Variant Strain

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The directions Hank had sent to Peter's phone had been straightforward enough. There were a great many anonymous gray and institutional green maintenance tunnels. The floors were bare cement and echoed any footsteps back.

This deep within the Gentek building, the smell of Hydra had only intensified as Peter walked. Those he encountered were all dressed in maintenance coveralls and ball caps pulled low over their faces. Every single man and woman that he encountered smelled of a full-blown Hydra infection.

Peter had to shove his hands into his pockets to keep them from forming fists. The laboratory level had been bad enough, but everything here was just setting his teeth on edge. He had to keep fighting down the urge to just start tearing into the infected all around him. He still couldn't be certain if that was his own temper having finally come close to its breaking point or if Hank was continuing his attempts to take control.

Neither thought made him happy.

This ironically enough set up its own horrible positive feedback loop of anger.

A few infectees here and there didn't have their hats on and they were worse than the ones who did. The low bill on the hats had covered up the flat, dead stare of those infectees as they shuffled along on their duties. The baggy coveralls covered up whatever other mutations they might have had. Peter was certain he'd spotted a few odd bulges. Perhaps a few too many cases of limbs that didn't quite bend right.

He'd shifted back to the hoodie when he realized those dead stares just slid past him without noticing.

Possibly Hank giving him a free pass. Or was it bee behavior? They'd defend the Hive against entry, but once he was actually in there, it was assumed that he was supposed to be there? He let himself wonder briefly if eusocial behavior in infected was emergent from whatever instincts the Virus put in there, or if they always had to be enforced from above by the sentient Hives.

He shook his head. That was useless speculation at this point. He supposed Hank might know, but he really did not feel like talking to him anymore. He didn't want anything to do with him anymore. He just wanted to see his mom's body-- possibly steal it-- and get out.

He still had the suit on under the hoodie, which vaguely amused him. The gunk and drywall from where he'd punched into Hank's substance had long since been consumed by his feeding tendrils. He wasn't certain if any of that would give him anything useful from Hank, but other than being able to dampen out Hank's scent easier, which could have just been from him getting used to it, there hadn't been any other obvious change so far.

After another long walk through an unoccupied corridor, he noted a distinct shift in the air once more. There were trace scents now of something like an open sewer. He had no clue where he was in relation to anything else, but Peter guessed he was getting close to wherever it was that Hank was hooked into the sewage mains.

Which, on reflection, Peter mused, sort of made sense for a place to store dead infected before disposing of them.

The directions led him to a set of closed double doors. He could distinguish the scents of rot and decay from behind the door, distinct from the carrion scent of the Hydra. Dead things lay beyond. He glanced down at his phone one last time and tapped the code it provided into the keypad next to the door. It beeped and clicked, opening for him.

There was a puff of cool air through the crack in the doors and Peter opened it wide, stepping into the large, distinctly colder room. Peter mused he could've fit the entire ground floor of their home in the room.

It had the same distinctly spotless white and chrome of Hank's lab, the whole lit brightly by blazing overhead fluorescent lights. The entire far wall was dominated by small doors and there were a dozen chrome tables in the middle of the open room, covered in plastic sheets. It was like the coroner's lab of every TV show he'd ever seen writ large. To the left of the door he'd entered, was a large pile, easily the size of an SUV, covered by a tarp that stank of dead Hydra. Dead bodies.

Peter drew the tarp away, revealing bodies stacked on top of one another. He grit his teeth to fight down another surge of anger. A heap of neatly stacked human bodies. Not all of them had their eyes closed. None of them allowed any dignity in death.

It wasn't any better than how they had been in Bellevue, but he noticed strands of fibrous, ropy flesh intertwined with the bodies. They were stacked up like this because there hadn't been much choice, short of cutting them apart. Perhaps they simply hadn't had time to do so. Things had been hectic all around since... had that only been just a bit over a day or so back?

He frowned as he recognized some of the bodies as having come from Bellevue, but another set, closer to the bottom of the pile drew his eye. A little girl, sweet-featured and almost peaceful compared to those around her. She'd been in the back of the Thunderbolts van with him when he'd woken among the dead.

This was where they'd taken those bodies. His stomach clenched and made small gurgling noises. Horrified fascination and hunger warred.

He knew exactly what Hank had planned for these bodies. Or at least he could make an educated guess.

You wanna take his lunch away? His own voice drawled. Wanna show the big manipulative building he ought to know better than to mess with you?

I like this plan, actually. Cletus drawled back.

Focus on why we're here. Donna whispered.

Peter's stomach roiled once more and he forced himself to look away. He clutched at himself, shivering not just from the cold. He really was losing it. He had been losing it steadily, but that had been seriously wrong. Piles of corpses shouldn't look... appetizing.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, but all the mingled scents in the room did little to calm him. The tang of sewage, the slow clear scent of rot; the flat, dead scent of carrion mingled with the closed in sickly sweetness of old, live Hydra.

One scent did stand out and it came from one of the tables. It cut through the mingled scents and it had a familiar... familial feel to it. It had echoes of spice and fresh cut grass. Not that there had been any here. It smelled comforting, despite his surroundings, but it had no vibrancy. It felt... flat. Off.

He walked closer to the table and drew the covering back, revealing a head of auburn hair and a gaunt, but familiar face in gentle repose.

Just as though he'd consumed a fresh infected memories suddenly assaulted him.

-- his Queen had been pleased. He could feel his subordinates... his children... squirming against his bones in gleeful play. Urgent to be free to do their work. To join their brothers and spread her worship.

Every step brought fresh ripples of movement. He could see his skin bulge up and slide. They swam in his flesh, made play in the confines of his chest. He felt a tickle in his throat as one came too close, threatening to rise up to free itself, but he fought it down.

His Queen said they were almost ready and it was because of his diligence. Then they would both be free. There would be no more shackles. No more deceit. He would strip himself free of the restraints imposed upon him and unfurl his Queen's gift.

It was good to serve.

He opened the door to the other's room. To the one called the Sleeping Beauty. Parker. The Queen hated her. The Parker woman in her sleep had somehow done something to his Queen. Kept her enchanted. Both bound in sleep, neither able to harm the other.

But she had dreamed to him. Dreamed to him and kissed him in her sleep. Given him gifts. His children. His children would free her. Even now they gnawed away at her chains. Their blood and bodies offered freely to her service.

He still had to serve his mortal masters. Still bound to keep up the masquerade for the sake of his Queen. So he tended to Parker. Tended to his Queen's enemy and hated. Hated from the pit of his stomach to his very bones. Still she lay there. Silent. Defiant in her sleep.

He had offered to kill her for his Queen, but she had stopped him. In death Parker would undo his work. In her final moments he could stop the Queen's heart. So she lived. Forced to balance her war against the Queen against her own life, or so she had told him.

But now the promised day approached. She would be free and Parker would die. He moved to replace her IV with accustomed care, savoring the flash of sweet pain as flesh bulged and his children swarmed away from the motion.

He looked down on her then. The Sleeping Beauty, they called her. Parker. He'd stared and fought the loathing and hatred and the mad, furious impulse to simply choke the life out of her.

Her eyes suddenly opened, blazing red. Like his Queen's eyes, drawing him in. The sight of them blasted through his mind and consciousness for a moment. Just a moment.

His mind cleared. The worshipful haze of love he had for his Queen... for Madame Hydra lifted just enough to realize that-- ohgod. the rats. there are live rats in my body. swarming. choking. crawling on my bones. bulging my flesh. ohgod. ohgod what's happening--

She coughed, right into his face and he recoiled back. He clawed at himself. Seeking to tear out the squirming things. The horrible skittering wretched things under his skin. Chittering, clicking claws on his bones. Swimming through his flesh.

Oh god. My bones. They're gnawing on my--

He screamed. He felt his face begin crawling away from his open mouth. Lips thinning and opening and forcing his jaw to widen impossibly huge. Lower jaw cracked open beneath stringy flesh, the skin across his chin stretching wide to accommodate the two pivoting sections. Bones separating along hidden hinges and the tickle in his throat became an impossible pressure and he vomited the first one out.

A black, sleek thing, small and slick with blood, it plopped to the ground. It turned bright red eyes up at him, squeaked disdainfully, and then scurried away, leaving tiny red paw prints in its wake.

His mind remained clear. For just a moment. A long terrible moment of clarity and realization.

Then the second rat forced its way up his throat and out of his hugely distended mouth--

Peter snapped out of his fugue long enough to realize he had fallen to his side and was screaming. He got up, just enough to curl up, clutching at his folded knees in his arms and stared. That had been Ed Whelan. Ratty old Ed Whelan who'd been sitting quietly in the back of his head, offering up bare glimpses of his memories. He had an impression now of more.

Peter had thought he simply hadn't had enough mind to retain anything. Or something in whatever had happened to give him Ed's body, had neglected to include the rest of his memories. But that wasn't the case.

Having those memories rise up seemed to help point out exactly where in his mind Ed had been hiding. Peter could feel the consciousness, the worshipful, needy, horrified voice of Ed Whelan retreating back. Trying to hide away again.

Peter ran his tongue over dry lips as he tried to get his own mind moving once more. He couldn't let that happen. There were answers in Whelan that Peter needed. How could he assume his mother's form when she obviously hadn't been eaten? That was her body on the slab. Intact. Whole.

How was that even possible?

He could feel Ed's panicked retreat in his mind, trying to drown itself in the susurrus of undistinguished voices from the mass of infected at the Watson house. Just as jarringly there had been... the impression of movement. Of things shifting and adjusting. Pinning down, holding. Grasping. Claws and hunger and suddenly, the impression of minds within his mind, the strange almost unnoticed pressure whenever the voices spoke shifted more strongly and Peter blinked in surprise.

There was a distinct image suddenly of Cletus and Donna holding Ed in place.

There was something fragile about the mind of Ed Whelan. It hadn't been like the other infected that had settled within him. They had been broken. Incomplete. Whelan, now that he could actually... inspect... him wasn't broken. He'd been tattered. Faded. It wasn't whole, but not in the same way that resulted from an abrupt break... it wasn't whole in that parts of him simply trailed off into wispy nothingness. It was as close an analogy as he could find.

"What the hell happened to you?" Peter choked out aloud, rising to his feet once more.

Y'know, we could probably beat some answers outta him if you like, Cletus drawled eagerly.

How can you even hold on to one another? Peter thought furiously. You're memories. How does that even work?

He had been trying to ignore them, but it was impossible. He really was hearing the voices of those he'd eaten... and somehow they were retaining echoes of who they were. He hadn't wanted to think about it.

No clue. Cletus offered. Although if we can kinda touch this jackass... we probably oughta be able to touch each other, His voice had dropped to a greasy slyness.

You're a pig, Donna's voice whispered.

Or you're turning the memories into voices to let you deal with it, His voice drawled back. Speaking to us is simply a way for you to acknowledge and use the memories while keeping them distinct from yourself. It’s all in your mind. You're using visualization and metaphors as a way to manipulate your own brain. Think of incipient multiple personality syndrome as a user-interface for your messed up mind.

That... actually made sense.

Cletus scoffed back, I know I'm real. The rest of y'all are the hallucinations.

Peter turned his full attention on Whelan's memories and tried to pull what happened next from him, but it all came as a jumble of abstract impressions and concepts. No words. Just a long string of things that made no sense but seemed to somehow be computer related. Command interpreters. Memetic packages. Write only permissions.

Peter winced and the next clear image was one of Whelan running down their street.

-- His body was falling apart; chunks of flesh were sloughing off, splattering on the asphalt behind him as he ran down the Forest Hills street.

It was going completely wrong.

Memetic identity package wouldn't take properly.

Rebuild impossible.

Run.

Not enough untainted neural tissue left.

Interpreter couldn't initialize.

Not enough time.

Run.

Sufficiently close genetic match will stabilize.

Rebuild.

Run.

Best guess.

Memetic identity unsalvageable.

Memetic package node cleared.

Match available.

Rebuild.

Run.

Best guess.

Identity indeterminate.

Newself.

It should have been stronger than this.

Stronger than Drew

Run.

Stron-- crying. Stop that.

Run!

Tears? Why tears? No tears. Oldself was dead by now.

Everything left to build a faulty escape.

Shut up.

Be strong.

Stop her.

Run.

Stronger than tears--

Ed Whelan's memories tore apart, shredded almost beyond recognition. Fragments floated through Peter's perception, but nothing else came across clearly enough to be of any use.

Peter leaned heavily against the slab his mother lay on, uncertain about what any of that meant. His mother had done something to Ed Whelan. But it had gone wrong. Ed Whelan who'd already been infected and serving Jessica Drew. Jessica Drew, who his mother had somehow been keeping trapped the whole time that she had been locked away in a five year coma. The same coma she was in because of Jessica Drew.

It all started with Jessica Drew. It all kept coming back to her somehow. The chain of events that left him an orphan. The set of events that killed Uncle Ben.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt the headache beginning to pound.

Every new answer brought fresh questions.

... and apparently the voice that had been telling him to be stronger than tears hadn't been his own, but rather whatever had made Ed Whelan run in the first place. Something his mother had put there. Something that had broken down and sent what had once been Ed Whelan into their lives.

He turned around and leaned over his mother's corpse. Years asleep had made her gaunt. Ed's memories made that seem familiar, but his own last memory of her... his last true memory of her, was hugging her before she left for work.

Happy. Loving. Alive. Standing next to his father. Laughing at some joke Peter hadn't understood and couldn't even remember anymore.

Now this would be his last memory of her. Dead on a slab in a room full of deformed corpses.

He shook his head. He shouldn't have come here. He knew better now. Maybe the answers, whatever they were weren't worth it.

He could only keep indulging his curiosity so much.

He took another deep breath, trying to center himself. He should just go back to Queens. Just like he'd told himself he needed to do.

He just needed to smuggle MJ, Gwen, Aunt May and Anna out. If Hank's plan to get attention turned towards Manhattan worked then that would pull more Thunderbolts troops and the marines away from Queens, making it that much easier to get them out.

So. Priorities. The answers could wait. Every new one had just given him nothing more than more questions. He was tired of it.

His stomach churned as another thought occurred to him. He couldn't leave her here. She'd been through enough indignities. He couldn't leave her body for Hank to consume.

Except you can't bring her with you either, his voice drawled.

Y'know, if you don't want Hanky-poo to eat her, you only have one choice, right? Cletus urged.

Peter shuddered as he realized exactly what Cletus meant. His stomach roiled and once again, he could no longer tell if it was in disgust or in anticipation.

He froze, staring at her. Torn.

You really want her to feed that jackass? Cletus asked. Get her tossed into whatever sewer intake pipe he's got and left to rot til he can tear her apart with his tendrils? She's dead. She's been dead for days, so y'ain't gotta worry 'bout mommy takin' up residence in your head, but if anyone ought to eat her, it oughta be someone who loves her, right?

Pete recoiled from Cletus's twisted logic, and yet... what else was he going to do? Even if he just smuggled her out, left her somewhere as a Jane Doe, he had little doubt that Hank could find her. Strings could be pulled.

She's already dead. It... wouldn't matter to her, right? Peter asked himself. But it matters to me.

Donna whispered, Think of it as keeping her with you.

That thought didn't help. At all. But... he'd consumed corpses already. This was just one more, right?

Except if he started thinking like that, then how did it make him any better than Hank?

He shook his head. This would be it. The last monstrous, inhuman thing. Then he'd go back. Walk away from all of this. Get everyone out and just... stop. Be a normal person again. Or at least pretend to be one.

He closed his eyes and reached his hand out to his mother's body. The flesh on his forearm unfolded into feeding tendrils and it finished faster than he expected.

He reopened his eyes and a shudder passed up his arm into the rest of his body. Almost as though he felt his flesh settling in better onto his bones. He blinked it away, glancing briefly down at the now empty slab before he turned to leave.

Danger. The Hunter barked in his mind.

He caught it then. A thin thready scent, all but buried beneath all the other more urgent ones.

Lilacs and waffles. Not MJ's vibrance... the scent seemed to overpower everything else despite coming from a distance. Delicious, wicked, heady, and strangely homey.

Dangerous for its seeming innocence.

That was Jessica Drew's scent.

She was near.

The more he concentrated on the scent, the stronger it became, seeking to overwhelm him. He caught other scents with hers.

Gunpowder and slick rubber. The Thunderbolts were here as well.

He was going to walk away.

That was the idea, wasn't it?

This wasn't his problem. He was here because he'd been tricked by an entirely too clever building.

It wasn't his responsibility to deal with Jessica Drew.

The Thunderbolts were the professionals.

They could deal with her.

He would leave.

Except he found himself slamming open the door and running towards the scents.

Towards.

Dammit.

This would be the last thing.

The one last item to be dealt with and he could walk away, he told himself furiously as he ran through the empty corridors.

This would be it. No more. He would help the Thunderbolts take her down. He would escape and he would never have to see another infected.

You keep telling yourself this and yet we still keep running towards trouble. Cletus drawled.

Donna whispered, Makes you wonder if Pym knew you'd react like this and he planned all of it to make us deal with Jessica.

Peter really didn't want to think about that possibility.

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