Variant Strain

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--need to take it easy." Hank said gently trying to force Bruce to sit down. Despite being nearly twice his size, it was surprisingly difficult. "You only just regained consciousness. You shouldn't even be on your feet yet."

"We don't have time." Bruce replied harshly, his eyes blazing. "John's doomed us all."

"You keep saying that," Hank said with exasperation. "I don't believe it. I'm working on a counter-agent to this Gamma strain of Hydra right now and--"

"You'll fail." Bruce said with a cutting motion of his hand.

Hank's mouth snapped shut and he felt a small stab at his friend's lack of faith, but he'd known the smaller man long enough to know his lack of tact wasn't anything personal.

"Bruce, I--"

"It's not a slight on your capabilities, Hank." Bruce continued. "You're going about this without all the relevant information."

"And what relevant information am I missing?" Hank asked, trying to keep his voice from being overly stiff. The casual dismissal stung.

Bruce shook his head. "The Richards' cipher. It's not what we thought it was."

"You know it?"

"Yes." He held a hand up, "And before you say it, no. We can't use it to neutralize the current infection. It's gone too far now."

"How did you--?"

Bruce's eyes flared, literally. They glowed brilliant red for a moment and when he spoke his voice had taken a tinge of terrified awe in it. "John showed me how it worked before I killed him."

Hank took a step back, as much from the glowing eyes as from the flat, casual declaration of murder. "You what?!"

Bruce mulishly stuck out his chin in a familiar gesture of defiant stubbornness. "I told him I would kill him if his 'cure' turned Jessie into a monster."

"But... we could've used his help!" Hank gaped. "The soldiers all said he stayed behind to hold the infected off when we were running!"

"He did." Bruce admitted. "After I pushed him. They were too busy eating him they didn't go after us. You were still half-conscious at the time."

Hank could only stare, not sure how to deal with this, but they needed to focus on the problem at hand.

"Fine. But you know the cipher? You have the secrets to controlling Hydra?" Hank gestured, "Half the city is already infected and mutating. Or going crazy. But all of them are obeying Jessie like she's... she's their queen or something. We need all the help we can get."

"Help. Limited. Very limited." Bruce shook his head once more. Hank stepped closer, his eyes glowing brighter as he grabbed Hank by the shoulders in a terrifyingly strong grip. "The cipher is not what we thought it was. It can't help anyone. Or anything. It will only make things worse. I wondered why Richards let himself die when he had control of the Hydra virus, but now I know. It makes sense."

"What?" Hank growled impatiently and wondered if Bruce's concussion was driving the conversation.

"You can't know the Cipher and stay sane." Bruce replied in a harsh whisper. "I can feel it eating away at my mind... whispering instructions. Words that aren't any that we understand. Hydra isn't just a virus. It's... we don't have words for these concepts yet. It's all very nok bal'chu gasan. But, I do know this."

He pinned Hank with his gaze. "I'm not going to be able to fix this unless you help me."

Hank swallowed nervously. "Anything."

Bruce looked at him sadly and shook his head, "I'm sorry. I need you to be strong for me, Hank."

"What--"

"Stronger than tears." Bruce murmured, moving in closer.

For a single hysterical moment, Hank thought Bruce was going to kiss him.

Then the smaller man took a deep breath, opened his mouth and breathed a blast of red smoke into Hank's face.

- - -

Viral matting spattered on the buildings. Unmoving bodies in the thousands littered the streets all connected by threads of thin spun infected flesh and nervous tissue. Their eyes were all open, sightless and staring. He blinked and every other eye that he could see blinked with him at the precise same moment as something huge and terrible rose in the distance.

The scene came to him like something through stained glass. Blood-stained. Shattered. The vision seen through thousands of eyes at every angle. A thousand different surreal, dream-like perspectives on the same thing. Fresh and impossible to process.

Red and humanoid and huge, it bellowed mindlessly. Roaring out its defiance against the tiny, gorgeous vision that faced it down.

More distant still. Guns thundered. Soldiers stared in disbelief. Perfected soldiers built by accident for their task screamed orders and pulled back to let the monsters sort things out among themselves.

Armies surged against the hulking mass and were smashed aside into the web-work of threads. Into the mind of Pym. Each new body a new node. Every broken, fallen corpse another piece of biomass to put to use. Hank had no words anymore. There was simply too much. His mind felt too vast.

He had no throat anymore, but he needed to keep whispering.

Whisper louder. Always whispering louder than the other voices the ones his friend couldn't deal with. This was his job. He had to keep him fighting. Keep him sane. No... too late for that. Keep him on task.

They were killing a city to save the country. To save the world.

- - -

Peter gasped as his mind pulled free of the memory that had hit as he finished emptying his already pitifully empty stomach.

What the hell is that all about? You won! Cletus snapped incredulously in Peter's head as the young man wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It wasn't like the mess he'd just made was that much worse than the rest of the mess surrounding them.

His arm blurred and tendrils wicked away the sick on his sleeve, leaving it clean. Other spots on his body where blood or gore had spattered, either from the fight or when his forest of razors had grown were cleaned as well, leaving him untouched despite being at the center of the carnage.

Even if he wanted to think about or compare what had happened in Middleton against what he'd just done, he wasn't sure he could.

Y'all're going to keel over. Have something to eat.

"I... I can't," Peter whispered. Thrusting his hands into his pockets lest his body betray him and he'd find himself grabbing at something and begin chowing down.

Much as I hate to agree with Cletus, on this particular point, I'm forced to. You need to eat. Donna murmured.

"No." Peter snapped, the raw aching hunger clawing at his gut making him more irritable than he should have been.

I ain't sure what the problem is. It ain't like y'all haven't done this before. Cletus grumbled. Look, Nimrod, if any of those poor bastards out there had any rational thoughts still in their heads, they'd be thankin' you for puttin' 'em out of their misery. Shoot. Some of the not-quite-so-dead ones out there are gonna be dyin' by inches from gut wounds and are gonna end up lingerin' for hours. Givin' 'em a clean death would be the downright merciful thing to do.

"I..." Peter tried to explain. Tried to find some way to express to the voices in his mind just what he was feeling. Yes, he'd killed. They were infected. They were dead already from one point of view. Intellectually he knew that. He knew it was kill or be killed. He had accepted all of that already. To a point. He had internalized the idea that in a life or death struggle he could take lives.

He was just... he hadn't been prepared for the scale of what he was capable of.

It was that he had personally caused this much carnage. In under a minute he had killed them in their thousands. If he could do that to infected... given the right circumstances he could do that to uninfected. He could do it to anyone.

Those memories made Pym and Banner seem to be the same as he was. Just normal people caught up in something out of their control. Forced to do things they didn't want to. Things they could only barely understand. He saw what Pym had become with enough time. If he could ever become that... detached.

But you won't, Donna replied soothingly, That's what makes you different from Pym. Or Jessica.

She paused then added, Or Cletus. No offense.

None taken. He drawled back magnanimously.

No wonder the Thunderbolts were trying to keep a lid on Hydra outbreaks, Peter thought shakily. No wonder they were clamping down so hard. They were right to hunt down the infected if things like this happen.

But they don't need to do that to you, Donna continued calmly. You're rational. You aren't killing for the sake of killing.

"That just makes it worse" Peter choked back miserably, clutching at his stomach and continuing to fight the urge to just begin feasting on all the spilled blood and scattered chunks of flesh all around. "So I'm a murderer not just a killer."

It's just mindless meat, it ain't murder, kiddo. Cletus chuckled. Less serial killer and more butcher, really.

All of them heard an alto voice sing in their shared mind, The best pies in London...

As fascinating as your little pity party is, you're missing some key information. Cain spoke urgently. The spikes didn't get the Becks on the ground or the main Hive-form.

Becks shouldn't be that bad, Connor whispered. Not much dangerous physically than regular Walkers.

Except they were generating a safe zone from the spikes around themselves. Cain continued. The vultures are out of range of the spikes. The Hunters were smart enough to use the safe zones. Not all of 'em, but enough survived that it's gonna be a problem.

How many is enough? Peter asked himself as he finally tore his attention entirely away from his immediate surroundings and paid attention to what Cain had already interpreted from his senses and the panicked radio messages he was intercepting.

Never rains, but it pours, Cletus merrily reported. Looks like you missed a couple.

Peter lifted his eyes and looked at the buildings on either side of the street. His nose prickled at the moving live Hydra sources all around him, cutting through the dead and dying Hydra scents.

Hunters.

Their claws dug into the concrete and brickwork, clinging to the sheer surfaces or making their way to the rooftops where they could run and bound unhindered.

He watched as a Vulture swooped into a Beck safe zone deep within the forest of razors that Peter had built. It plucked up a Hunter with its talons, then with a flap of its wings and an almost lazy flip, tossed the Hunter to a building where it joined the procession.

Just from what he could spot moving past there were easily several dozen that had survived. No longer encumbered by using the Walkers as a screen, they could move at their own pace. A fast pace.

Fast enough to catch up to the departing convoy if he judged the direction they were going in correctly.

A handful of Hunters could gut tanks with ease... the much more lightly armored personnel carriers and refugee vehicles weren't going to stand a chance. The Hive must have decided that it needed to cut its losses. Perhaps recoup its lost biomass.

"Oh. Oh, damn," He blurted out, rising to his feet shakily. The Soldiers might be able to fight off and take down a few of the Hunters, but they would be coming in too fast. Too well-coordinated. Peter didn't need Cain to tell him that they would be past any outer perimeter the soldiers could put up on the road and among them before they'd have a chance to react.

Then mixed in with them, the soldiers wouldn't stand a chance. Couldn't shoot for fear of hitting one another. Or they would shoot anyway and help the Hunters that way.

He hoped he could catch up to the Hunters before they could do more damage. He swung his arm up and willed it to shift to the whip arm form. A few tendrils peeled away from his arm, flailing weakly and he felt a powerful pull at reserves of biomass that no longer existed. His stomach spasmed painfully, red-hot razors scouring against his guts as his arm tried to transform.

He dropped to his knees, the tendrils snapped his arm back to its normal form as he clutched at his stomach and groaned.

Didn't know that would happen. Fascinating, Connors whispered.

Tank is empty, Cain murmured gruffly. You'd better eat something if you want to be of any use.

Peter could almost feel his attention forcibly turning back to the bodies that surrounded him. The insensate dead. The pathetically twitching torn up living corpses.

His victims.

His stomach clenched harder. His entire body ached. Weak. Hungry. Shaky.

A few tendrils already unwove from his body, preparing to eat, but he mentally tugged them back sharply, forcing them to settled down.

The longer he hesitated, the longer he didn't start chasing after the Hunters, the longer they had to tear through military escort and get to the civilians.

Get to MJ, Aunt May and Anna and Gwen and her dad.

There was no reason not to and every reason to go for it, but he still recoiled. It almost seemed like it was catching up to him at last. Just the full enormity of what he was.

He could sense Cletus rolling non-existent eyes. I swear, if i had hands... if I had ONE hand, I would slap the bada out of you.

Peter, I know you're having a rough time and think you're some kind of monster right now, Donna's voice interjected gently, But if you want to protect everyone? You are going to need to be that monster. If you aren't willing to go any further, then all of this, Her voice seemed to sweep the scene surrounding him, Was pointless and you slaughtered all of them and guilt tripping yourself for nothing. There will be time for you to deal with this later, I promise. But right now, you need to focus. They need you to be strong for them.

Sto d'zan che'ir, A voice echoed briefly.

Peter ran his tongue over his lips. Nervously. Hungrily.

Cain murmured, The leading Hunters just made contact with the tail end of the convoy.

No time. He'd need to decide.

He couldn't let people die because he was in the middle of freaking out.

Power. Responsibility.

It was simple if put in those terms.

Peter grabbed hold of an impaled and twitching Walker. He tried to ignore what almost seemed like an expression of pleading in its one unruined brown eye.

He let his fingers splay into feeding tendrils.

He'd take one for now. Just enough to take the edge off. Enough to get him moving again.

Then he'd have to eat on the run.

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