Variant Strain

- - -

MJ hadn't wanted to let go of him the whole subway ride back to Queens. Every so often, her hand would reach up to press against his chest where the tracker had injured him. When she caught herself doing it, she'd hurriedly pull her hand away and push it back down to her lap. He'd catch her looking away from him as she did, but he also noted that she didn't let go either.

He murmured to her, "I'm fine, you know. It's all healed up."

She nodded quietly. "I know that. It was still kind of..." She paused, looking for the right word, "... intense."

He nodded.

"You should call that detective." She said. "You can even add in now that Ed Whelan's place is also being watched."

He fished her pre-paid cellphone out of his pocket and waggled it. "No signal down here. And Detective Stacy's precinct is in Queens, not Manhattan. I'm not really sure how that works, but I don't think the cops in Manhattan are going to appreciate him stomping on their turf."

MJ snorted, "That thing could have killed you." She added in a quiet monotone, "Almost killed me. These people have... things... like that with them to track down people like you, right? Or people that got turned into things like the vulture thing?"

Peter nodded, "I guess so. I wish we had more to go on." He glanced out the window, which was useless, since all that showed was dark tunnel. He looked back to her. "What about that guy's wallet?"

She nodded and pulled it out of her pocket. She opened the billfold. "About eighty bucks in cash here." She replied with a grin. "Score."

His face was disapproving, but he didn't comment on the money. That had felt a little too much like being a mugger. "Any ID?"

MJ rifled through the wallet and began pulling various cards out, then handing them to Peter.

The man's debit card had been issued by a small bank and wasn't really important. It could be used to track them if they tried to use it, so he tucked that away intending to destroy it the first chance he got.

There was a Toys 'R' Us gift card in there. It had a little post-it note on it with amounts written in a cramped, meticulous hand which were crossed out and a smaller amount written beneath. If he read it right, there was probably $3 left on the card.

A grocery discount card. This one looked like it had been issued in New York.

There was a New Mexico driver's license for a Theodore Anderson and the photo of the bull-necked man in his mid-twenties looked a lot like the man whose nose Peter had just broken. He noted that the man was an organ donor and the license had only been issued a year ago. It was the address that caught his attention and he spoke it out loud, "Thunderbolt Mountain."

MJ looked at him, "What was that?"

"The people in the hazmat uniforms. When I was playing dead I overheard them talking about having come from the 'Mountain' and they were only in New York for some sort of duty rotation." He waved the driver's license at her, "They called themselves 'T-bolts'. Thunderbolts. from Thunderbolt Mountain, New Mexico."

She nodded, "Okay, that's another angle to look into." She flashed him a small grin. She sobered and snuggled against him once more. "You have to admit, our little Manhattan trip was a bit of a bust."

Peter did so admit to this, but he didn't want to make the admission out loud. He replied, "Well, we made eighty dollars?"

She laughed. Just a little, but it was a laugh. She eyed him for a moment then added, "And you got a good meal out of it."

He flinched, but her arm tightened on his and she met his gaze fiercely. "I watched you do it." She said firmly, "I'm allowed to joke about it, so I don't freak out about it, okay?"

He nodded slowly.

"I thought you needed to throw up the excess mass after eating something that big or you wouldn't be able to get back to your normal size?" She asked after a minute. "Or did I miss something?"

He shook his head, "No clue. I mean I can feel all that excess mass still in me, somewhere." He gestured down, "By all rights, I should be too heavy for this seat, but while I've got all the excess mass... I don't seem to have the excess weight."

"Is it like the vulture thing? The anti-gravity thing you told me about?"

He shrugged, "At this point, your guess is as good as mine." He held a hand up, "Every time I activate that red haze though, I tend to lose a lot of mass very quickly. I think it eats up the mass for energy. I've got no haze and the extra weight's just... not there. Then again, I was standing on that wall and it felt like I was just standing on the ground normally."

"What does that mean?"

"Again... not enough information." He sighed, "I'm guessing... guessing mind you... that the red haze doesn't actually negate gravity. Maybe it adjusts how my mass interacts with a gravitic field. Maybe it redirects gravity." He rubbed his eyes, "I'm going to need a lot more instrumentation to even begin to figure out how to test that. It should be completely impossible."

She smiled and touched the end of his nose, "You'll figure it out. You're good with numbers."

He nodded and returned her smile, much more at ease.

"We should feed you more stuff to see what happens." She said, grinning at him. "See what happens to the weight."

"What? Take me down to the meat packing district and run off with a side of beef or something?" He looked at her incredulously.

"Well you seem to be able to eat plastic too, right?"

He nodded, "Anything with long chain hydrocarbons seems to be fair game. It's just metals I can't do much with."

Her eyes glittered, "What would happen if you started chowing down on soda bottles?"

He wondered if she were messing with him then shrugged, "I have no clue. I guess I could stick my hand into a recycling bin and see what happens."

She accepted this with a nod, but tightened her grip on his arm. "What do you turn into now?"

"What?"

"The... the tracker you just consumed? I know you can turn into the unmutated form, since you could do it with Cletus... can you show me what it--"

"She. The tracker was a woman."

MJ's lips curled into a smile. "Really? Okay, now you have to show me."

"Her name was..." He racked the few memories he'd picked up "Diego? Donnie? Donna? Something like that."

"I thought you said she wasn't a person anymore? More like an animal?" MJ asked carefully.

"She had memories. She wasn't... aware of herself as herself, but she could remember commands. She could remember what people called her, even if she didn't know herself." He shuddered, "This Hydra thing is horrible. I don't know why it didn't do it to me... or why Cletus didn't entirely lose himself entirely, but even he had some loss of mental ability after he was changed. The drago and poor Donna just... nothing was left."

"You got lucky." MJ offered. "Or... you're so smart, it already did take some of it away, but you didn't realize cause you are that smart."

He gave her a small smile. "I almost hope that's the case." He added a thought he'd been carefully avoiding. "Or maybe it just takes longer. I could turn into something like them at any time."

MJ shook her head and clung tighter to his arm. "No, Tiger. No. You won't. You're a good person. That won't happen to you."

"Bad things can happen to good people too." Peter replied quietly, thinking of Uncle Ben.

MJ forced a smile back on her features, "Okay... this is getting sad and morbid and you haven't shown me what your new girl face looks like. I want to see."

Peter let her chide him out of his incipient gloomy mood, then swept his eyes across the subway car they were in. It did not appear as though anyone were watching. "You're going to have to let go for a bit." He murmured to her.

"Why?" MJ asked playfully. "I like snuggling with you. You're very snuggly."

He swallowed nervously, his face burned as he felt her breasts against his arm. He'd managed to avoid thinking about those for a whole five minutes, but every time she hugged him. That just felt too nice. "Tendrils." He said in reply.

"Hmm?"

"Remember when I change? All those tendrils start flexing and flailing around?"

"Yes?" Her smile was challenging and wicked. Peter wondered briefly what she was thinking about.

"The ones I use to feed with?" He continued.

"Oh. And I happen to be delicious?" She whispered into his ear.

His face blushed hard once more and he managed to choke out, "Very."

"Okay, fine." She released his arm and leaned well away from him, her eyes glittering, "Proceed."

His body blurred, shrinking down slightly. Donna the tracker had been a petite woman. Almost MJ's size. The shapeless hoodie had been hiding a slender, toned figure beneath it. Peter glanced to the glass and it threw back a reflection of a tomboyishly pretty woman with a square jaw, sharp cheekbones. The eyes were a washed out blue-gray and the hair was a pageboy cap of auburn.

"Satisfied?" Peter asked, his... her? Voice was now a smoky alto.

MJ grinned looking into the transformed Peter's eyes, "So... here's what I've been wondering about. Does everything change?"

"What do you--?" Peter began to ask, but MJ had leaned in and was pressing her breasts against her arm once more.

"I mean everything." She flicked her eyes down to Peter's lap.

"I don't know!" Peter replied, her voice high and panicky.

"I can check for you." MJ grined, eyes glittering. "It'd be no trouble."

"No! No, thank you!" Peter replied,

MJ held a hand up, wiggling her fingers suggestively, "It's no trouble. It's not a big deal if it's two girls, right?"

Peter shoved her own hand into her lap protectively. "Um... yeah. It's gone." There was a pause as that sank in for her. "Completely gone."

"This is so cool." MJ remarked.

"The weird part? I think I should be a bit more freaked out about... um... " He glanced down.

"Well you can get it back, right?" MJ said casually. Almost too casually.

Peter frowned for a moment. "Um... let go, please. I'm changing back."

MJ leaned away and Peter blurred back to normal. He gave MJ a single fearful glance and pushed his hand into his lap once more. Then sighed in relief.

MJ laughed and snuggled back into his side.

- - -

When they got back to Forrest Hills it was already four in the afternoon.

"Call now." She said firmly as they walked to the Watson home.

He shrugged, pulling the prepaid phone back out and in between strides shifted from himself to Ed Whelan. He dialed George Stacy's number.

"Hello, Detective Stacy."

Peter had never spoken as Ed Whelan. His voice came out, high and with a slightly nasal whine to it. Almost exactly as he expected the man to sound. "Detective Stacy. My name is Ed Whelan. I'm calling you about the Ben Parker case."

He could almost hear the suspicion tightening the policeman's voice. "There is no Ben Parker case, Mr. Whelan. It's closed. I would like to know what this is regarding."

"The two men who were alleged to have done it? It wasn't them." Peter let his voice drop.

"How would you know that, Mr. Whelan?" Skepticism heavy in the reply.

"I don't know their full names." Peter as Ed spoke, "I overheard the killers call each other Smith and Jones. They had a third man with them. In a hoodie. The other two called him Cletus."

There was a long pause from Stacy before he replied. "These are rather bold claims, Mr. Whelan." The man's voice had stopped being cynical. Now he was suspicious once more.

"I know because those men were chasing me, Detective Stacy." He replied. "I cut across the Parker's back yard. I had no clue they would do that."

"Why would they have been chasing you, sir?" The skepticism was gone from his tone. All that was left was honest curiosity.

"I'm a nurse. I work for Metrocare." Peter replied crisply. "The men were with Gentek security. I'm not sure why they were after me, but there's men working with them watching my apartment. I caught sight of some of those men in a white panel van in front of my place." He rattled off the license plate number. "I saw the Parker kid break the arm on Mr. Smith. Maybe broke his jaw too. Check for that."

"How did you--?" George began to ask, but Peter cut him off.

"I don't think I was the only one they were chasing. What happened at the Sandoval Deli is related. There are at least a dozen other disappearances from that night. One of them is a little blonde girl. Around either years old. I didn't see her eye color, but they killed her as well."

"This is a lot to take in, Mr. Whelan. Why are you only bringing this info to us now?" George asked, the suspcion clamoring in his voice once more.

"I only managed to stop running long enough to call now!" Peter snapped testily. Acting like the man did seem easier when he wore the man's face. "I don't know why they're after me either, but I need someone to look into this!"

"How did you know I was even on this investigation Mr. Whelan?" The Detective still did not seem convinced. Peter wracked his brain for some sort of reply and looked to MJ who shrugged helplessly.

Not sure what else to do Peter spoke into the phone, "They found m--" Then he hung up and shifted to himself, "That sucked. I don't think he bought it."

MJ shook her head, "No, no... that's fine." She gave him a sunny smile, "Here I was thinking you didn't know how to lie."

He shrugged, "Mostly, I wasn't lying. That made it easy,"

MJ nodded, "Alright. Let him look into it for a few days. You said you wanted to look into what Thunderbolt Mountain was?"

"Whoever these guys in the beekeeper outfits are, that's where they're from." Peter shrugged. They had to take a detour on the other side of the street to avoid the remains of the Sandoval deli. The faint carrion reek from the van that had contained the corpses still seemed to linger in the air even a day later. If he really concentrated, he could even pick out the plasticky undertones of their uniforms and the scent of gunpowder. But the Hydra scent was cloying now, despite having MJ next to him.

Peter frowned. "Oh god."

"What?" MJ asked.

He closed his eyes once more, taking a deep breath as he turned first one way, then another. He could differentiate where it had gotten stronger. "I'm an idiot." He groaned.

"You really need to ease up on yourself, Tiger." She murmured, giving his hand a small squeeze. "What did you just figure out?" She asked.

"You remember how we were talking about me tracking that van down by following it's scent?"

"Yes?"

"Remember I told you there were bags of dead infected in one of the vans that was here?"

Her eyes widened as she caught on. "Dead infected that you can still smell?"

"The van's left a trail starting from here." He pointed to the deli and shook his head at his own stupidity, "I could've just followed this straight to them!"

"You still can." MJ pointed out.

He nodded, "Right. I don't think this trail's going to fade out for a while..."

She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him further up the quiet street, "Then you and I are going back to Aunt Anna's house and we're going to relax a little until dinner."

"But I cou--"

She glared at him. "That scent trail's been there for over a day already. You don't think it'll fade a lot more, so it can wait. We're going to make sure our aunts are happy first, then we'll follow up this lead. We can sneak out after they go to bed."

He looked back along the path the scent trail went which was more or less towards the freeway.

Peter looked at her, "Are you sure you want to come along with me on this?" He asked carefully. "This is probably going straight to wherever it is they're operating from in Manhattan. A bunch of armed guys and maybe more trackers or who else knows what they have."

She chewed on her lower lip and considered that. She shoved her hand into her pocket and he knew that she was caressing the gun hidden there. He really didn't like that she had the thing. He liked even less the idea that she would be unarmed. Until just the other day, he would have believed Forrest Hills was safe. Not so much anymore... but he figured it was still safer than going to the Thunderbolts Base. Or the heart of Gentek. Whichever one he actually ended up at.

There was obviously some connection there.

As he thought over his options, so did MJ. She looked up into his eyes and said quietly. "I think I should stay with Aunt May and Aunt Anna and make sure they're safe. I can probably also cover for you if they notice you're gone."

He smiled a little, "What would you tell them?"

She grinned wickedly, "Tell them you're in my room and that I wore you out."

He blushed as that image rose in his mind. "Oh great... so then they'll kill me in the morning?"

She waved a hand dismissively, "Okay, okay, maybe that option's got too many problems. Don't worry about it, I'll think of something."

He nodded. "So... I'll look up references to Thunderbolt Mountain til dinner time. Then..."

"Then," She interrupted gently, "You should do something with your aunt. Or maybe all four of us can play a board game or something. Or watch TV. I think it'd help her. Just... something social. Aunt Anna was telling me she was getting worried about her."

Peter stared for a moment. He was kicking himself mentally. All the changes and his investigations into Uncle Ben's death had been his way of coping. He hadn't considered... or at least... not very well, how his aunt had been coping. He really hadn't known what to do for her. Then here was MJ, a relative stranger, who had a plan to help.

It made him burn with shame. He was glad someone was good at dealing with people, because he certainly wasn't. He nodded, "Aunt May and your Aunt used to play bridge with me and Uncle Ben some weekends. I don't know. Maybe she might like that."

"That needs four people and I don't know how to play." MJ eyed him suspiciously, "And isn't there some sort of card counting involved in bridge, Mister-I'm-good-with-numbers?"

He grinned teasingly, "Don't worry. I'll be gentle."

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