Variant Strain

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Crossing the Queensboro Bridge was a much more complicated affair the second time around. The Marines had both ends of the bridge closed off. Traffic around the vicinity of the onramp to the bridge was backed up for a considerable distance, with some people looking like they'd slept in their cars.

A midnight crossing at a dead run had been almost trivial.

On the other hand, Peter mused, the average fleeing Queens resident didn't have his capabilities.

Going over the bridge would have been simply impossible to accomplish without being spotted.

So he'd gone under.

Or more precisely, he was making his way across the underside of the bridge. Maybe the subway tunnels might have been easier. Or just trying to swim... if he could even float at the moment... but life had become strange enough that swinging along support struts and bouncing from beam to beam was actually the simplest and most direct option available to him.

It was strangely simple. He had his body weight flared down as low as it was possible to go. His bare feet sported small curved claws at the pads of his toes and his heels that gave him a sure grip on the bare steel and cement presented to him beneath the bridge. Leaping had actually presented some difficulties. He'd initially kept trying to jump 'up' from his perspective, but that inevitably resulted in him continuing 'upwards' towards the East River. It took a couple of near-misses that had him gliding back to the base of the Queen's side of the bridge before he got the trick. He had to jump 'downwards' which resulted in a shallow arc that send him 'up' again to get to the next support beam. Using both feet and his hands, he made good time across and had slipped through Bridgemarket on the Manhattan side in about the same time it would have taken him to cross bridge by bus.

Not bad, considering the alternative was to be kept from crossing at all. He was pretty sure no one had spotted him. It was New York. Hardly anyone except the tourists bothered to look up. Much less up towards one of the bridges.

Peter grinned and walked into the city casually. The address Hank had given him was downtown and several blocks away. He was tempted to take a bus, but just being able to walk in Manhattan, where despite the quarantine that Queens was under, seemed to be operating business as usual.

It surprised him how soothing it was to actually see people just... moving around the city. People walking briskly and going about their own business. A few overdressed hipsters drinking coffee at a Starbucks arguing over the relative merits of bands he'd never heard of. A businesswoman in a too-short skirt screaming abuse into her cell phone as she walked down the sidewalk. A harassed looking mother holding hands with two unhappy children who were demanding Happy meals. A man in a dirty overall argued with a meter maid over a ticket.

There was life and bustle and energy and no one was a mindless, savage thing out for flesh and blood.

Well, except for the lawyers and the brokers, but that was normal too. It was all normal, It was like the Stacy house had been not three hours ago. It made it easy to pretend, if only for just a bit, that Forest Hills wasn't an infected warzone. The illusion was almost perfect, but it was impossible for his senses to miss the carrion stench in the air.

The crisscrossed paths of Hydra lingered and had gotten stronger. Some of the trails he was running across were almost gone, but the sheer strength of presence of the scent sent a shudder down his spine. Somewhere in that mass of scents was Jessica Drew, Madame Hydra. The woman responsible for the infection and destruction of Middletown, Arizona. He was sure what had happened in Queens was her fault as well.

He growled in the back of his throat. His overactive imagination refused to quiet down and he found himself imagining the results if she decided to do the same thing to the rest of New York. Forest Hills had been devastated from a single source for the infection, as best as Peter could tell. Manhattan was already poised to explode given how prevalent the scent of Hydra was in the air.

He hoped he could find some way to stop that from happening.

As he got closer to his destination the Hydra scent grew. He'd already limited his sensitivity as far down as he could manage, but the cloying reek of it lingered. He tried to breathe through his mouth, but that made little difference. He did note a slight difference in the scent of the Hydra that he was approaching. It was still the thick slaughterhouse smell of the stuff, but it felt... musty. Old.

It wasn't muted or dead, it simple smelled... stale. As though the scent had been closed in a room for a long time and was only then being allowed out. It was markedly different enough from the general tone of the scent permeating Manhattan to put him on his guard.

The scent had the same strength as the Hives in Bellevue, the police station and the deli. But it was both somehow sharper and yet... somehow ground in to the surrounding buildings and the street. The 'old smell' thought kept coming to him.

The Hives had been recent things. Hours old in Queens when he'd run into them. He guessed he might have been smelling Hank. The molecular biologist had been an infectee for almost seventy years now. Who knew how that had affected his body? Or his scent?

They don't have protocols for rational infectees, his voice drawled in his mind, You have to wonder how he managed to stay sane.

Or if there's a reason why he's like us. Or why we're like him. Donna whispered, managing to startle Peter once more. Ever since those other people he'd consumed, she'd begun volunteering more. And with actual words rather than wordless impressions.

Mind's clearer, She whispered in reply.

Peter wasn't sure how to respond to that. Or even if he should. He'd really tried to just... ignore those voices, but sometimes it was just impossible. More indicators that maybe he wasn't as stable as he hoped he was.

Hey, you're perfectly sane, boy, Cletus drawled, I'm in here and everything looks just fine.

That... was not comforting. At all.

Peter found himself at the address that Hank had sent. Gentek Tower. The Hydra scent in the air was hideously strong, but also unmistakably... different. He tried to quell his nerves and approached the massive gray building. The entire front of it was dominated by glass, with bands of grayish brickwork every few stories. It practically had the block to itself, with the surrounding area a combination of above-ground parking and a small park-like strip surrounding the building.

The fact that they could devote that much empty real-estate to that, spoke of how much money the place had far more eloquently than the mere size of the building.

Killing field, the Hunter pointed out. Open area. Makes approach difficult.

He frowned as he understood what the Hunter had noted. There was a single obvious entrance in the front. Well recessed from the brickwork fronting. Deep enough to turn that space into a shooting gallery. The doors themselves were glass as one might expect, but they looked heavily reinforced. Peter wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been bulletproof and shatter-proof.

The glass windows didn't start until at least the fourth floor and looked to mostly be of the same material. The effect was subtly done, but once Peter paid attention to it, it was clear that the lowest floors were designed to prevent any chance of something just breaking a window to get in. Just out of reach of a Rhino's grabbing hands, he noted. Maybe one could put a car through one of the higher story windows, but it wouldn't actually be an infected getting in.

The cleared park-like area was pretty, but also made it simple to watch all the potential lines of approach. He wouldn't be surprised if there were gun ports higher up along the building not only to take out anything approaching across the cleared area, but also for picking off any Vultures that made an approach by air.

It all added up to one thing. The building was a subtly designed fortress in the middle of Manhattan. It looked like it was set up to withstand a siege of Hydra infected. All of which just made how much it reeked of Hydra all the more ironic.

The instructions Hank texted him had been straightforward enough. The receptionist had been told that he had an appointment with Dr. Pym and he probably would have to leave an ID to get through. That seemed straightforward.

It didn't quite overcome his immediate reluctance.

He pulled out the anonymous phone that MJ had given him and thumbed her number into it. He didn't need the UltronMobile since he wasn't calling into the Red Zone. That and he didn't particularly care to have Hank listen in on his conversations.

The phone was answered within a few rings. "Hello, MJ's phone."

Peter stopped in surprise. "Uh... Gwen?"

"Hey, Petey." Her voice sounded quite cheerful, "Everything okay?"

"Where's MJ?" He asked carefully.

"Bathroom," Gwen replied. "Funny. She actually gets your number. When you called me, it said the Caller ID was blocked."

"That was a different phone," He replied without thinking.

"Ohh..." Gwen drew the syllable out much longer than Peter thought it needed to be. Her tone was teasing, "So you have a special phone to call MJ on. Let me guess, one that your Aunt May can't check the minutes on, right? Like say you guys call each other late at night and talk for hours, maybe?"

That caught him just further off guard. How exactly was he supposed to explain that the phone was actually MJ's own untraceable cell? How did one explain that someone actually had and may have needed an untraceable cell phone?

"Uh... I... that is..."

"That's what I figured," Gwen said with a laugh.

"You seem to take great delight in teasing me." Peter said sourly.

"Only because you still react in exactly the same way." Gwen replied good-naturedly. "Wish I could see your face. Bet you're doing that little put-upon pout right now."

"I am no--" He said and noticed his reflection in the mirror. He immediately schooled his expression to be something else. He took a deep breath, "Look, I did want to talk to you too. I heard back from... uh... a friend of my mom's who knows people working the Red Zone. Your dad's okay. He's not infected or anything. He's probably under observation right now, so he can't answer his phone."

Gwen made a slightly choked noise. "You're sure?"

"Pretty much, yes," Peter reassured her.

"Great. Thank goodness. Oh, hey. Here's MJ." There were rustling noises for a moment.

MJ's voice finally came through, "Hey, Tiger." She said quietly. "Talking to Gwen on my phone?"

"I was trying to call you, actually," Peter replied.

"I should hope so." Her tone was slightly teasing, but there was a bit of tension in it.

"She thinks I call you on a special phone so Aunt May doesn't know we stay up all hours talking." Peter replied, trying to distract her from whatever was upsetting her.

She made a small snort that he recognized as a suppressed laugh. "You do realize that's exactly what we've been doing, right? Maybe without the phone..."

He blushed as he replayed the past few nights since he'd met her and realized that it actually was true. "Um. Yeah. Uh... anyway, I just wanted to let you know I'm in Manhattan right now. Dr. Pym contacted me. He said he wants some blood samples... it might be useful for a cure."

There was a long moment of silence before MJ replied. "You're reflexively responsible, aren't you?"

"I guess?" Peter replied, a little uncertainly.

"I still think your pal Hank's got some sort of hidden agenda," MJ said after another long moment. "You should be careful."

He heard her breath catch slightly, but he answered right away. "I know. I will be."

Her voice dropped and became slightly tentative, "I'm glad you told me." She paused then added, "Is it weird that I'm more worried about you being in Manhattan than I was when you were in the Red Zone?"

"Maybe?" He replied mildly. "I'll be fine. Worst case scenario, I'll find a car to throw at him."

This time she did laugh. "Just come back to me safe, alright, Tiger?"

Not sure how to respond, he simply said. "Sure."

"I'll let Aunt May know you'll be missing lunch?"

"Yes, please." He paused, intending to hang up, but his curiosity got the better of him. "You and Gwen are getting along okay?"

MJ replied cheerfully, "I was kind of determined to hate her, since she's your childhood friend and is some kind of straight A gorgeous cheerleader genius type. But she showed me baby pictures of you so we've called a truce."

"... Baby pictures?"

"She's got tons, apparently." MJ said and even over the phone, he could already imagine the grin on her face.

"I should probably go." Peter replied awkwardly. "Gotta see a man about making me bleed."

She whispered in a sober tone, "Be careful."

"I will." He replied, just as solemnly.

They both hung up.

Peter caught the smile on his face in his reflection of a window he passed. Maybe whatever attachment she had towards him was unhealthy, but it still felt... nice. He'd liked that she was worried about him. Not that she was worrying, but that she cared to do so. That helped.

He also couldn't help but notice that while he was concentrating on talking to her, the babble in the back of his mind seemed to still. That went a long way towards making him feel more human.

We were just being polite cause you were on the phone. Cletus drawled.

Peter winced and pushed his way into the lobby of the Gentek Building.

As he passed through the door, he noted the double door arrangement. A fairly basic air lock. Once inside, the scent of Hydra in the air increased sharply. It almost made his eyes water and he was still wiping at his eyes to clear them as he moved to the reception desk.

"Are you alright?" The receptionist asked with vague concern. She was pretty. In her early twenties and sporting a brunette bob of hair.

"Fine, fine." Peter wheezed, fighting the urge to take a deep breath to try and resettle himself. Once he'd cleared his eyes he stared at her. The scent roiling off the woman clearly marked her as a Hydra infectee. She seemed perfectly unmarked though, at least what he could see of her. She was well-dressed and a small bronze nametag on her left breast said, "Liz Brant, Receptionist."

He realized after a moment that he was staring. She, on the other hand, didn't. She hadn't seemed to have noticed his attention on her, even though she'd noticed when he'd been knuckling at his eyes. She stood perfectly stock still. Her brown eyes were vaguely unfocused and she seemed to be staring at a point just above the top of Peter's left ear.

The smile was what he found the most disquieting of all. It was empty. Like someone had explained to her what a smile involved, but never actually demonstrated it. The effect of the upturned corners of her mouth that showed nowhere else on her face was disconcerting. The longer he looked, the more he realized that it wasn't just the smile. It was her eyes.

"I have an appointment with Hank Pym," Peter choked out after a minute.

She turned that dead smile at him, inclined her head slightly and then nodded. "May I have your name, please? And do you have any ID?" She asked in a pleasant tone. Or it would have been pleasant, if she weren't making Peter's skin crawl. He had to wonder how anyone wouldn't notice the problem with the woman.

"Peter Parker." He replied, fishing his wallet out to show his student ID.

She nodded and he stared at her once more. She seemed to ignore it in favor of typing something into the small console in front of her.

He noted a slight shift in the musty Hydra scent surrounding them. It freshened slightly... just a tiny amount. Her scent also seemed to shift a moment later. Still unmistakably Hydra, but something had changed.

She turned her dead-eyed smile on him once more and said, "Dr. Pym will see you now. Just take any of the elevators over there." She gestured behind her to a short hall leading to a bank of elevators. "His personal labs are on the 62nd Floor. Thank you and have a great day."

Peter nodded and backed away from her warily. She didn't follow him. Or try to bite great chunks out of him with those pretty white teeth. Or anything at all threatening... just... watching him with those dead eyes staring out of that pretty face.

That's just creepy. Cletus drawled, affecting a shudder to his tone.

You know it's bad when Cletus is the one saying it, Donna whispered.

We should kill her.

Peter beat a hasty retreat for the elevators. The worst part was how reasonable Cletus' suggestion had sounded to him right that moment.

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