2 | In the House of Hope
Act 1
Chapter 2
In The House of Hope
- - -
Symkarian Rebel hideout
“…that’s stupid.” Felicia shook her head and leaned back from the roundtable, ridiculed. “Might as well just march over into the capital with our hands tied and a royal decree announcing our surrender as well as accepting our role as a vessel state.” The platinum blonde pointed out towards her half-sister with narrowed eyes.
“I’m down with the Cat Bimbo.” Teresa chimed in from her spot with a sing-song voice, lounging on a crate and eating grapes.
Is this shit run in the family? Felicia huffed at the title given by the little sister of her friend, and reverted to the gathered generals surrounding Sylvia Sablinova “There is more than one way to secure those supplies.”
“Oh, do tell!” Sylvia was frustrated “I didn’t know you had experience running guerilla tactics. Enlighten me.”
Felicia huffed at the mocking tone coming out of her half-sister, waving it off without a care, clearly seeing the stress of the dwindling supplies for the rebels that got to her head “I may not have led men as much as you did, if ever,” she rested her palms on the table, leaning forward, staring deeply into her half-sister’s turquoise eyes “but I am the best thief you’ll ever meet. And this?” she pointed to the regional map on the table with markers and pins “Is nothing but a disastrous heist in the making. If you are as smart as you want everyone to believe, Sylvia, you’d do well to listen.”
“Boom!” Teresa added from the sideline with a chuckle, enjoying the exchange a little too much.
Felicia glared at the spitting image of the vigilante but crazier, and the Chameleon just shrugged in response. Averting her eyes to the silver-haired rebel leader, Felicia sighed, “Do we know where they get their supplies from?” After wording the question, she looked around the roundtable for anyone who wanted to add any information.
“There are small settlements around this region,” one of the generals, Gratis, pointed out a small circle taking up about a ten-mile radius in the Southern region of the Latverian-Symkarian border “Mostly farmers, but due to the desolated nature of our soil, the majority of farmland stretched into Latveria.”
“Humor me a little, then; what happened if the previsions from these settlements turned out to be…spoiled or lacking?” Felicia inquired, casting her emerald eyes on every person present at the table, then landed them on her half-sister.
“…A small squadron or a platoon will be sent, depending on the severity of the crime. They will act as the Von Doom’s hammer in rectifying the misbehaviors of their subordinates.” Sylvia stated with a hint of realization on her face, looking back at the second daughter of her late mother.
Against the voice inside her head telling her not to do it, Felicia averted her eyes toward the little sister of Spider-Man who is here as a proxy for SHIELD to maintain the relationship between them and Symkaria; a diplomatic implant, if you will. “How are you with a squadron?”
“Eh. It might be a little challenging, depending on what type of soldiers are sent in, but I’ve got no complaints so far.” Teresa replied with a shrug, “But if you want it clean, I need more time.”
“How about no casualties?”
“…you are kidding.”
Felicia shook her head.
“Don’t tell me you are afraid to disappoint a little spider in the faraway land?” Teresa teased with a smirk, sprung up, and leaned forward excitedly “Aww. Did Wilson Fisk’s little princess fall in love with his enemy?” the Chameleon crawled a little towards the platinum-haired woman “Lil Kitty Cat caught in the Spider’s webs?” the teasing was delivered like a nursery rhyme.
“Specs of the containers?” Felicia averted her attention with a groan, looking at the generals and Silver Sable, ignoring the assassin’s jab “Wood? Composite?”
“Most likely composite crates,” Sylvia replied, “Victor Von Doom is no stinge when it comes to budget spending; especially the one he siphoned from our family’s treasury.”
“If this keeps going, I might consider going back to being a thief, you know?” Felicia teased with a lopsided smirk, then returned to the topic at hand “I assumed they won’t be going over 60 kilometers-per-hour for their convoys?” the generals and Sable nodded, but Teresa just shrugged her shoulders with pursed lips. “This is the passage they will take?” they nodded again.
“What do you need, aside from using the Chameleon to secure the disguises?” Silver Sable concluded and inquired.
“…a lot of hoes and shovels. Some guile tarps. And the exact list of supplies we need plus the same amount of spoiled goods for replacements.”
- - -
The House
Gwen stirred awake with Peter’s arm securely locked her in place across her midriff, gathering her naked back flush against his chest, his steady warm breaths brushing her golden hair. She hummed and pressed further into him, feeling his hold instinctively constricting along with her shifting form with a quiet protest in his throat rumbling within his chest.
“Pete?” she whispered his name with a fond smile, hearing a grunt as an acknowledgment “I gotta pee.”
“Do it tomorrow,” he grumbled like a sleepy child, sinking his face further into her hair, and tightening his hold.
“Come on, I don’t wanna wet the bed.” She pushed and finally, he gave, releasing her from his arm as he slowly opened his eyes with a pout. “Just so you know; you are not that cute with it.” She playfully jabbed at him, and Peter clutched an imaginary pearl around his neck.
They shared a laugh as Peter watched Gwen pick his discarded shirt off the floor, mesmerized at the contour of her body against the Moonlight, “…Damn,” he muttered dreamily under his breath, roaming his hungry eyes all over Gwen.
“See something you like?” the sunflower-blonde giggled as she reached the door, looking back over her shoulder and wiggled her shapely hip enticingly.
“I couldn’t even begin to pick a favorite.”
“Charmer.”
“Can’t help it.”
“Want anything from downstairs?” she opened the door, hanging around the threshold.
“Water would be nice,” Peter replied with a sleepy smile, laying his face on the pillow once again.
“Comin’ right up.” The sunflower-blonde waved and started making her way out into the second-floor hallway.
“Thanks, babe.” Peter sang from inside with a yawn.
Gwen was about to descend the stairs when she heard fainted button clicks coming out of the room where Harley Keener had turned into an arcade haven, according to her brother’s statement. Stopped and listened, she heard quiet exclaims from the inside through her enhanced senses and produced a fond sigh before opening the door to reveal that her brother and Aña were still up and gaming despite the hour on the clock. “What do we have here?” she inquired, resting her hands on her cocked hip with narrowed eyes.
“Shit!” Howard exclaims and quickly sets the controller down after pausing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the monitor. “Hey! Thought you were asleep.”
“Same here.” Gwen retorted, crossing her arms and looking at the sheepish grin on the little Latina’s face aside from her little brother’s “It’s waaay past your bedtime, Aña.” Her voice softened and the scold dissipated a little.
“Can we at least get till the end of this stage?” the adorable little thing pleaded with a wide smile.
“…fine.” Gwen relented with a lighthearted huff and made for the hallway again. “I better not hear you guys in this room when I’m back, got it?” She squinted her eyes and pointed her fingers at the duo.
“Yes, mom! / Si, mama!” both simultaneously answered with a giddy tone before getting back to the game as Gwen left with a shake of her head, graced by an affectionate smirk.
She descends the stairs to the bathroom and quickly gets rid of her full bladder before making her way towards the kitchen. But as she neared her destination, her eyes met with a pair of widened blues coming from the living area, framed by the parted black hair of Kate Bishop. “Oh! Did I wake you up?”
“No.” Kate dismissed with a scoff, for a moment before a hint of red touched her face with a cough “…maybe?” a knowing look shared between them, and Gwen immediately felt the room increase in temperature in an instant.
“Fuck…uh…” the sunflower-blonde started with a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding eye contact “We kinda…forgot that there are people in the house too…”
“Evidently.” Kate encouragingly replied with a flat smile, and a thumbs up “I mean, get it girl! You know?” Kate snapped her finger with enthusiasm, so much that it stirred the Tennessean in the other sleeping bag.
“Wha…”
“Go back to sleep, Harley!” the archer demanded in a whisper, squinting her eyes at the disturbed sleeper as if to will him back into slumber, which seemed to be working as a quiet snore started coming back. “So…good night?”
Peter stirred awake after he sensed a brush of hair on his face, eliciting a smile on his lips as his hand quickly automated toward the side of Gwen’s face just to be confused by the different shape that prompted him to open his eyes. He met with a pair of blues, as usual, yet of a different shade than that of the petite blond. This one harboring uncertainty underneath a glint of longing and yearning, and the veil falling around them is black, not golden.
“…hey.” The usually confident voice meekly uttered the simple greeting with a sheepish smile as she stared down from above.
“Kate?” he had to voice her name in confusion and quickly propped himself up by the headboard, looking at the woman again to confirm his sight “Something’s wrong?”
“Aside from the fact that she had to sleep downstairs last night?” Gwen’s voice came in from the door as a latch could be heard, and soon a water bottle was tossed in an arch aiming at him “Nothing’s wrong.” The petite blonde wears a soft smile on her lips and eyes, closing in on the bed while shedding the shirt out of her body, letting the Moonlight sear an image into their eyes.
Kate was awestruck at the silky skin covering the entirety of Gwen Stacy, curving in all the right places and perfected by five tattooed rings of black on her left arm and a single scar of a bullet wound on her abdomen. Her golden hair plays a glimmery façade with the silver light of the celestial body in the night sky, casting a mirage of a nymph before her eyes. “Uh…” Kate tried to form a coherent response to the generous display but failed miserably in her stupor, unable to stop admiring the smaller woman’s body as her eyes kept roaming to the patch of soft fur with a palette that matched the crown of gold on Gwen’s head, enticingly inviting any who laid their eyes upon to plunge in and rest atop.
“So,” the sunflower-blonde whispered with a smirk gracing her lips as she descended ever so slowly onto the stunned raven-haired woman, tracing her finger under the beautiful archer’s chin “We can talk logistics in the morning; if you can get up,” Gwen whispered against Kate’s gasp and took the taller woman’s earlobe between her teeth, nibbles ever so softly to elicit sweet moans.
Peter let out an approval hum and laid back on the mattress, discarding the blanket as Gwen lightly pushed Kate on top of him with a little yelp of surprise coming out of the archer. “Last chance,” Peter said while snaking his arms around Kate’s familiar waist, hugging her tight against his chest with a warm smile “In case you wanna back out,” with a lifted eyebrow he loosened his hold a little, just enough to allowed strength of a normal human an escape, but Kate lays there with an increasingly happy smile upon her face as her hands come up to cup his face between them, grazing the callouses born from thousands of drawing arrows on braided strings, caressing his cheekbone with the lightest of touches.
“…I’ll pass,” Kate whispered against his lips and descended upon it like a starving vulture, devouring everything he had to offer with an awakened beast, her hands retrace the skin and muscles of his neck and chest once again after so long. Every steel-like fiber reacted to her touch the same way she remembered, and his hand slid under the hem of her PJ to trace a trail of goosebumps from the contour of her hip up until it cups fully at her left breast, kneading lovingly with just enough force to render her nerves a writhing mess under his electrifying skin. Sitting back up, freed from his arms, Kate let the petite blonde who approached her from the back pull her PJ over and discard it into the pile on the floor, exposing her tanned skin against the lazy glow of silver.
Toned muscles from extensive physical training lined beautifully into a mesmerizing map under her skin, contrasted stunningly with supple and soft mounds under Peter’s attentive palms. Battle scars dappled here and there from many run-ins with death as well as Yelena’s brutal sparring with live weaponry to harden her reflexes and muscle memories. A pair of lips peppering kisses along the crook of her neck and deft fingers caress her arms, arching Kate’s back into a bow and pressing at the woman worshipping her from behind. Underneath her heated core, she felt Peter’s throbbing hardness pressed and slotted perfectly between two swollen lips, and she ground out of wanton onto the superhuman trapped under her weight.
“You are so fit,” Gwen whispered against the archer’s ears, her hands started replacing Peter’s atop Kate’s firm breasts, tracing the almost similar electrifying touches all over the mounds of flesh. Kisses descend upon the beating pulses in random patterns, suckling the tender flesh between her nibbling teeth, and tasting the salty taste with light dabbles of her tongue. “So firm,” the sunflower-blonde crooned sweetly as her fingers captured the perky nubs and gave them a soft pinch, eliciting an endearing moan from the raven-haired woman.
“I have to stay in shape—” Kate’s cheeky reply got interrupted by a sudden yank that tore away her short as Peter lifted her whole body like a pillow to be planted onto his face, pressing the steaming canal over his mouth, sending a jolt of electricity throughout her body and rendered her weak at the knees. “Oh, God…” she whined and quickly found her love handles at the headboard, gripping her knuckles white as he began enthusiastically eating her out. With powerful thrusts, Kate ground on Peter’s face while her lips were locked with Gwen’s in a breathless train of deep and hungry kisses, pulling and pushing one another for dominance.
“Almost forgot how beautiful you are…” Peter whispered with slight disbelief into the still air, looking down at the unusually shy Hawkeye trapped between his arms on the mattress, her illuminated face flushed with excitement and eyes glazed with arousal. He slowly lowered his lips until they touched her collarbone and traced a trail down towards her chest, taking on erected bud between his teeth to be gently nibbled and tugged to draw out the honeyed moans that sing music into his ears. His hands landed on the curve of Kate’s waist and her unattended breast, kneading so lightly as to not unintentionally hurt her. He traced his electric fingers on the valley that is her body like a cartographer braving the new frontier marking a map until her calloused fingers rested firmly atop the soaking crevices before ushering his middle finger as a daring pioneer into the velvet cave.
With familiar touches and paces, Kate quickly arched her back into his unrelenting rhythm that pulled her closer and closer to the edge, again. “Pete—” Her exclamation fell into the abyss of ecstasy as the wave of overwhelming pleasure crashed into her core and soaked the mattress again. She curled her body up and gathered Peter’s strong body into her arms, clinging to him as she rode off the orgasmic bombardment on his still-pumping finger with a breathless grunt.
With a smirk, Peter traced his soaked finger up the contour of Kate’s body and rested it softly against the archer’s gaping mouth until the raven-haired sensually took it into her warmth with a mewling whine, tasting herself on his skin. “…good girl,” He whispered with a raspy voice as he lined his tip at her entrance, nudging the twitching labia.
“Good girl?” Gwen recounted with a grin on her face, looking at the raven-haired mess sucking her boyfriend’s, their boyfriend’s, finger like a lollipop. “My, my…”
Peter smirked at the blonde and slowly entered Kate’s familiar walls, parting the fleshy canal until the head grazed against her throbbing cervix with a sigh, resting his forehead against hers to breathe in the mingled air coiling between their mouths. He starts moving as Kate clenches her muscles around his intruding probe, in and out firmly but slowly, mindful of the strength he shouldn’t exert on her fragile body.
Gwen crawled around until her face mirrored the archer’s euphoric one, lazily capturing the whimpering moans escaping the agape lips into her mouth, swallowing the needy and wanton cries into her stomach and letting them root deeply inside her core. At the same time, her hands roamed the contour of toned muscles underneath the sun-kissed skin mapped with shallow scars.
Kate gasped again as Peter started gaining speed on his hip, thrusting with deep strokes as his grunts filled her ears while her arms snaked around his muscled neck seeking permanent purchase to brace the constant rocking motion. Her nails raked into the flesh on his back drawing pearls of blood as his intensity increased tenfold, ramming into her soaking folds with reckless abandon, reaching to the deepest depth and retracting to the shallowest opening in repeated rhythm, moans, and grunts mingled into an incoherent song lulling the night away.
Without warning, Peter buried himself to the hilt with the final thrust, embedded to the bottom of Kate’s welcoming folds, pushing against the valley of flesh surrounding the ectocervix and releasing his accumulated ecstasy, flooding the fleshy walls with longing and glee. He collapsed onto her heaving breasts, grunting with each spasm and contraction, pumping the archer full to the brim.
- - -
The Baxter Building
“Why are you still up?” Ben asked the grimacing Johnny Storm as he wanted to feel the chill night of New York City but found an unexpected companion instead. The Human Torch kept his quiet and locked his conflicting eyes on the peculiarly quiet city below from the railing, confident now in his control over his powers.
“…Did I make a mistake, Ben?” the dirty-blond whispered with a heavy heart, looking down at his upturned palms “Did I just condemn my sister?”
“It couldn’t be that bad, Hotshot.” The stone giant approached at Human Torch’s side, leaning over the railing near the younger Storm “She’s your mom, right?”
“You do not know our mother,” Johnny chuckled darkly “…did Reed ever tell you about Dad?”
“…Bits and pieces; Reed’s not a very talkative type outside of whatever discoveries he got his hands on, y’know?” Ben smiled mellowly with a chuckle “Knew each other for almost half a decade by now, I barely got through whatever wall he put up around his life.” The stone giant cast a glance at the man at his side, sighing “There’s a single person I can think of if you want to know something about Reed; Victor Von Doom.”
“Ridiculous name, if you ask me; won’t even be able to not sound threatening,” Johnny commented. “…I remember, though, that on rare occasions my father did come back home for a rush dinner…” A bittersweet smile touched Jonathan’s lips with a dark shadow clouding his eyes…
“What do you think of Reed Richards, dear?” Their father casually addressed across the table to his wife and ignored him and Susan on the sides.
“The lanky, nervous boy?” Their mother countered with her own, “Frankly? I have no comment; I have not spent nearly as long a time in his presence as you did, Husband.” The Dame replied similarly while continuing with her exaggeratedly expensive risotto.
Almost longer than you’d spent around your damn kids. He thought with a snort, which drew the attention of their mother almost immediately.
“I have taught you more times than abundant about table manners, Jonathan!” her disappointed tone, which he had familiarized with since the age of twelve, grated on his nerve on how pompous she was in expressing each syllable out loud. “You are a Storm! Start acting like one!”
“Mary,” Their father firmly spoke, eyes bearing into the fuming dame, “Practice that which you preach.” The criticism lessened the apparent anger on their mother’s face a little and effectively shut her up, but now… “…Anything worth sharing with the family in your mind, Jonathan?”
“No,” he felt himself quickly reply, but then a cold claw started raking his back from the disapproval glare coming from their father “…sir.”
“…Such a waste,” the quiet comment never slipped through anyone at the table, and he had to tightly grip the fork and the knife in his hands to keep from lashing out against the huff of air escaping their father’s nose while doing so. “Well,” and that was all the span of acknowledgment he would be given for the night, like usual, as their father returned to a discussion he started with their mother: “The boy has…potentials and promises.” He kept his mouth shut, enjoying the dinner as she should while listening in on whatever topic Sir Franklin Storm decided to be important tonight. “The brightest of minds I’ve ever met! Truly holds a bright future in his hands if he keeps nursing that dedication.”
“I sensed a ‘but’ coming?”
“There are some aspects of a great man that he lacks, as of right now, but be assured that I will guide him to the best of my abilities.” The conviction in their father’s voice detested him.
He was never this determined about me.
“What about the other boy? Victor?” Their mother interjected with a barely hidden glint of excitement in her eyes.
“I would say they are equals; Victor, however, possesses more ambition than the Richards boy.” Then, he saw the eyes of their father and turned to his sister, “Susan.” The call tears Susan’s eyes from her plate “Pack for a few days, will you? I want you to meet Reed and Victor.” Not even an ounce of consideration for his sister’s decision was there, only their father’s demands existed “Am I clear?”
“…Yes. Father.” His sister’s meek and solemn voice reached his ears with an underlying plea for help.
A request he won’t be able to answer.
Not now.
“…I hate that kind of family gathering; having to sit and listen to how my parents, our parents, scheming on how best to use my sister to strengthen our family; viewing her merely as a prize for men to win over with fortunes or influences.” The air spiked in temperature for a brief hiccup before the cold wind washed away the residue of anger emanating from the Human Torch “And now, here I am, entrusting her into thatwoman’s hands…”
Ben hummed deeply, lost for words.
He didn’t have a happy childhood with his estranged family either, yet he’d never faced the kind of travesty Johnny and Sue had to endure with their terrible parents. After a long stretch of silence, Ben chanced a firm pat on Johnny’s back without a single utter.
“Get some sleep in; we have a lot of work tomorrow.” Ben turned and headed for the door after a while with a yawn.
“…Ben?”
The call stopped him, and the stone giant looked back at the blond who still dangling his legs over the railing, quirking his eyebrow.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime, kid.” He hummed and waved before entering the dimly lit top floor and heading for the lift.
Johnny sighed deeply and looked at the City struck by misfortune, once again, with a scoff at the ridiculousness of it all regarding New York City; a cultural hotpot where everything mixed into a cesspool of uniquely endearing chaos. He averted his eyes down to a phone in his hand, contemplating whether or not to attempt a call on his mother for the hundredth time tonight.
- - -
The House
Through her body’s conditioning through extensive training under two of the strictest spymasters and assassins on Earth, Kate stirred awake. Her blue eyes were greeted by the veiled sunlight seeping into the bedroom through the filter of a laced curtain at the window, casting its warmth onto the entanglement of limbs and messy hairs that are the three of them on the bed.
Gwen Stacy snores with a contortionist’s prowess as her feet are up the headboard and her head nuzzles against her stomach on the left.
Peter’s feet dangled off the foot of the bed as his face buried into her lower abdomen, snoring with a muffle into her skin and tickling her softly with his short stubbles.
She carded her fingers lightly through Peter’s brown locks, untangling some knots and smoothing the slight curls the man had going for him. The image differed only in the addition of a sunflower-blonde woman into the picture rather than just the two of them.
Looking at the petite superhuman at her left, Kate fell deeper into her decision last night. This is…something.The archer roamed her eyes on the buttoned nose, the faintest hint of freckles, the soft and desirable lips, the supple neck down to her pronounced collarbone, the small but perky breasts, the toned abdominal muscles developed through the Spider mutations for better acrobatic feats and flexible core.
Such a deceivingly delicate and fragile flower.
The scene of the petite blonde jumping onto the belly of a malfunctioned Quinjet and then tearing the Gatling gun off with only her bare hands still sears into her mind, recalling the bewilderment and awe she felt back then of witnessing another Spider-person in action.
Hearing a growl from her stomach, Kate carefully dislodged herself from the Spiders and looked at them with a joyous smirk before making her way out into the upper-floor hallway toward the staircase.
“Bruh.” Harley groaned as he saw Kate trying to be discreet as she descended from the upstairs floor with disheveled hair and a glow to her that was not hard to deduce the origin of “Seriously? Just the second night?”
“Shut uuup,” Kate rolled her eyes with a hint of a smirk on her lips, heading for the fridge while Harley glared at her with narrowed eyes. Downed a whole bottle in one drink, she sighed with satisfaction for the refreshing stream cascading into her empty stomach “Did you make anything to eat, Mister Early Bird?”
“I thought you ate enough protein?” he teased with a chuckle at Kate’s middle finger and pointed at the kitchen island “Made some bacon and eggs.” He heard a mumbled thanks from the kitchen and reverted his attention to the customized laptop, typing in rapid successions with his eyes darting from left to right following the lines of inputting codes “So, how was the rite of passage into the Parker household?” he heard a slight choke following by a cough from the archer that elicited a laugh out of him.
“Stop being a nosy schoolgirl, Keener,” Kate said while stuffing her mouth with the greasy goodness.
“Fine, fine!” Harley replied with a lighthearted laugh, then averted his eyes from the laptop to the staircase “Is Parker gonna come down soon?”
“I dunno,” Kate replied with a quirked eyebrow “Why?”
“Something we’ve been working on,” Harley announced and gestured for the raven-haired woman over to the couch. When Kate reached the spot beside him, he showed her the tablet with a rendered model “It’s an artificial intelligence-assisted microbial nanomachine.” The demoted Avenger said to another while linking the laptop to the TV over the hearth “Parker came up with the idea of repurposing Doc Ock’s nanites that he used to blind you with,” he elaborated with an apologetic look for the mentioning of the foul name “Without Karen or Friday, we’ll have to integrate their central control units to Edith.” Harley added and then pulled up a simplified demonstration of how the procedure would be carried out “Mister Richards’s hypothesis about the parasite—”
“Dude, stop right there.” Kate raised her hand “I think you better wait for him to come down here for the in-depth explanation.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Bishop; you are at least smarter than a high schooler.” Harley shot her a sarcastic flat smile.
“I mean, I don’t wanna hear your annoying voice explaining this for the second time when Pete shows.”
Harley gasped at her deadpanned delivery with a dramatic flair “How dare you?! I was an honorary lecturer at MIT!”
“And thank God I don’t have to sit through that torture like those poor souls.” Kate let out a smirk and finished her breakfast, quickly washed the dish, and downed another bottle of water with a hum. She let the moment breathe a little more before clearing her throat “...How are you holding up? With Rhodey, I meant.”
Harley exhaled heavily through his nose and resting the back of his head against the couch, looking up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes “…Like shit.” He breathed it out shakily, the milliseconds of frames playing before his eyes still burning in his brain, aimlessly trying to solve it like an unsolvable puzzle “I was right there, Bishop. The Iron Man, an Avenger. I was right there with the best techs that can counter pretty much anything the universe might throw at Earth again…but I couldn’t even save anyone other than myself.” A sniffle sounded, but none dared to comment on it “…what a fucking superhero.” Harley spat the word like a foul plague, a grimace lining his eyes. “…Now Morgan, Pepper, and Happy lose another loved one…all because I wasn’t good enough.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I know.” He scoffed, thinking back to the revelation that Nick Fury withheld information about the Skrulls from the Avengers for years “…all we can do is make sure that we save as much as we can to make up for the ones we couldn’t.” he prayed into the still air between them, loud enough for her to hear “but even so, being…there, looking at him just a second before the bombs goes off…” he cursed quietly and rubs his hands on his face violently, pressing the palms deeply into his eyes as if trying to chase away the image of Colonel Rhode’s smeared remains seared into the floor. He took another minute of silence before breathing out the frustration and casting his red-rimmed eyes at the archer in the kitchen “You going to Philly?”
“Of course.” Kate smiled sadly “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“…what’s cookin’ in here?” Peter prodded Gwen lightly on the side of her head while the petite blonde lazily and absentmindedly traced her nails on the punctured scar over his heart.
“…Kate told me…” Gwen started, tilting her face upward a little to stare into his warm hazel eyes with her hooded sapphires “That Namor announced to everyone he killed you before the tsunami flooded the city.” She rests her chin and the left side of her face on his chest, softly brushing his bare skin with warm breaths “Be through with me; what happened?” her eyes turned inquisitive and demanding.
“The report of my death was…greatly exaggerated.” He attempted lighthearted humor, but Gwen was not having it. The promise they have made with one another rings inside his ears.
‘We don’t lie to each other, no matter what.’ Was the pact they’d made after his night out with Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes and just before he decided to follow through with a visit to Ben’s and May’s graves (and with the information about how she once had an affair with a married man? Let’s say he kinda figured out the source of that mentality and knows better than to not respect it)
“…I guess…” he started, trailed off with a deep breath, and sighed heavily with a confused frown on his face “…the last thing I remember was him punching my gut through; I remember some my vertebrae exploded outta my back…” upon hearing Gwen’s gasp, he softly guided her hand down to his scarred stomach, wanting to tell her that he’s still here, still alive.
The Symbiote might heal the crater there but it’s nothing compared to Logan’s or Sabretooth’s healing factor.
There is a scar to prove, just like the four others that were left by Richard Parker’s villainous and uncaring intelligence.
“I fell on the street and my skull cracked like a watermelon…things that were supposed to happen did happen; shits, piss, tears, last breathe and all that…” he felt Gwen’s fingers clawing and cling to his flesh, hearing her heartbeats hastened rapidly, “The Defenders got my…body up to a roof; JJ said these black webbings spewed and wrapped themselves around my body.” He raised his hand and stared blankly at it, trying to see through the skin “Then I just got up in a black suit,” he said and willed the Symbiote to the surface, wrapping its abyssal tendrils over his entire body, encasing himself inside a cocoon of darkness that quickly change its appearance to match the image he’s thinking about.
The sudden change in sensation sends Gwen springing up from his body onto the ceiling, but curiously her Spider-Sense lays dormant still. The petite blonde glared with a bewildered look on her face, her toes and fingers sticking firmly to the surface as her eyes narrowed at him.
“Sorry?” he sheepishly apologized with a grin “Good reflex, though.” And she dropped on top of him again after he reabsorbed the black suit. “I mean, I might be getting a bit self-conscious…”
“It’s not that.” She retorted with a curious glare “The texture was kinda…” Gwen let the goosebumps run over her entire body with a cringe, miming the sensation instead of verbally communicating. “Anyway, don’t ever do that again.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” he saluted with Gwen lying atop, looking down at the fading startle he’d unintentionally caused. “So, as I was saying. I woke up after the third day—” a hand swatted at the side of his head, drawing out a hiss “Ouch!”
“There are topics you should learn not to joke about with my parents around,” Gwen narrowed her eyes at him with a smirk.
“Suddenly she became a pious Christian,” Peter mumbled with a playful roll of his eye. “Okay, so, I woke up wearing the Black. My Web-Shooters were destroyed from the fall, but...” He trailed off while extending his hand to the side before motioning it as if he was pressing the trigger of the Web-Shooter to send out a line of black webbing at the window “…looks like the Symbiote had that covered.” With a flat smile against Gwen’s surprised expression, he released the gesture, and the strand of black retracts.
“…I’m gonna auction you off to Area 51.” Gwen recovered after a full minute of awestruck “My family will be living in the Bahamas while the Government can study you and maybe give us annual paychecks for keeping you with them.”
“I love smart women,” Peter sarcastically played along with a groan and a roll of his eyes but harboring a lighthearted smirk “Can I have a fully-decorated cell?”
“I’ll put it in a contract.” The sunflower-blonde cackled along with him, and they lay with one another in their arms, looking at the increasingly shinier Sunlight filtered through the curtain “So, after each time you…died,” Gwen whispered in a raspy and shaking voice “The bond between you and the Symbiote seemingly growing stronger.”
“Ah ha.”
“That’s…disturbing, Peter.” She looked at him, concern lining her face “This goes beyond what we know about xenobiology or even symbiosis!” she got up, airing her perky breast out at the morning breeze, looking down at him with alarm mixed with excitement “We have to study it!”
“Hold your lab equipment, Nerdy Stacy,” he grabbed her waist and let out a little laugh “I will gladly lay down on a bed for you to explore me all you want—"
“After we found Sue and saved her.” Gwen finished for him with a more heartfelt smile gracing her lips “We will get her back, Pete,” she emphasized and dived in to plant a soft kiss on his lips, cutting off any protest or self-doubt about to escape his mouth, cupping his stubbled jaw between her hands, caressing the face of an amazing man whose greatest enemy is none other than his lack of self-esteem. “…Trust yourself…” she whispered pleadingly against his parted lips.
“…any question?” Harley finished the presentation in front of the family, including the unofficial addition of Aña Corazon who looked upon the 4D demonstration with awe in her eyes. “Yes, Mister Healthcare student?” he pointed at Howard with a professor tone, eliciting a groan from Kate on the small couch with Gwen.
“Um, how do we know that this,” the younger Stacy sibling gestured towards the enlarged interactive model of the hypothetical medical nanomachine “amazing concept of an AI-assisted Microbial Nanite will work in a human body, let alone a mutated one like in Doctor Storm’s case?”
“I second his inquiry.” Helen Stacy, also a scientist herself, added with a nod.
Harley harbored a big smile on his face, satisfied “Man, I love talking with smart people.”
“Hey!” the archer protested with a pout.
“Well, that’s a very understandable concern,” Harley ignored the fellow demoted Avenger’s smoldering glare and addressed the mother and son duo “See, in most cases, this kind of experimental method will have to be evaluated and sanctioned, and yada, yada, yada…” He trailed off, looking at the archer with a questioning glance, and continued after she gave a little nod “Luckily, we already have a living and healthy subject with us here.” Harley gestured at the archer, drawing the attention of the Stacys (except Gwen) towards the raven-haired woman “Back in the Siege of Manhattan,” Harley made an air-quote “Doctor Octopus got his hands on Kate…suffice to say that before Parker could get to her, the Madman had already blinded her with a type of specially-crafted nanites that degraded her optic nerves.” As he was relaying the information, he noticed that Kate absentmindedly rubbing her wrist, around the area where Doc Ock restrained her with nails hammered into them “the same type of nanites that we repurposed to reconstruct her optic nerves at the end of the Siege. As you can see, she’s now fully recovered and can still shoot a fly’s wings off twenty yards away—”
“Twenty-five.” The archer jutted her chin proudly despite the slight PTSD episode brought up by the mentioning of Richard Parker’s moniker and the way her brain pictured the torture that her eyes couldn’t see back then.
“—without issues.” Harley huffed with a grin on his face, directing at the guffawed Stacys (again, except Gwen) “Any more questions?”
“How soon can you mass-produce them?” Questioned the vigilante.
“If I reprogrammed the unfinished and unpatented armors into fabricators…I’d say about three days with enough resources.” With that, the Spider nodded with a hum.
- - -
GRU Temporary Crisis Medical Center, Mount Sinai Morningside
“Morning, Sunshine!” Christine Palmer announced with a joyous tone as she led a nurse into Stephen Strange’s cubicle, parting the curtains to let the morning sun in, receiving an annoyed groan from the injured Sorcerer on the bed. “It’s time to take your meds.”
“Can I discharge myself and just get out of here?” Strange chuckled sleepily back at the doctor while shifting a little for a more comfortable position on the adjustable bed, feeling the tugs of various IVs and monitoring contraptions hooked to his arms and chest, letting out a dry cough.
“Sorry, Stephen; I know you hate hospitals.” Christine teased and directed the nurse to carry on with her task, looking at the untamed beard and hair on the usually neat neurosurgeon “How are you feeling today?”
“Like I’m being skewered, but less painful than three nights before.” He answered with a smirk, letting the nurse do her job “but I have to complain about the suture job; it’s sloppy.” He gestured to the trio of closed wounds on his chest where Namor’s trident almost took him out.
“I can open the OR and let you redress them yourself after we are done with thousands of patients waiting outside.” The redhead friend of his retorted with a chuckle, looking through the check-up report from her nurse for a little while and sending her away, leaving only herself and Stephen in the cubicle “Sorry about the not-so-spacious room.”
“I understand,” Thanks to a late-night visit from Wanda Maximoff yesterday, he was brought up to speed with the situation and the devastating destruction left behind by the King of Atlantis’s rampage.
“We were out of town when the tsunami came,” Christine smiled, readjusting the drop rate on his IVs and other contraptions while looking at him “SHIELD called me in after the Avengers dealt with the Atlanteans. I thought…”
“I’m fine,” Stephen smiled back at her, looking down at the stitches. Just then, the door swung open to reveal a bob of reddish-auburn hair of Wanda Maximoff poking her smiling doe eyes into the room with a basket full of fruits, draped in her civvies with her hair covered by a beanie. “Good morning, Miss Maximoff.” Stephen smiled and greeted her, ushering the Scarlet Witch into the room as Christine cleared her throat before standing up.
“I should go check on the patients; good to see you again, Miss Maximoff.” The surgeon nodded to the auburn-haired woman before stopping at the entrance, looking back at Strange with a mischievous glint in her eyes, shooting a thumbs up at the eye-rolling Sorcerer before leaving the vicinity.
“You look better,” Wanda commented, taking a seat where Christine occupied earlier, and began peeling an orange for the injured man on the bed “How are you feeling?”
“Better now,” Stephen answered, smiled softly against her curious eyes, and let out a slight chuckle at the dash of scarlet briefly colored up her cheeks. “You?” his question insinuated another inquiry, one that Wanda caught on almost immediately.
She sighed deeply, brows furrowed with turmoil and uncertainty. Her fingers picked two carpels out of the sphere before offering them to the quiet Sorcerer. “…The face. The voice. The eyes…they are Viz’s.” she started, eyes hooded and biting her lower lip softly, then she picked another two for herself, squeezing every bit of juice out of them between her teeth before swallowing the fiber-rich pieces down “But his…soul was not there.” She said with a wavering in her voice, threatening to fall over the edge into despair. “I thought I’ve moved on. I thought I’d been at peace with having this void beside me for the rest of my life…but…”
“…I understand…Wanda.” It was one of the rare occasions that he would dare call her by her name, always felt like some kind of intrusion, a crack in the walls they are supposed to have erected against one another regarding the nature of their acquaintances; him being her mentor and guardian, and she as his pupil as well as ward. “I understand.” He said and gave her a reassuring smile, one that he hoped she would be able to wear herself.
- - -
SENTINEL facility
“Run a thorough diagnostic,” Richard commanded the Vision, moving around with limited-function mechanical arms under the watchful eyes of Nick Fury from the platform above.
It took the restored Vision around a full minute until the glazed eyes returned to be bright again “Automate functionality nominal. Motor functionality nominal. Central control unit functionality nominal.” The red-skinned Synthezoid calmly reported without a hint of emotion in his tone.
“Excellent.” Doctor Octopus addressed casually, then split one of his arms into their pre-programmed quadruple strands form to be used as his substitute fingers to punch in various combinations of keys on the terminal’s keyboard. “Would you mind running the rest of the scheduled check-up on units 001 through 012, Miss Trask?” his question directed to the young robotic specialist and his lab assistant with a smile “You might detect errors easier than me.” He emphasized the underline appreciation and praise for her to notice.
“Certainly, Doctor Parker,” Olivia replied with a wide grin, elated, and continued the task immediately with a more attentive approach than the Mad Engineer.
Richard then looked up at the director of SHIELD above them with an inquisitive quirk of his eyebrow, then noticed a gesture of the One-Eyed Ghost implying for him to follow into another chamber of the facility. “I shall take my leave,” he started and turned a little to the side to look at the ginger robotics prodigy “We will be discussing the integration of the Adaptive Matrix after I’ve returned.”
With Olivia’s nod of acknowledgment, Richard leaves the staging chamber using two of his improved mechanized arms as prosthetic legs.
The muscle atrophy and nerve damage are becoming more and more troublesome, Richard deduced internally, finding that even just closing his fist requires more effort than it normally should.
When he reached the room, his eye fell immediately on the single occupant who was not Nick Fury awaiting him inside; her hair was reddish copper with black lipstick painted on her lips, dressed formally in a business suit and pants, carrying an air of authority about her.
“Doctor Reinhardt.” The woman greeted and offered her hand to him with a flat smile on her lips, her piercing green eyes bore into his inquisitive ones “Leona Hiss. Acting Director Thaddeus Ross’s liaison.”
There’s not even an ounce of fear in her eyes… Richard noted with a curious smirk, then extended one of his arms to take the offered olive branch “I must commend you, Miss Hiss, you are quite foolishly brave to share a space with me without security details.”
“Oh,” Leona exclaimed with a chuckle, and then discreetly produced a cylindrical device out of her breast pocket, pressed it, and waited for a moment before continuing, “I wouldn’t necessarily need to worry about that, now would I; Herr Reinhardt?” the accent, or rather the fake one, dropped almost too smoothly to be replaced by an articulated German lilt.
“…Ophelia?” Richard addressed with a little surprise dashing across his face “You—”
“Discretion, Doktor,” Leona, or Ophelia, tutted at him “Arnim Zola’s device might be miraculous, but nothing in this world is perfect…yet.”
“…the Mirage Transmitter, I presume?” his words came out one thing, but his demeanor expertly mimicked another to go along with the distortion device Ophelia had just deployed to the security systems of the facility specifically located inside this room. “What a tricky little trinket you have. I assume the Kraken cylinder that was able to curiously make its way into my quarter earlier was one of your handiworks?”
“We had thought you never found it, with the lack of communication and everything.” Ophelia chuckled along “Still too hung up on bygones, I see?”
“Alexander Pierce betrayed me, Sarkissian,” Richard spat the names with equal venoms “To save himself he branded me a scapegoat!” the expertly suppressed anger rises “What makes you think I would be considering this proposition?”
“The Kraken might be…tactless in his actions, Herr Reinhardt, which is why I must implore you to consider this offer.” Ophelia kept to her spot, playing along with whatever Zola’s Mirage transmitter might be showing to the CCTV footage instead of what was transpiring at the moment “The blind ambition of Alexander Pierce had compromised us so tremendously in the past decade; our cells were almost wiped clean from the planet’s surface after the failure of project Insight. Our ranks diminished in numbers, whether by apprehension or execution, but it was not hopeless, yet.”
Richard quirked his eyebrow at the woman.
“HYDRA was once a mighty beast, Herr Reinhardt; we were at the pinnacle of the world! We have everything within our grasp. None dared challenge our reign.” Ophelia continued, a grimace of disdain gracing her face, “Heedless ambitions of the ancients won’t be ideal anymore for the New World Order. With your Sentinels and the Vision, HYDRA will rise again.” Her green eyes locked onto him, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips “Return to your glory, Herr Reinhardt,” she offered her hand, extending it in the confidence of Zola’s capabilities. A smile graced her sharp eyes, boring into the husk of a man before her.
In Ophelia’s grasp, an item presented in its clutch and dawned a look of surprise on Richard’s face.
A mask. Red in color.
Resembling a Skull of HYDRA.
- - -
The House
“Whatcha doin’?” Gwen poked her head over his hunched shoulders, looking down at the top of the desk where Peter was busy with something that turned out to be a pair of disassembled Web-Shooters with each component picked apart and sorted neatly alongside one another.
“Routine check-ups and maintenance,” her boyfriend simply replied and felt her arms looped around his neck, the warmth of her cheek resting against the side of his head as he leaned into it with a smile slowly forming at the corner of his lips “Wanna give it a try?”
“There’s about an 80-point wide gap between our IQ points,” The sunflower-blonde moaned with a pout.
“Yeah, and here I am, still able to keep up with you in biology; what does that say about some numbers?” he replied and felt a light brush of Gwen’s lips against his cheekbone “Come on; it’ll be fun!” he insisted and eventually the petite blonde relented with an exaggerated groan before relocating her lean and lithe frame to a spot across from him. “Okay, let’s start on the basic components that you can find in almost every hardware store…” he started a crash-course lecture to her about how he picked and modified each part and the assembly order as well as the required force to keep them in place using hinges instead of superglue or fasteners like he used to with the first models when he was a teenager. “…Now that we have the base frame, we begin on the awesome part. So, this one requires a bit of gymnastics to get done.” Peter then moved the specialized components to the relative center of the table “Commercial pressurized carbon dioxide canisters weren’t enough to shoot the Web-Fluid within the optimal range that I usually swing. I used to pair or triple them to compensate for that. Still, it made the shooters too bulky, and the capacity-per-additional weight ratio was abysmal, not to mention it bumps into walls and whatnots a lot.” Then he presented her with a silvery flat canister “Tony came up with an earlier version of this hyper-pressurized capsule; in fact, Felicia and Kate used a similar model in their grappling hooks.”
“So, this is Stark Tech’s patented?” Gwen quirked her eyebrow at him, inspecting the pressurized canister with careful eyes.
“Not necessarily,” Peter replied with a smirk “I said he came up with an upgraded version before the airport in Germany fiasco thingy. Not to shit on the man’s grave or anything, but his design was…a bit lackluster and…unsatisfying.” A proud smile graced his lips “So, I had to do a little tweak before I got to the airport. I introduced the canisters to a very low temperature that helped compress the pressurized Co2 even more, then forced two canisters into one with some elbow grease. The super-chilled and potentially explosive canisters could retain their supercritical conditions for about an hour or two at most, but I already tapped out with half an hour to spare by Gi-Ant-Man.” He chuckled as Gwen immediately set the canister down after the word explosive left his mouth “Don’t worry, now I’ve reconstructed each canister’s molecules via an electromagnetic forming process, it can easily withstand the internal pressure.”
“You sure about that?”
“It’s the same type of canisters I used every day, Gwen; that one survived an eight-hundred feet drop.” He gestured to the one she’d deposited earlier. “The canisters might be the strongest component inside Web-Shooters.”
“…I’ll take your word for it,” Gwen shot him a nervous flat smile.
Then he guided her through the assembly process, connecting and calibrating each crucial part with precision and care, wasted two Web-Fluid cartridges, and spilled the semi-translucent super-polymer all over the workbench until Gwen showed a triumphant grin on her face with her first pair of Web-Shooters in her hands “I got it!” the glee in her eyes brought warmth into his heart, enjoying the genuine happiness on her again was a breath of fresh air compared to her survivor’s guilt. Gwen offered them to him, but Peter just shook his head with a fond smile.
“I can’t use them.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Gwen curiously inquired, lowering her hands as well as her excitement.
“You didn’t.” he reassured her, “but the mechanism configurations weren’t tuned to me.”
Gwen produced a quiet ‘huh?’
“These two,” he gestured at the equipment in her hands “were adjusted for you.”
Seeing her doubt, Peter circled to her side, wrapping the adjusted Web-Shooters around her wrists “…your fight with the Beetle to keep Aña safe. Saving your dad. Saving those people on the bus…” he started, avoidant of her searching gaze, securing the equipment in place. Then, with a simple touch, he deployed the nanotech gauntlets onto her arms, covering from her wrists to just a couple of inches before her elbows, fitting to her form with the reprogramming that he had done earlier before she came.
Gwen quietly inspected the equipment on her arms with conflicting eyes.
“You remember your graduation speech?” Peter whispered into the still air between them. He saw her head lightly nod “You’ve become that, Gwen;” he lifted her chin up, wanting to lose the sense of the surrounding world in those sapphires again “For Aña and for the people that you saved.” He caresses her cheekbone lightly, smiling sincerely as he speaks the next sentence from the deepest depth of his heart “…Hope.”