Variant Strain

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There was brief confused moment of transition between sleep and waking when Peter wasn't entirely certain of what was going on. He didn't know quite what to expect on waking up.

There had been dreams again. Thankfully they were no longer Wizard of Oz themed, although he was fairly certain someone was singing in Broadway show-tunes in the background.

Finding MJ curled up into a fetal ball and sleeping halfway on his chest, was not what he expected. She was more or less fully dressed again, having snuck back up to the living room for a change of shirt before she'd come back down. She let him eat the half-shredded shirt the rest of the way and he'd ended up falling asleep 'wearing' it.

He didn't want to admit how much he'd actually enjoyed consuming that shirt.

Well, he could tell that she could tell and was clearly happy about it.

At least it let him avoid thinking about how close he'd come to actually consuming her.

That just made the current situation, with him stuck under her all the more disturbing.

Her sleep tousled hair was almost entirely in his face and smelled incredible.

His instincts had almost run wild last night and he still couldn't entirely trust himself so close to her. He was sure she'd only had an arm when they'd fallen asleep. Having her on top of him was a bit much for his already overstressed instincts.

But, she did smell so very good.

Women should not smell that good first thing in the morning. Disjointed memories of other men and other lives told him that as a rule... they did not.

He briefly nuzzled into her hair and kissed the top of her head, earning a happy, sleepy mumble from her before he tried to work out how to get out from under her without waking her up.

Awkward.

He took a deep breath, in the process filling himself up with her scent once more as he tried to gently maneuver her off of him. She gave a sleepy protest, but he managed to get her head off his chest and onto his shoulder before his enhanced hearing caught movement above. People in the kitchen. The scents marked it as Aunt May and Anna.

This brought fresh urgency to his need to escape, as being found in bed with MJ would look rather bad.

They would have passed the couch on the way to the kitchen. They already know she isn't there. His voice drawled in his head.

There's a world of difference between not being there and being in here. He told himself firmly.

For someone who's been through as much crap as you have, you're kind of a wuss when it comes to your Aunt, aincha? Cletus's voice laughed.

I thought you were dead.

Y'don't need to sound so disappointed, y'know.

I was not.

I AM dead. I've been dead since I first showed up in here.

I meant Hank's memory things tore you apart.

Pfft. You heard Donna and Connors. All us voices in here? We're just bits and pieces. You can pull us apart, smoosh us together, gobble us up. Don't make a difference. From a certain point of view, we ain't even really real. 'S'all good. As long as you need us we're gonna keep showin' up.

Why do I need you?

Well, someone's gotta give you the practical answers.

Your practical answers generally involve killing things and eating them.

Just so.

I am not eating MJ to get her off of me.

It was just a thought. Thought, I'm really not sure I want her in here with us. She's kind of scary, man.

Desperate to move off that topic, Peter thought back, Does this mean Hank's still in there somewhere?

D'you want him to be?

No.

Then y'all better stop thinkin' about him then.

That... made sense.

Peter sighed and pulled his attention away from his internal... was it a dialogue if it was a dead man's voice in your own head? Particularly given that it was one that you'd been assured you had made up?

Desperate for a distraction or at least some inspiration to move MJ, he chanced to overhear the two women at the kitchen table. That hadn't been particularly difficult. His hearing was very good now.

"... your fussing, woman. I'm fine. It still twinges, but I can live with it." Aunt May sounded snappish, but it seemed good-natured. Peter imagined she was smiling.

"Well, we need you in one piece, dear," Anna replied back airily, "You're the only one here who actually knows how to cook. Also, with you up and about, I can stop pretending to be in charge."

"Pfft. What, you want me to take charge here? You've done pretty well so far, Anna. Don't sell yourself short." Aunt May's voice was cheerful.

"May, I have no idea what I'm doing. One minute, the biggest thing I had to worry about was getting the funding pushed through for the Roxxon Oil buyout, the next thing I know, I'm in charge of three teen-agers and a drugged up invalid while mutant... things that used to be our neighbors are going crazy and the army is shooting everyone."

"I'm not an invalid." Aunt May sniffed, choosing to focus on that part of what she'd said. "And those pain killers always do a number on me, so stop feeding them to me and I might actually be able to stay up."

Anna sighed, "I just... how was I supposed to know picking up my niece to sleep over was going to turn into this?"

"Don't give me that. This is hardly your fault. There was no way you could have known this was going to happen." Aunt May sighed. "If... if I hadn't gone with you, I probably would have died with Ben..."

"Then Peter wouldn't have had anyone. You can't think like that, May." Anna's voice had become insistent. "I'm just wondering if maybe we should've taken MJ to somewhere other than my place."

May replied, "After having met your brother, I can understand why you wanted to get her away from him, but you didn't and here we are."

"Is it sad that MJ might actually be safer in the middle of a zombie outbreak than she would have been with her own father?" Anna's voice had taken an unfamiliarly bitter tone.

"Well, he was with the police at the station where all this started happening," May said and Peter noted that there was a certain vicious relish to her tone.

Anna replied pointedly, "So was George. And Peter says he's fine."

"Yes, well," May made a dismissive noise, "Your brother is no George Stacy."

They shared a laugh.

"I'm still amazed that Peter is actually getting news from inside the quarantine area," May said, her voice dropping.

"Some people need pressure to show what they're capable of." Anna replied slowly. "Gwen told me that Peter said he had some sort of override code or something from his father's Gentek stint to get through the military's communications blackout."

May gave a small noise of surprise. "Well, we were keeping some of his parents' papers in the attic for him after their old house was sold. I'm surprised he managed to find them." There was a small, half-choked sob.

"May? May, what's--"

"Sorry... it's... it was just Ben..." She half-laughed, half-sobbed. "He promised that he was going to clean that damned attic up this weekend. I stared... I started to remember that and... I... it... I... I keep forgetting he's gone." She sniffled, "I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that we can't even go back to the house."

Peter turned his attention away, his face burning with shame at having heard-- Eavesdropped, his own voice drawled-- in on his Aunt's grief.

In the background of his mind, he could feel things shifting. It wasn't the mess of gibbering and unpatterned chaos anymore back there. He could faintly hear hold music play briefly as he felt connections forming. Pulling together in a web of information. Cross-indexed entries into memories both his and stolen, tracing out strangely branching paths.

He blinked as he felt his mind blaze through the connections in a moment, Hank's influence, he guessed. The legacy of a mind that had taken up a building. A spiderweb of indexed thoughts and cross-connected knowledge.

Peter's mind latched onto Anna's words as he glanced back to MJ. She wasn't any safer in the middle of a zombie outbreak. None of them were safe by any stretch of the definition.

But now, he could make them safe.

Memories cascaded uncomfortably, triggered by cross-references from the words. He wasn't consumed by the rush, but they were there, marching clear and strong against the backs of his eyes.

Brian Watson had come to Queens to pick up MJ. Someone had called him and told him something was going to happen. Or that someone had suspected something would happen and the best course of action was to get out of New York as quickly as possible. That it would not be safe. The same someone who had helped him cover up what had happened to MJ's mother.

Which then made it odd that Pym had not known something would be happening. He had suspected about Jessica's escape, but he could not act. He couldn't convince anyone to take action... or hadn't he? Pym had been sending warnings in since Peter's visit to the Bellvue facility.

Perhaps someone had taken heed. Or understood what it meant... but it hadn't been whoever had warned Brian. It had been the 'old man'. leaving that had triggered the warning. Someone understood what Jessica being awake and free meant. Someone who hadn't bothered trying to persuade Thunderhead Command, but had chosen to run.

Peter couldn't really blame them. Forest Hills looked like something out of a bad zombie movie... and that hadn't even been Jessica, per se. He had no doubt that if Manhattan had an outbreak, it would be far worse.

He knew these for a fact. Hank Pym had needed to discard a great deal of his knowledge when he'd invaded Peter's head, but he'd still kept a tremendous amount. What he hadn't retained, he'd done his best to back up to Oscorp owned server farms overseas. Peter knew his phone, with it's Ultron upgrades would be able to tap into the information in those servers, but he didn't need to for this. Hank had kept a tremendous amount of outbreak simulation data for Manhattan. If nothing was done about a primary outbreak from the Gentek Tower site, there was a 90% chance of complete Hydra saturation of Manhattan Island within eight days.

That was also assuming an undirected outbreak and a standard Thunderbolts response scenario.

Hank had sent warnings and the Queens outbreak already had the Thunderbolts on high alert, even if they were deployed in the completely wrong place.

So the odds were slightly better.

But not worth gambling MJ, Aunt May, Anna or Gwen on. He knew Gwen wouldn't go anywhere without her father... so he would need to be kept safe too.

He was going to need to have the man pulled out of Thunderbolt custody.

He closed his eyes and gently pressed the fingers of his free hand against his eyeballs. He had to try and stop Jessica.

Something of what he had inherited from Hank Pym told him that he personally had to try and stop the entire outbreak. Pym had felt Jessica was his responsibility. He was the last person who had known her from before her transformation.

He wondered if it were fair that he would try to protect them first and best. He felt his guilt spike over the thought that everyone else who would still be in danger as he tried to put the people he cared about first.

That doesn't make you a bad person, Donna's voice whispered. As much as you can do, you can't be everywhere at once--

Unless you figure out how to do the Jessica thing and mind-whammy a whole bunch of infected to be your zombie army. Cletus interjected with a mental smirk.

As I was saying! Donna's voice cooled and snapped, You can't be everywhere at once. You will need to prioritize. If you can make them safe first, it frees you to concentrate on what you need to do with Jessica.

What little he had seen of Pym's memories about what had happened in Middletown only helped convince him that it was the right thing to do. Hank hadn't gotten his fiance out when he had the chance. His best friend had been caught in the center when Jessica had turned. No one that Hank had cared for had made it out. Peter wasn't going to let that happen.

Hank really hadn't cared about anyone in the specific in the here and now. He simply had felt an abstract responsibility to protect everyone from a Hydra outbreak. Peter's needs were more concrete. Better than that, on top of the changes Hank had inflicted on his mind that had resulted in better organization, Peter realized he could actually get his hands on the resources he needed to evacuated everyone in the house.

Except, he had to find ways to open the necessary doors without giving himself away. He wondered about the paranoia he'd felt about keeping his abilities a secret. Logically he should tell them.

The obvious and logical course would be to tell Aunt May, Anna, and Gwen what he was capable of. That would make getting past the barricade around Queens a simple operation. He could just carry each of them in turn and a quick set of jumps building-to-building and everyone would be out.

Except... he wasn't just logic, was he? There was a stubborn, irrational part of him that clung to Peter Parker and his Aunt May's view of him as normal that he couldn't let go of. It was his safe haven. His shelter from everything else. As long as she saw him as just plain old Peter, he could shrug off everything else that had changed.

MJ knowing hadn't been the same thing. He'd never known her before he'd become what he was. But Aunt May was another story entirely. He didn't think he could take it if she recoiled in fear from him. His powers were terrifying and disgusting things. He was a terrifying and disgusting thing. The human body wasn't meant to be stretched and twisted into forms that laughed in the face of biology and physics. His mind was even worse. A patchwork amalgam of damaged minds giving strange voices to his thoughts to keep him sane.

He held conversations with himself to keep from going crazy. He supposed it worked after a fashion. He was still holding it together. Still doing what he wanted to do. Not having any cravings that involved human flesh.

Except for the kinky ones and that's just normal for a kid your age, Cletus chimed in.

He sighed. He needed better company in his head.

Nevertheless, the direct route was out. So he had to be sneaky. And manipulative. Which was not him, but he was willing to do it to protect those important to him.

Funny how you're more willing to compromise on that, than you are on telling your loved ones the truth. His voice drawled.

You realize you're overlooking an obvious problem with this, Donna said briskly. While Gwen would never leave without father, May would never leave without you. You can't just get them out and expect her to let you stay.

He winced as he realized she was right. The only way it would work would be if he went with them. At least for a while. He would have to get them to somewhere safe then make his way back.

He had few worries about his chances of bypassing any attempt to keep him out of Queens.

He had the voices. He had the necessary codes from Pym. He was reasonably confident he could get things to work out right...

He raised his free hand and his cellphone pushed out of the flesh of his palm. He wondered briefly if he actually had fully consumed the phone and was rebuilding it using his own flesh, but that made no sense. After all it had a bunch of metal bits and he couldn't do fine color control. The crisp little Starktech logo on the smart phone just made that unlikely.

Except... his wrist was just too narrow for the phone to have passed unimpeded if it had simply traveled down his arm from some other part of his body and he was pretty sure he would have felt it traveling under his flesh. His hand was too small for it to have been kept there. The story would've been the same for the gun that he'd put in his own hand when he'd been fighting the Rhino.

So... where were the metal things that he put in his pockets going and how were they coming back? He guessed it would have to do with wherever he was storing all his extra mass and nearly laughed at the thought of a massive blob of flesh just hanging around in another dimension somewhere connected to his body.

Focus, Donna said sharply. Stop stalling.

He winced then smiled sheepishly. He shifted his throat and allowed the strange new mechanisms in his mind to pull forward a voice... or at least it's vocal patterns... word choice... tone.

He dialed a number on the phone.

"Go for Harry." A brisk, business-like voice spoke. It was familiar and not at the same time.

Peter took a deep breath and spoke with Brian Watson's voice. "Harry? Thank God." Peter replied, forcing exasperation and exhaustion creep into his words, " It's Brian."

"Brian! Are you alright? Were you able to get to MJ? I was sure I told you early enough that you should've gotten out in time." Harry asked, his tone softening to concern. The mental image that was associated with the voice was of a brown-haired man in his late thirties. A man with sharp brown eyes inherited from his father and handsome in the way that only a pampered son of old money could manage, kept tanned and fit by polo and yachting. "Where are you? I've been trying to get hold of you since yesterday."

"I lost my phone during the fuss." Peter replied bluntly. "We're stuck in Queens."

"Not in the quarantined area?" There was an undercurrent of fear lacing Harry's voice.

"No, no... we got out before the military had the place cordoned off. We're still stuck in Queens proper, though. I need your help, Harry." Peter said slowly.

"Of course, Brian. Anything," Harry replied immediately. There was a brief flurry in Peter's mind as that phrase triggered off of other memories. About how desperate Harry always was to help Brian out. Harry that rake, Harry the wastrel... these were mere masks for a man with an almost pathological need to please his friends to compensate for his father's disappointment in him. It was pathetic.

Peter was shocked at just how much of Brian Watson had still stayed with him. Admittedly, without Hank's influence, he probably never would have even known what he knew. It didn't alter his own feeling towards Brian. The man had been human garbage and the cynical, mocking assessment of his best friend certainly didn't score Brian any points with Peter.

Especially considering how he hadn't had any real friends before MJ.

Focus, Donna chided once more. He's waiting for an answer.

"I need you to get us out of here, Harry," Peter in Brian's voice replied, his voice shaky.

"I've been hearing some reports. How bad is it?" Harry asked carefully.

"It's horrible. People going crazy... people turning into things... eating other people. " Peter didn't have to fake the shudder that ran through him.

"What?" Complete and utter confusion.

The urgency in Brian's voice coming from Peter's mouth had hints of Pym. "Whatever reports you're getting? They aren't telling you anything useful, Harry."

Harry clicked his tongue and asked, "Where are you exactly?"

"Just a few miles north of the Forest Hills area." He rattled off the address into the phone.

"Is it just you and MJ?" Harry asked. Peter could hear scratching in the background. Harry was obviously taking notes.

"It was supposed to be... but things got complicated." Peter said. He realized that Brian was more than his temper. The man was a liar. Well, he'd been a lawyer. That amounted to the same thing.

"Complicated?"

"Complicated. We also need to get my sister and her two neighbors out. And there was a cop..."
"Brian, is now really the time to get back at a policema--" It had the exasperated tone of something that had been brought up before.

"No!" Peter said sharply, almost in his own voice, but he caught himself and continued, "One of the cops helped us get out. He got caught when the barricade went up. Near as I can tell, the military have him, but I don't know where exactly. His daughter is letting us stay at their house. I need to get them out too."

"Ah. That's... surprisingly noble of you." Harry said in surprise.

"Not after having seen what I've seen, Harry," Peter replied roughly. "You wouldn't want to leave anyone in there."

Harry made a small choking noise. "You don't want to get everyone out, do you? This... whatever it is... is big. Not even the old man seems to know what's going on. That's a first for him."

Peter paused, trying to remember what Brian had known about Harry's father, but all he could recall was that the man had been sickly, filthy rich and had disliked Brian. Peter replied hastily, "No, no. I don't care about everyone else, but I owe George Stacy and his kid."

"Alright, I hear you, I hear you. So seven people in all?" Harry asked.

Peter almost corrected him, but realized that he had to count himself and Brian separately. "Yes. Seven's right."

"I'll see what I can do, Brian." He said cautiously, but his tone was confident. "Queens is a no-fly zone for civilian aircraft right now. So I can't just send a chopper in. Let me pull some strings and figure out where this hero cop friend of yours is."

"I appreciate it. Thank you." Peter's reply came through relieved.

"No problem, Buddy." Harry's voice caught briefly but he continued. "All day yesterday, I thought you were dead."

"Nope, still alive," Peter said, trying to be reassuring. "Can't get rid of me that easily." He laughed.

"I'm really glad then. I'll give you a call back once I have some more news. Is this number alright?"

"Yes. Thanks, again."

"Anytime."

Peter hung up, feeling much lighter. That would take care of that. He would still need an excuse for why Brian would stay behind, but he had some time to come up with something. He didn't expect there to really be any issues with them discovering that he was infected. Their main method for detecting Hydra infections besides blood tests involved using Trackers. Since everyone was distrusting them now, thanks to Hank's own warnings, Peter was sure he needn't be too concerned.

He allowed himself to relax, his throat blurring in black and red to return to normal when something caught his attention.

Trouble, the Cain's voice murmured in his mind, pulling sharply into focus the change in MJ's breathing.

Peter turned his attention to her and could feel the difference. The relaxed, dreamy lassitude of her sleeping on his shoulder had turned into tension. He could feel her muscles taut against him. Ready to spring away.

She whimpered, deep in her throat and he could feel her curling up tighter. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he shifted slightly, bringing his other arm around to hug her.

That just made her tense up even more and she began to shake. She was terrified. Her entire body had locked up from the fear.

"MJ, what's wrong?" He asked gently.

She looked up sharply, her eyes wide and stared into his face. "I... I thought my... he's dead, right? You killed him?" Her voice was a thready whisper as she clung to him... but that felt conflicted. As though she were trying to decide between holding him and pushing away. Her voice was still soft, but it had a panicked edge to it. "You killed him. You let me watch you do it."

"What're you--?" He began to ask, but caught himself and realized what it was. She'd heard him on the phone. She'd heard him speaking with her father's voice. Cascades of memories were trying to load in the background... what associations the thought had triggered, but he'd focused entirely on her. "No, he's gone, MJ. He's not going to hurt you." He reached up to stroke her hair and she flinched. Or she would have, but the half-flinch stopped sharply, as though she'd caught herself and frozen. She was still stiff and terrified. She hadn't allowed him to do it because she'd wanted him to.

She'd let him because she knew that if she didn't it would be very bad for her.

He felt vaguely sick at that realization.

"It's me, MJ." Peter said gently, pulling his arm away, letting her have her space. "I was just using his voice."

"Promise?" She asked in a tiny voice.

"I promise."

"He... he said he was alive." She pressed, her eyes wide with doubt, "That I couldn't get rid of him--"

"That was me," Peter cut in, continuing to keep his tone gentle and mild.

The suspicion in her eyes began to soften and she said, "But you don't know how to lie."

He felt a flash of irritation at having that mentioned again and suddenly her face seemed to relax.

"What?" He said in confusion.

"You did the face." She said with a relieved smile.

"What face?" No less confused for her answer.

"The pouty face thing Gwen was telling me about. She had pictures of you doing it from when you were ten." She giggled softly but it was thready and borderline hysterical with relief. "It really is you, right? And he's gone? Really, really gone? You're you and not him."

"Never him." Peter replied softly.

"Who was that on the phone?" She asked, relaxing slightly, but her voice was still soft. .

"Your dad's friend. I'm trying to get you guys out of Queens." Peter replied.

"Frie--" MJ looked confused for a moment then blinked, "Mr. Osborn?"

"Yes," Peter nodded. "Harry Osborn."

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