or two.”
“What about if money wasn’t a concern?” Daisy questioned.
Gwen raised an eyebrow. “You’re totally planning something, aren’t you?”
Daisy smirked. “Perhaps.”
“Then maybe I don’t care if they cut me off, or if I cut them off,” Gwen responded. “Plus, I know the Osborns would help out if I needed it. I just… look, I want to cut them off at some point anyway, but I don’t know if I’m going into this with the explicit intention of doing that now.”
“Fair enough,” Daisy said, and then picked up her mug again and drank some more tea. “Do you have a self-care plan for afterwards? Not just immediately after, but also the following week or so at least.”
Gwen took in a deep breath, and then exhaled, and repeated it all once more. “The general idea was to just… keep myself busy?”
“Yeah, I can see that working pretty well for you,” Daisy agreed. “Just… try to think about some little things to do in the moments of down-time to look after yourself.”
Gwen nodded, set their mug down on the coffee table and leaned sideways into the back of the couch. “Yeah, okay. So, you’ll be there?”
“Absolutely,” Daisy assured her. “Though… Monday night I need to head out of town to meet a contact of mine about another lead on the Manufacturer. I should be back in time, but if I’m running late I’ll let you know.”
“Oh?” Gwen queried, wanting to hear more. Daisy had been working hard at tracing leads on the Manufacturer over the past couple of weeks, especially after studying every little detail about the case of terrigen crystals secured on that one Friday night.
“A friend of a friend – well, more accurately a business contact of my friend Hunter, who also happens to be Bobbi’s husband – had the idea of analysing things like dirt composition on that case, and I now know that there’s something related to the Manufacturer going down in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I have a specific location, so I’m gonna ride out and meet my friend Cailen there. They’re gonna help me raid the place and we’ll see what we can find. I can only really bring other Inhumans with me, because the ‘basilisk eggs’ can’t hurt us. I’m like… ninety percent sure the Manufacturer themself won’t be there, so it should be pretty quick.”
“I want to help,” Gwen blurted without much thought once Daisy was done speaking. It was very true, but Gwen was almost certain Daisy would turn her down, and say it was too dangerous.
Daisy paused for several stretched out seconds. And then-
“Yeah, alright. Not for this op, but once I’ve actually found the big bad, it’d be reassuring to know you’ve got my back,” Daisy said, and at that? Gwen could only smile.
After what had been a reasonably good day of working through lectures with Peter at the library and then later throwing down some novel writing thoughts onto a document back in his dorm room, Harley rocked up to the Playground ready and raring for what he knew would be his last training session with Bobbi Morse. Over the past two weeks, the woman had drilled him hard through exercises that were all designed to build up some real fighting instincts. She often brought up the point that when going up against enhanced individuals without enhancements of one’s own, instincts were what allowed one to compensate and keep up. Today, Bobbi was going to put Harley’s progress to the test.
He arrived a little early, just in time to catch the tail end of one of Gwen’s training sessions. Clearly, Daisy had put the walkthrough of the system schematics to full use; the Playground was configured with all sorts of walls, platforms and other structures that made it resemble the inside of an office building. There were even fires raging in some areas - controlled ones, which the Playground infrastructure was fully equipped to start and maintain. Within the office-like maze, Gwen was racing around faster than Harley’s eyes could even begin to track, whilst Daisy and Bobbi both chased after and attacked them with little reprieve. It was... beyond impressive to watch. Not just how far Gwen had come in controlling her new powers, but also how confidently Daisy and Bobbi both applied so much pressure to someone that fast. Neither of them had speed-related powers - Bobbi, as a matter of fact, had no enhancements whatsoever - and yet they were more than holding their own. The sight spoke to what was possible.
Harley hovered nearby the overhead hatch entrance in his suit and watched the remainder of the exercise, piecing together that it was some kind of civilian or hostage rescue scenario, with a big green tile off to one side serving as a safe zone. Gwen was racing in and out, grabbing mannequins and bringing them to the safe zone while avoiding her attackers. Some of the mannequins had big splotches of red on them, whereas others were uncoloured. Whatever the rules of this exercise was, Harley wanted to find out so he could give it a try later.
Once the exercise was done, Daisy deactivated the scenario, restoring the state of the Playground to just one big open space. She and Gwen made their way out, leaving just Harley and Bobbi inside.
“Alright, get out of that suit and grab your batons,” Bobbi instructed after giving him a slight wave as he descended to the ground. “I’m gonna go grab some water, and then we’ll get started. While you’re waiting, do some stretches and warm up.”
Harley obliged, stepping out of his suit and sending it to sit in a corner of the room, out of the way. His batons had been upgraded to include the recall function Bobbi had suggested, including small, subtle wristbands that Harley could wear so that he could summon them either in or out of the suit. With a rather specific wrist flick, the batons flew out of their holders and soared across the room right into Harley’s hands. He could even catch them without the slightest fumble, now.
He started doing one of the stretches Bobbi had taught him; by twirling the batons in his hands, he could not only loosen up his wrists but continue to get a better feel for their movement and positioning. After several of those, Harley worked through stretching the rest of his body via more traditional means, and then jogged a lap around the large room. On his second lap, Bobbi joined him.
“Shame that this is my last day here,” Bobbi remarked as they jogged. “I gotta say, you’ve been pretty fun to teach. Most of the techies I know tend to shy away from anything physical or field work related, but you’re in the small category of those who will just dive right in. Maybe I’ll encourage Mack to swing by here sometime, see what he thinks of you.”
Harley squinted at her. “I know that name, and I hope you aren’t sendin’ the director of SHIELD to recruit me or somethin’!”
Bobbi laughed. “Oh, definitely not. Chances are you’ll have to work with him sometime though, and if he isn’t already keeping an eye on the whole group of you, he will be before long. Whatever opinions you may have about SHIELD, Mack is a good person to know.”
Harley huffed, and jogged towards the centre of the room. He and Bobbi tended to at least do their warm up spars with an elevated platform in the middle, making the boundaries important to be spatially aware of - especially when there was a metre and a half drop back to the ground. “Hard to imagine a social call with the director of an organisation like that. Then again, can’t say I didn’t already expect it to happen sometime. So, what’s next once you skip town?”
The mercenary rolled her shoulders back, and slipped her batons out of the holsters across her back. “Might go catch up with my husband, since he’s not too far away right now – down in Florida. After that, though? I’m off to Portugal to see about a little protection detail.”
Harley gave his batons another couple twirls, and then brought them up as he shifted his footing into a neutral stance. “Huh. Alright, shall w-”
His question was answered before he could even finish it. Bobbi took the first swing, lashing out with the baton in her left hand and disarming one of Harley’s batons all in one movement. As far as he’d come, Bobbi was still the expert.
“You of all people need to think much more about spacing, even before any aggression has started,” Bobbi said firmly, giving Harley a moment to recall his baton and fix his stance. “You’re getting pretty good with close combat, but you also have naturally good aim, even in the heat of the moment. What that means is that if you’re more effectively aware of your spatial relationship with everything around you, you have options. Switching focus between getting close and personal, throwing a baton or firing one of your blasters. You’ve got the aim to adapt to split second decisions that other people might not, so make the most of it. Always be aware of spacing.”
Harley gulped. “Spacin’. Got it.”
“Good,” Bobbi smiled. This time when she lashed out, Harley was ready. He was ready because of her training, the way she could always be direct about what he needed to know, and test him at any point in time. But even more than that? He was ready because Bobbi was never harsh about it, which made it that much easier for him to get up and try again every single time.
Peter couldn’t help but cast a side-eye towards Harley as he stepped into his suit and it sealed shut over him. “Are you sure you should be coming with tonight?”
Harley placed his hand over his chest and gasped. “How could you underestimate me like this? It’s a personal attack! From my own best friend, no less!”
Peter just shook his head and sighed. “Don’t think I didn’t see that black eye starting to form, and I know Bobbi ran you ragged for her last night here.”
At that, Harley waved a hand dismissively. “I promise I’ve still got enough fuel in the tank. If anythin’, I’m even more prepared. Got my baton throws mastered at this point!”
Peter leapt up out of the rooftop hatch, laughing all the while. “I’m sure you do, Harls. Well, if you’re sure. Well, it’ll hopefully just be a pretty standard patrol anyway, and you, me and Riri can split up to cover more ground.”
The comms line in Peter’s ear buzzed to life at the same time as something heavy landed behind him. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that one, Spidey.”
Although he was glad to see that Riri’s suit now had proper face coverage to hide her identity, he was less glad that she’d spoken over comms while right behind him. As often as he’d experienced the staggered auditory effect, it still tripped him out a little every time. And now that he was part of an actual team, he only had more pressure to get used to it.
“What’s that?” Harley asked as he flew up out of the hatch. “Somethin’ come up?”
Riri nodded, and pointed south-eastward. “A Wakandan contact of mine sent word of a known Hydra operative sighted near the Marina Bay port. One who their intel said was supposed to be dead, as of almost ten years ago. Name of Donny Gill, codename Blizzard. I’d ask Daisy to come with, but I don’t wanna take her away from Gwen right now.”
Peter swore. From what he knew and understood, and even a couple of personal experiences he’d had before Thanos showed up, Hydra always made things messy. He didn’t know either the name Donny Gill or Blizzard, but with a codename like that, it was more than likely this person was an enhanced individual. Possibly a powerful one at that. And... well, on a normal day Peter would feel way more prepared for that. But this wasn’t a normal day.
Most of it had been nice, studying in the library with Harley. But after they both headed their separate ways, well...
Peter had run into Ned. It was completely by chance, and it wasn’t as if Peter had known it might happen eventually. Even so, seeing Ned walking through campus with a few of his new friends had not been easy. Ned looked healthy and happy, and the partially overheard conversation about a new edition of Pathfinder was searing itself into Peter’s memory against his will. It was just another reminder of what he’d lost. Even if things were getting easier now that Peter had new, good people in his life, it was Ned.
Surprisingly, Peter had managed to avoid a panic attack back then, albeit narrowly. He’d dodged out of the way, slipping down some unfamiliar pathway just so that Ned wouldn’t look at him and ask why the weird guy from the cafe MJ used to work at was at MIT too. After getting his bearings, Peter had managed to scurry off back to his dorm and work through every grounding technique he knew just to try and drag his mind elsewhere, and now he was here. A nice, easy patrol would have been perfect to clear his mind and get over it, and then maybe he’d have talked things through with Harley just to get it off his chest. But now? Now there was a dangerous Hydra operative in town, and that needed to be dealt with as a priority.
With his better judgement at war with himself, because tapping out now wasn’t an option if it meant leaving Riri and Harley to deal with Blizzard on their own, Peter swore again.
“You alright there, Pete?” Harley asked, his suited, masked face tilting in concern.
Peter shrugged. He debated just telling Harley that he’d seen Ned, and then decided against it. Now wasn’t the time to worry him. “I’ll be okay. Hydra is... well, dangerous. Do either of you have access to any helpful information on this person?”
Riri began slowly lifting off the ground. “Just that this dude’s got the ability to freeze shit around him, and supposedly has a hair trigger for violence.”
“I got nothin’,” Harley then said once Riri was done. “Marina Bay’s a ways across town. Climb on?”
Peter swerved around to Harley’s back and stuck on tight as the latter lifted off the ground. Latching onto a suit like this definitely wasn’t Peter’s preferred mode of travel, what with how little control he’d have if something went wrong, but he did trust Harley. It only took a little under five minutes to get there with Harley and Riri flying moderately fast, keeping within what little cloud cover there was to reduce the chances of being seen coming.
Once they arrived over the port, Riri held out a hand for Harley to stop. Both Harley and Peter were aware that Daisy had been training Riri to be a team leader, as did Harry and Gwen. Since nobody had any objections, Riri was starting to call shots on patrols, with Peter and Daisy offering any suggestions they might have as needed.
“Iron Lad, I want you to go stealth and stay nearby, but not too close,” Riri requested, making sure not to use personal names while on patrol. “If this turns into a fight, we might as well make the most of you being able to jump in and surprise this guy. Spidey, you’re definitely the diplomat of the three of us, so you should go in first and see if you can resolve this without violence. I’ll stick around above and be ready to jump in if things start going south.”
Harley and Peter both nodded. A moment later, Harley’s suit all but vanished - which was a little unnerving given that Peter was stuck onto the suit rather high up in the air. “I’ll wait for a signal before jumpin’ in, yeah.”
After being flown down to about a block away, Peter dropped away from Harley’s back and began making his way towards the port. None of them knew where in the port this Hydra operative was, but Riri had shown Peter and Harley an image taken of him, and the port itself wasn’t too big.
“I’ll go ahead and see if I can spot him for you,” Harley offered over the comms line. With that, Peter now opted instead to stick to the shadows and wait to hear back - which only took all of thirty seconds. “Got a visual. Donny Gill, sitting at a table on the waterside, by a place called Waterclub. Not currently aggressive by the looks of things.”
“Alright, I’m heading in,” Peter responded, and made his way over towards the waterfront. Instead of just walking straight up, he opted to jump up to a rooftop at the corner of the waterfront, and then across from above until he’d found both the Waterclub and Gill. Watching from above, Peter sized up all he could about the target. Gill looked young, especially for someone who was a known Hydra operative ten years ago. He had short brown hair, only a little longer than a buzz cut. Under the lighting of the restaurant he was sitting at, Gill’s pale skin looked the slightest bit blue. And just as Harley had described, he didn’t look aggressive at the moment.
Taking in the surrounding environment as well, Peter sighed in relief when he noticed that the area wasn’t too busy. There were some people milling about or sitting at restaurant tables or on nearby benches. Across the port water were many small yachts, all of which could be collateral property damage if a fight broke out. There weren’t any large open spaces nearby though, which made it far harder to see any way of moving a fight elsewhere - unless one of himself, Harley or Riri could physically drag Gill away.
Peter inhaled quietly, and tried to push some lingering thoughts about Ned towards the back of his mind. He exhaled, and dropped down a few metres away from where Gill was sitting before slowly approaching. “Hey there. Donny, right?”
Gill gripped the table he was sitting at, and cool mist started rising from near his fingers. “Who’s asking?”
“Just your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man,” Peter responded. “Checking in, making sure everything is okay.”
The man turned and glared at him. “The name doesn’t ring any bells, but it would seem that a lot has changed. Now, why wouldn’t everything be okay?”
The passive aggressiveness of his question did not go undetected. Peter took another breath, and searched his mind for a way to respond that wouldn’t turn this into a fight. Nothing came up, because he just didn’t know enough about the man in front of him. He could see that the other patrons of the Waterclub were eying both him and Gill warily, and contemplated the best way to clear them out. In his experience, people were several seconds slower to respond to Spider-Man telling people to evacuate than numerous other heroes, because he just wasn’t flashy enough. Maybe Riri would have more luck there.
“Ironheart, can you come down and start a precautionary evacuation?” Peter whispered under his breath, just loud enough for the microphone embedded in his mask to pick up. Then, he raised his volume to address Gill. “That’s an interesting question to be asked by someone from Hydra. I’m sure you can understand my concern, yeah?”
Even when Gill snarled and the nearby temperature dropped a couple degrees, it was hard for Peter to qualify his words as ‘the wrong thing to say’ when he wasn’t sure if there was a right thing. “I don’t want anything to do with that organisation, unless it’s to kill every last one of them.” Gill paused, and his face twisted as though contemplating something, all in anger. “Maybe when I’m done I can take care of SHIELD too.”
Peter sighed. “Can’t be having that now, can we? The killing, I mean. Sure there isn’t a more peaceful option?”
The man turned and looked at Peter dead on. His hand lifted from the table, leaving the entire thing covered in a thick layer of ice. Still no sign of Riri, either. “No. Do you know what it’s like to be betrayed and shot a moment after somebody insists they’re here to help you? To save you? Do you know what it’s like to then sink to the bottom of the ocean, to know that as your body encases itself in ice that you’re going to die? Or what it’s like to then wake up with nothing but power coursing through your veins? I don’t know who you are, ‘Spider-Man’, but I’m going to exact my revenge on those who hurt me, and make them feel every bit of pain they did me - only they won’t get to come back to life.”
It was the exact moment that Gill finished speaking that Riri chose to drop out of the sky and start shouting for everyone to leave and run away from the port. Unlike what would have happened if Peter tried that, people listened immediately; turns out when somebody shows up in an Iron Suit and says there’s danger, people listen. With a little bit of screaming thrown in, just to give Peter a nice little bit of disorientation. Usually he’d be able to tune it out, but he was not at the top of his game after the prior events that day.
“Well look at that, you brought a friend,” Gill hissed. “I guess there’s your answer then. No, everything is not okay.”
The temperature dropped several more degrees all at once, and Peter felt a shiver tear across his body. It was just his luck, going up against someone who could freeze things and manipulate the temperature like this. Ever since the spider bite, Peter’s body had lost a lot of its ability to thermoregulate. His current suit didn’t have any sort of heating features, which meant that there was only so much of this he could handle before his body would start shutting down. Maybe he should have tapped out, but he was here now. His best option was probably just to try and end this quickly, while Riri oversaw the civillian evacuation and Harley waited for a good opportunity to strike.
With that decided, Peter leapt towards Gill and swung a kick through the air. When Gill brought an arm up to block his kick, two things happened. First, Peter’s leg started freezing. Second, Gill didn’t get knocked down by the impact. No, rather than that, his skin shimmered with a deep, blue-ish hue. So, not only did he have ice powers, his body was tough. Peter bounced back, and winced when icy pain shot through his leg. Already, he could feel a wave of drowsiness beginning to slow him down.
Riri had taken the opportunity from Peter disengaging to fire a shot at Gill with one of her blasters. The strike landed against a solid sheet of ice that Gill had produced to defend him, ultimately achieving nothing. Right, Peter thought, Keep a distance. He leapt back, immediately feeling much-welcomed warmth as he got further away from the enemy. A small dose of clarity washed through his mind, and he fired off several web shots in quick succession. Even if Peter was usually the primary close-range fighter of the group, he was going to have to stick to ranged support.
None of the web shots landed. Each and every one of them was frozen in the air before they could reach Gill, thwarted by a single outstretched hand. Gill’s other hand was busy defending against Riri’s blasts, and there wasn’t much sign of him letting up.
“Iron Lad, now,” Riri hissed over the comms, and Peter took that as his own cue to launch back into the fray. In order to make the most of a surprise attack from Harley, Peter and Riri needed to keep Gill as busy as possible. In Peter’s case, that meant firing off web shot after web shot in the hopes that something would land and restrain Gill even a little.
So that was exactly what he did, firing off shots as fast as he could while Riri hammered at Gill’s other side with her blasters more and more and more. Without deactivating his stealth mode, Harley fired a concentrated blast into Gill’s back from behind, and even when none of Riri and Peter’s efforts made contact, Harley’s did.
The charged up repulsor blast belted into Gill’s back and shoved him forward onto his knees. The back of his shirt burned away, doing enough damage that the front fell too. When Peter saw what lay beneath, he almost shuddered. A couple inches above his heart lay a thick scar, with a matching scar in the same spot on his back. From that, Peter could guess that he’d been shot clean through. The disconcerting part, though, was the webbing lines of deep blue that pulsed outward from that scar and across his body. It looked almost like...
Vibranium.
So that was why Wakanda was involved. It explained Gill’s durability and hinted at a dangerous amount of strength. If he had vibranium running through his body, the threat was way higher. It even left Peter wondering if he, Harley and Riri could handle this without backup.
Gill roared in pain and frustration. He surged upwards and grabbed the nearest table, which he then threw effortlessly at Riri. Even when Riri was able to dodge, the evasion cost her time, which Gill made the most of. He whirled around, and when he couldn’t see where Harley was, he locked his sights on Peter.
“WHY WON’T YOU GUYS JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” Gill yelled, and leapt at Peter. He should have been fast enough to react, but the closer Gill got, the colder the air grew, and the more tired Peter became; until Gill was right up next to him and freezing the exterior of his suit solid. It would only be moments before the cold seeped all the way in, and Peter would be done for.
Something ripped him away from Gill’s proximity, but Peter couldn’t tell what. The drowsiness had come back full force, and before he could even try to comprehend the screaming near his ear, his consciousness slipped away.
“Aw, shit,” Riri cursed as Harley rescued Peter from Gill’s clutches. Things were looking crap right now. Peter was the best fighter among them, and he was rendered basically useless by the cold, leaving only Riri and Harley to take this guy on. And... not only did he have the ability to freeze things around him, that was vibranium running through his body. No wonder Shuri had sent Riri a message asking for her to check this out. There was no time, there hadn’t at any point been any time to be pissed that the first thing Riri heard from Shuri in months was a request to deal with this Blizzard guy so that Namor didn’t get pissed and start another fight. No, there was only time to fight and survive.
Riri’s thoughts raced for options, tools and anything else that might help turn an advantage. Her own main weapon with this particular suit was her blasters, and it really wasn’t designed to get too up close and personal. It could handle some cold, but not well enough. She could charge her shots just like Harley had, and that might be enough to break through and land a decent hit, but that required enough time to charge one up.
Harley, on the other hand, could get in close. His suit was better insulated against the cold, and he had those batons of his. But... could his suit handle the combination of the cold and vibranium-enhanced strength? Riri wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t sure how wise it was to risk trying. The two of them could try a little bit longer to take Gill down, but if they made no progress they really would have to disengage and flee.
The air continued to grow colder around the shop-lined inlet to the point at which the water’s surface started to frost over. Harley had set Peter down a good hundred metres away, but wasn’t yet returning. “Iron Lad, what’s the holdup?”
“His breathin’s slowed down and his vitals aren’t lookin’ good!” Harley’s response came through sounding panicked. “I gotta get him somewhere warm.”
“Fuck,” Riri swore again. “Alright, I’ll do what I can to hold this fucker off. Take him to Gwen’s place or something? That way you can grab Quake and come back.”
“Are you sure?” Harley questioned while Riri flew upward to avoid an entire bench that Gill had thrown towards her.
“Just go,” Riri insisted, “and bring backup!”
Once Harley had finally flown off with Peter’s unconscious body in his arms, Riri dedicated every last bit of her focus to the threat below her. This guy was just too durable to be taken down easily, just like the Talokanil had been. If Riri had her vibranium suit she’d have the power needed to take him down, but her original design just didn’t have enough power. At least, not without a suitable distraction to let her charge up a powerful enough blast.
“Aren’t you going to run like your little friends?” Gill challenged. “You all underestimated me. At least they understood.”
“And leave you to go around murdering people? I don’t think so,” Riri bit back. “Nah, no way.”
Gill shook his head, and sighed. “So be it. Now that I’m back, you can be the first to die.”
Right then, something dropped out of the sky right in front of Riri, from several hundred metres above. Something slim and black, with linings of gold. With pointed feline ears, and a glow of power. That was-
“I don’t think so, white boy,” an achingly familiar voice taunted. “I don’t care what your past or motivations are, I cannot let you run around using the power of vibranium for murder.”
The black suit that had fallen from the sky thrummed with even more power and energy on collision with the ground, storing it all up for later. The suit’s mask momentarily retracted, just long enough for the person within to look up at Riri and wink. Riri’s breath caught, but she kept her distance. More than that, she started circling from above, waiting to see what would happen and how she could best help.
Because now the Black Panther was here to help. The Black Panther, Princess Shuri, the girl who’d given Riri the biggest fucking crisis ever and then gone radio silent until barely an hour ago. That was a lot of drama to deal with, and it was gonna have to wait. Right now, Riri had bigger fish to fry. With Shuri here as backup, winning was possible.
“And who the hell do you think you are?” Gill demanded. He grabbed Shuri’s arm and tried to freeze her solid, only to find that his power had no effect on her suit.
“That’s right, you’ve been imitating Steve Rogers at the bottom of the ocean for the last ten years,” Shuri responded. “I am Shuri, Daughter of Ramonda, Princess of Wakanda, and its protector, the Black Panther. You, Mister Donovan Gill, are not the only one with powers granted by infusions of vibranium. I urge that you surrender and come with me to Wakanda peacefully.”
“Sorry, never heard of Wakanda,” Gill said as he tried - and failed - to wrench Shuri’s arm to one side. Shuri responded by ripping her arm free, and punching Gill in the gut. The blow was enough to send the man flying out onto the water, where he collided with a yacht and fell. The water below him froze enough for him to land on it, and Shuri leapt down to join him.
Riri followed from the air, and started charging up both of her blasters. Once they were fully primed, one hit would be enough to take Gill down. Then Riri could deal with the fact that Shuri hadn’t just messaged to ask Riri to clean up some mess for her, she was here. After all of twenty seconds of Shuri holding Gill off and keeping him distracted, Riri was ready. She fired the shot right at his back, and Shuri effortlessly curved out of the way. Even without any direct communication line between them, Shuri had adapted to an unspoken plan and worked with it flawlessly.
Gill fell, and didn’t get up again. Shuri knelt over him and pressed one of her Komoyo beads to his back, confirming that he was still alive and his life wasn’t in any critical danger. Only when Shuri picked Gill up and leapt back up to more solid land did Riri descend to meet her.
“What the hell, Shuri?” Riri practically yelled.
Shuri deactivated her mask and smirked. “It’s nice to see you too, Riri Williams. How have you been?”
“How have I been?” Riri exclaimed, and jabbed a finger at Shuri’s collarbone. “How have I be- It has been months since you- since- damnit Shuri, a call would have been nice.”
Shuri frowned, and hummed. “No, you’re right. And I would have dropped by or called if I had a chance, but things have been very busy in Wakanda since the truce with Talokan was formed. Even now, I’m here because Namor demanded that King M’Baku have Mr Gill taken care of as a show of good will. Thank you for the help, by the way. You and your new teammates.”
Riri huffed, displeased. “You’re welcome, I guess. So does that mean you ain’t here to stay?”
Shuri nodded, her eyebrows furrowed in some small form of dismay. “That is correct. I must take this man back to Wakanda to see if we can extract the vibranium from his body. If not, there will be months of talks with Talokan to decide what will be done with him, as both M’Baku and Namor are stubborn bastards. I wish I could stay to continue where we left off last time, though.”
A coy smile sprung into place with those last words, and Riri couldn’t help but grow flustered. “I- do you even know how much of a headache that caused? Just giving a girl a sexuality crisis like that and then bouncing?”
Shuri’s mouth dropped agape, and held there for several seconds. “You... Riri, are you telling me you thought you were straight before that?”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it,” Riri grumbled.
“Oh damn,” Shuri exclaimed. “Even Aneka thought my flirting was obvious, and that’s saying a lot. That perhaps explains why you didn’t seem to take the hint.”
“Why I didn’t- flirting?” Riri floundered. “Man, I thought you were just being friendly. Anyway, I have a- well, I don’t know what we are, but... I’m seeing someone, okay?”
Shuri shrugged. “That wouldn’t be a problem for me. You know, polyamory is rather common in Wakanda. Perhaps... well, perhaps when I am able to return, we could catch that Bulls game? If your... someone is comfortable with that, of course.”
Riri groaned. “Wow, you’re just- I’ll... think about it.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Shuri grinned. “See you later, American Scientist.”
And then a Wakandan jet flew overhead, and she was gone. Just like that, once again leaving Riri to only stare and question everything.