Variant Strain

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Peter's leg extended mid-leap as he sailed over the landing, clearing everyone's heads easily.

He couldn't help but try to reflexively flare heat or shift more mass to allow him to hit harder, but that wasn't an option anymore.

So since raw, brute force wasn't readily available, it would have to be physics and precision.

Well, maybe a little brute force.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind complained that he didn't have to do it this way. He could have just taken a sniping position at the top of the stairs and cleared the area around them.

Of course, he could have accidentally shot them instead.

And he only had a few bullets.

He told himself that this really was the more sensible choice.

A flying kick into the middle of a mob of infected.

It was terrible to be such a bad liar that you couldn't even lie to yourself.

He made a minute adjustment to his leg as the numbers and possibilities unfolded themselves in his mind.

He struck the throat of an infected man, a Walker wearing the shredded remains of what appeared to be discolored and rotting hospital scrubs with the heel of his slipper-covered foot.

It knocked the Walker backwards, driving Peter's entire weight into its throat and neck, catching it just right to snap its neck on the corner of the edge of the step.

His other foot planted heavily onto its stomach as he smoothly reached out and plucked the hat rack from Aunt May's hands by the top end that she'd been using to prod at the infected.

"Peter?!" She exclaimed. There was a lot going on around him, but he could see her favoring her leg. She'd sprained her ankle before they'd left the city. He'd almost forgotten. He hadn't noticed it earlier that night. He could only imagine whatever painkillers she'd been on had worn off. He really didn't want her to see him doing this sort of thing, but there wasn't any choice.

"Can't talk, gotta borrow this!" He called out hurriedly as he slid away from her.

His weight on the now dead infected and the momentum from the blow that had killed it sent him sliding down the stairs, balanced on its body like a demented skateboarder grinding his way downwards.

The Walker's head bounced on every step on the way down.

As he moved, he held the hat rack by its much lighter top end, using the elaborately carved wooden hooks as a handhold. He continued the motion of grabbing it away from his Aunt May to swing the much heavier claw-footed base as an impromptu weapon.

Numbers unfolded as he shifted, twisting the hat rack slightly in his grip to have the base smash into the face of a Walker solidly. The walker was a woman with the stringy remains of once blonde hair, her face twisted into that same rictus of a grin that Kingsley had. He could feel bone and cartilage in her nose give way under the heavy, carved wooden base of his weapon, sending that infected flying off the stairs, plowing into others below them.

The heavy, clawed base snapped off on that first strike, but the rest of the now-broken hat rack swung even faster without the additional weight at the end. The jagged end whipped cross the eyes of another infected, a man dressed in a white lab coat. This sent that infected staggering backwards, causing it to miss a step and land heavily among the infected lower down.

More numbers, more calculations.

Peter's initial leap had given him their positions. He could almost see their intended movements play out in his mind. Every step and attack drawn out by limits of motion. Their bodies mapped out the limits of possible positions. They were interfering with one another, limiting the potential moves each could make. An immense, but definable statistical set of movements mapped out for maybe a second or so ahead of time.

He remembered that this was how Caine saw the world.

It almost made what came next simple.

He still missed his whip arm.

His other hand followed the arc of his impromptu weapon's movement. He still had Kingsley's gun in it. He didn't so much aim as point and as he swept out and slid down, Infected heads in a small arc in close proximity around and below him exploded as his bullets found headshots. This close it really was easy.

He felt it click empty and had a stab of annoyance that Kingsley hadn't had a full magazine even before he'd started shooting at Osborn.

The jagged end of hat rack speared into the throat of a Walker at the end of his swing. It was a woman with a full head of red hair and a mostly intact face, but her hospital scrubs were almost entirely reduced to tatters and her body was obscenely swollen below the waist, reminding him of an underfed mobile hive. She gurgled at him from the fresh hole in her neck.

Peter continued his turn, shifting his grip on the ruined hat rack once more, releasing the hook ends and grabbing hold a bit lower down. He dropped the now empty gun as he completed the arc of that movement, slamming the heel of his now empty hand into the middle of the hat rack. Between the new grip and the other end lodged into the Walker's throat, the wood snapped.

The Walker made a louder, more fatal gurgling noise as the violent movement of the makeshift spear in her throat tore the hole open wider and jarred her head violently into another of the infected.

Peter's fingers closed on the newly broken end, and he almost daintily plucked the top half of the hat rack out of the Walker's throat just as the infected he'd been riding down the stairs slid to a stop on the ground floor.

He stepped off the corpse he'd ridden down, holding the broken halves of the hat rack in each hand. He gripped them like a pair of batons as he took in the room at a glance.

Everything had momentarily stopped. The infected had stepped back from him, wary and worried. Or as close to those emotional states as they could even manage. He recognized the motions.

He still registered as a predator to them.

His stunt had pretty much cleared out the stairs. Ten down, most fatally. Another eight or so tangled up in the fallen bodies still trying to pick themselves up.

Anna, still supporting the heavily bleeding George Stacy stared down. She was still scared, but now startled. George had seen him in action before... admittedly, not quite so flamboyantly, or with as much blood spilled, but the older man, pale as he was, seemed to be weakly nodding approval.

Aunt May was just staring, dumbfounded. Gwen only belatedly aimed the shotgun away from him. Her own expression was one of complete surprise.

And then there was MJ. She met his eyes and beamed.

He could feel himself warming at her expression. Basking in that heady, absolute trust in her eyes. He felt a faint blush rise as she winked at him.

Then her eyes widened in alarm and he saw her raise one of the pistols in her hands at him.

He inhaled sharply as he had a brief, irrational moment of panic that she was about to shoot him.

He as much felt its presence as caught its scent. The shot tore into a Walker that had gotten over its fear enough to try and rush him. It fell, it's head a ruin, but that one opened the floodgates.

The others surged towards him.

Peter called out, "Go! Up the stairs!"

He lost sight of them as he concentrated on the approaching Walkers. They were hemming him in. He could still go up the stairs, it was his open line of retreat, but he had to keep thinning the numbers and give the rest a chance to escape.

Another sharp intake of breath told him the flow of infected from whatever open door they had been coming from had slowed. That was good. That was a chance. He thought he could faintly hear more gunshots, but there was far too much to concentrate on close by.

They pressed in and he realized that despite having weapons, MJ and Gwen would hesitate to shoot while he was in the thick of the mass of infected.

He needed to give them a clear shot.

He brought up both arms to the right side of his head, twisting his torso as he did so, the ends of his makeshift weapons behind his head as he wound up, as he turned his eyes briefly met MJ's.

There was a moment of wordless communication that passed between them and she raised both pistols up.

He let his body uncoil as the first of the Walkers came within his reach. Blindingly fast, he whirled both arms around him, slashing diagonally downwards in a spiraling movement.

The wooden top half of a hatrack smashed end first into one infected. This one in a chef's uniform, stained with blood. The blow embedded the wooden hatrack knobs into its temple, tearing at the bone and flesh as it passed, but also smashing the end of the makeshift baton apart. That knocked it back into the surging mob.

Then the second infected, dressed in the black suit of one of the security men, this one took a blow on its collar bone, shattering it and leaving its single working arm, the one that happened to be attached to that particular now broken bit of anatomy, to sag down uselessly.

The movement continued into a third and fourth, little more than blurs at the speed he was moving, smashing ribs in passing, even as he bent at the knees, continuing to twist downward.

The fifth walker he smashed the baton into its hip, splintering the bone and forcing it to collapse.

A sixth walker took a hammer blow to one thigh and then the knee of the opposite leg, forcing it to stumble back, off the step it had been standing on and back into the crowd.

A seventh lost its footing as the shin it had been supporting itself with broke sharply from the blow it took.

The motion ended with one of Peter's legs half folded beneath him, while the other folded over it. His entire body hunkered down into a stance that left his head barely three feet from the ground.

The hat rack, which had started at a very decent six foot length, had been reduced to a pair of cracked and splintering foot-long stubs in his hands.

Peter was now in the center of a mess of entangled, stumbling, collapsing infected. The closest to him were all damaged and sporting varying states of injury, but none of them were permanently out of the fight yet.

Yet.

On the other hand they were perfect for keeping the others around them bunched up and entangled with the injured bodies.

MJ's pistols began to hammer out a rapid fusillade of shots. Peter felt cool sprays pattering down on his skin as her shots cleared over his head.

He could see her out of the corner of his eye from his new position.

She alternated shots. Taking aim down the sights of each pistol, turning her head minutely to line up each shot. It took her barely a fraction of a second to take each one.

Perfectly lined head shots.

He heard Gwen's shotgun roar a fraction of a second later then a second roar in quick succession. He saw infected stumbling backwards, away from him. She was shooting well wide of him. Above and off to his left. More bodies falling, peppered with buckshot. Not enough to be immediately fatal, but debilitating.

More bodies all around.

Some twitching as they died. Others merely injured, but badly enough to keep them from pursuing.

The space surrounding him was thick with fallen bodies, but more of the infected kept moving, scrambling over the fallen in their haste, struggling to find footholds on a floor now covered in constantly shifting bodies and slick blood.

From his spot near the floor, Peter lashed out with the makeshift batons again. He smashed and cracked ankles, shins, calves, legs, arms, heads. Destroying everything and anything within his reach.

A few got close enough to his position to hit him. A kick against his shoulder. A clawed blow to his back. Another prodded at his already bruised ribs.

That caused him to hiss sharply in pain, but it was nothing serious, he told himself. Just a few bumps and scrapes. He'd had worse.

He could actually feel the blisters forming and bursting on his palms from how raw his hands had become gripping his weapons. He could feel the same blisters closing up and healing with thicker skin underneath, building up a callus almost as fast as he was hurting himself.

Gwen skipped down the steps towards him, the spot occupied by an infected that had already taken a gunshot from one of MJ's pistols. Half its face was missing. She slammed the butt of her shotgun into the intact side of its head, knocking it out of the way and completely clearing his line of retreat back to the stairs.

Peter uncoiled his legs from underneath him in a smooth motion that sent the broken stubs of his makeshift weapons smashing into another pair of overly close infected and he took the first step up the stairs. The immediate vicinity seemed to be completely clear of menacing Infected.

At least if one discounted the weakly crawling survivors on the floor.

Unable to help himself he shot Gwen a mildly exasperated look and said, "Which part of 'Go! Up the stairs!' wasn't clear?"

Gwen laughed at his expression and inclined her head towards MJ, very deliberately cocking her shotgun. "She's the boss. I just work here."

MJ had dropped her pistols. They were still smoking where they lay on the floor. His glance took in the cartridges scattered at her slippered feet on the landing. She had both fists at her hips as she gave him a slight glare. "Like I was going to leave you behind."

"I had it." Peter said defensively, gesturing at the heaped infected carpeting the floor.

"Once I started giving you covering fire." She smirked but it wasn't quite so confident. There was that need that glittered hungrily in her eyes for a moment.

"You did great." He said carefully.

Her smile brightened, becoming less brittle.

"At least this time you remembered the safety." He continued up the steps. His growing grin softened the jibe.

She wrinkled her nose at him, eyes bright on his as he reached the step just below the landing, but she smiled.

His senses told him there weren't any more Infected coming. Which was odd, since some of them appeared to have doubled back the way they came. Normally they wouldn't have retreated unless someone was directing them.

He looked up, further up the stairs, practically at the top step, Peter noted that the adults had been listening. George, was leaning heavily on Anna, his heart fluttering. He really didn't have much of a choice of where he was going. Anna Watson had turned out to be surprisingly strong for her size and was manhandling the larger man easily.

Anna was busy tending to George, she had ripped the sleeves off her own pajama top and was trying to use them as makeshift bandages to stop the bleeding on the wound on his arm to say anything. George simply seemed amused, if light headed. He could tell that Anna was forcing herself to put her entire attention on George. She seemed a bit nauseated.

Possibly due to what she'd just seen him do.

He glanced back at the massacre he had been in the middle of. The killing that he felt nothing towards. They were already dead. He couldn't make any more excuses. They were dead and they'd tried to threaten those he cared about.

That didn't change the grim, desperately sickened expression on Anna Watson's face.

Aunt May on the other hand...

Peter winced at the expression of mingled shock and horror on her face. Her eyes seemed to drift around the room, taking in the carnage that had been unleashed. Then focused on him. She was trembling. Peter could hear her elevated heart rate. He could see her panting breaths and he was caught wondering if that had been terror or anger.

"PETER!" She roared down at him, her tone furious, but a definite undercurrent of terrified.

So a bit of both. Oops. His own voice drawled to him in the privacy of his own mind.

Actually he was pretty sure she was channeling 'angry' to avoid breaking down entirely from the 'terrified'.

He had to wonder how this looked to her. He could see blood thickly spattering his arms to the elbows. He knew some of MJ's shots had sent even more spatters of cooled, congealing Hydra infested blood across his face and shirt. A quick glance confirmed that even his slippers and one pant leg were coated in gore.

He was almost starting to miss being able to just absorb organic material through his skin.

It made clean up so much easier.

He tried to smile reassuringly, but he suspected that it had come out as a worried grimace. From the way May's expression darkened further, Peter knew that it had not worked right.

The blood splatter probably did not help.

"Okay. I know this doesn't look too good--" He began, but she cut him off sharply.

"Where did you learn to do that!?" Aunt May growled.

Peter's eyes flicked over to MJ who looked like she was about to say something, but May pointed an accusing finger at her, "We'll get to you in a minute, young lady." The finger whirled on Peter. "Explain. Now."

"Would you believe Discovery Channel?" Peter tried nervously. He should not be nervous, he insisted to himself. He had just killed and disabled collectively around thirty infected. He'd done it with some help, admittedly, but he'd managed it without his full powers. He shouldn't have to be afraid of his own Aunt!

Or at least that's what he kept telling himself.

Aunt May's eyes narrowed, clearly not amused.

"Violent video games?" Peter squeaked out.

May's eyes narrowed further and she took a breath that he could tell was going to be the precursor to unleashing a blistering tirade against him, but George called out sharply. "May."

She turned to look at the listing man and where Anna was struggling to keep him on his feet.

George's voice dropped, his tone reasonable, but clearly struggling to keep his voice level.

Desperate to seem fine.

"I know we're all a bit on edge, but maybe now isn't the best time for an interrogation." He glanced pointedly at his arm, then to the twitching infected.

Peter could see his Aunt take in the blood that was seeping through makeshift bandage made out of Anna's pajama sleeve. Peter noticed the unfocused gaze, the pallor to his skin. He suspected George was going into shock.

May took another glance down at Peter, her expression wavering uncertainly. She threw her arms up in exasperation. "Every time someone promises to explain something, something like this happens."

"I'm starting to think we're cursed." Anna quipped, doing her best to smile.

"Story of my life." Peter muttered to himself.

"Usually there's more explosions." MJ murmured back to him quietly. She took a few steps down to stand next to him.

Her hand reached out and intertwined with his. She didn't seem at all concerned about the blood she was smearing between their hands. She sighed contentedly as she pressed the palm of her hand against his.

Gwen glanced at the gesture, then smirked at MJ and shot her a thumbs up.

May turned, clearly intending to stomp up the steps, but she winced and Peter could see her wobbling on the step as her injured ankle brushed against the next step up.

Peter gave MJ's hand a quick squeeze before he let go and shot up the stairs, three steps at a time. Bounding leaps making up for his short stride.

May barely had time to recover when Peter was already next to her, helping her upright.

May shot him a small, sour look, but it had been drained of its heat. She didn't quite want to release her anger, but it was clearly wavering. "I'm fine. Help George."

"But--"

"You're a mess." She chided him.

He ducked his head. "Sorry."

"A small price to pay, I should think for keeping you alive." A thin quavering voice called out.

Everyone turned to look up at the top of the stairs where Norman Osborn slowly made his way towards them. He had a metal cane to help him stand, as well as Dr. Essex who was holding him by his elbow to help support him.

Dr. Essex, was still wearing his white doctor's coat, but Peter could see that the man had his own pajamas on underneath the coat. And bunny slippers.

Peter was really starting to miss having other people in his head to pay attention to these things for him. Getting caught off guard was getting very old, very fast.

"Uh... sorry, for leaving so suddenly." Peter called up to the older man.

Norman's hard eyes twinkled in amusement at the scene before him and gave another of his harsh barking laughs. "Well, if anyone's had a good excuse for ducking out of a meeting with me, this would be it."

"You were with Mr. Osborn?" May asked Peter curiously.

"I was having trouble sleeping," Peter admitted.

Osborn nodded. "I was having a turn interrogating young Peter. He's very good with the evasive answer."

May gave an exasperated sigh, "You're telling me."

Peter blushed a bit at that, earning some chuckles all around despite the situation.

Norman openly gawked at the scene around him, then he rapped sharply on Dr. Essex's hand with the head of his cane, knocking it away from his elbow.

"I'm fine you imbicile. Go make yourself useful and help Detective Stacey."

Essex mumbled something, possibly an apology and released Norman, shifting to approach Anna and George.

"Do you know what's going on, sir?" MJ asked. Her tone was carefully neutral, but Peter had gotten used to her enough to hear the thread of suspicion in her voice.

Gwen leaned against a the stair railing, eyeing the still twitching mass of infected corpses on the ground floor. She didn't take her eyes off them even as she began reloading her shotgun with a practiced ease.

Norman shook his head, weariness in his voice and posture. There was nothing of the corporate shark in his tone or his movements. Just an old man. Old and tired beyond measure. "Not a clue. I've tried to get in touch with my security people, but no one's responded. I suspect they all ended up the same as Mr. Kingsley and those poor souls down there. Shame." He looked down, his tone studiedly neutral, "Was... is... did you see Harry down there?"

Peter glanced back at the tangle of deformed, barely humanoid bodies as he played through the moment in his mind. "I don't think I saw anyone that could have been him." Peter said carefully.

"Oh." Norman said quietly. "That's... that's good." He looked down again as though trying to imprint the image into his memory for just a moment, before he turned his full attention on May. "It looks like they managed to get nearly everyone else on the ground floor. How did you manage to avoid them?" His voice had turned sharp once more.

She startled out of her contemplation and turned her glare entirely on Norman, "I do not believe I like your tone, Mr. Osborn. You're the one who has these things in your house!"

"Madam, it is my house," Norman said in a sort of half-choked snarl, "I am now sporting a mass of infected in my foyer and my extremely competent security staff appears to be among them, mostly dead. My own head of security just tried to kill me a moment ago. My blood pressure is spiking and I am most likely going to have a stroke any moment, so," He took a deep breath and Peter could hear the old man's heart begin to slow slightly. He continued in a more moderate tone. "I am curious how your entire group managed to once again survive."

May looked ready to snap back at the older man, but Peter, squeezed her hand and shook his head gently. She backed off, just a bit, but kept her glare on Norman Osborn.

MJ called up. "I couldn't sleep. I heard them coming so I woke everyone else up. We started running and ended up here."

"You heard them coming?"

"They make some really distinctive noises." MJ said, meeting Norman's eyes. "I've got a lot of experience listening for them."

"Ah. I suppose that would be true," Norman prodded gently. "And the guns?"

"I haven't been able to sleep without Petey since this whole thing started." Gwen replied, cradling her shotgun closely.

"Wait... what?" Peter glanced over to her.

"She named her gun Petey, dear." Aunt May murmured quietly.

"Oh."

"I grabbed the ones I was using from your security guys." MJ said, glancing down to where she'd dropped them. "They... didn't need them anymore."

George spoke up from where Essex was working on his arm. "I got the first guy in a black suit, but he cut my arm. MJ picked up his gun and then used it to take out another guy before the rest started pouring into the corridor, so we ran for it and ended up here."

Norman grimaced, "Which still doesn't tell us where they came from, or where they suddenly went. Because I was sure there were more than this from the noise they were making."

"The basement." Peter said.

"Beg pardon?" Norman stared.

Peter clarified tiredly. "They're coming from your basement. And I'm pretty sure they doubled back."

"This house doesn't have a basement." Norman looked confused.

Peter shrugged, his ears twitched slightly as he picked up noises of a small group of bodies walking towards them. Different. Booted feet. Uniform. Heartbeats. Varied, not in the syncopated matched rhythm of the Infected, but in the normal hammering of human hearts subjected to more stress than is really healthy for anyone.

There was a faint familiar smell of slick rubber and gunpowder. And other scents. Familiar. Not-familiar. Like... family. But not. All approaching.

"I don't know what to tell you, sir, but there is." Peter insisted, "I think there's some folks who should be on their way up from there any moment now."

"I assure you, young man, this house does not have a base--"

"Hoo-wee. I knew we were gonna be late for the shindig." A voice familiar to Peter drawled up from one of the darkened corridors leading out of the foyer.

"Do you ever shut up?" Another voice asked sourly. That was familiar as well, if less so. He'd spoken to the owner of that voice before.

"Shucks. Y'all make it sound like I talk all the time." The first voice responded.

"You do." A third voice replied.

"Pipe down. " A higher, fourth voice snapped curtly as four figures came into view.

Two wore the bright yellow Thunderbolts hazmat uniforms. They had rifles that they had pointed at the mess of infected on the foyer floor.

The other two wore black paramilitary gear, with fully face concealing visors on their helmets. They both had large pistols, cradled in both hands, held in shooting stances. Peter noted an unfamiliar yet familiar unit patch on their shoulder.

It was a stylized red spider.

One of the figures in black chuckled, and pointed his pistol at the ceiling and rapped his knuckles on the shoulder of the shorter Thunderbolt. "Survivors. Like I said."

There was a snort from the larger Thunderbolt as the smaller one, released his grip on his rifle, stowing it on his shoulder before he dipped a gloved hand into his web-belt and pulled out a folded twenty dollar bill, which he passed to the snickering black-clad man.

"Who the devil are you?!" Osborn thundered, leaning heavily on his cane as he did so.

The second figure in black lowered the pistol and flipped the concealing visor away from her all too familiar yet unfamiliar face. Peter blinked in surprise.

"My name's Donna Diego. That's Cletus Kassidy. We're with Gentek Security."

"I'm Private Schultz. This fellow next to me is Private Petruski. We're with the US Army. Biological Warfare specialists." The shorter man added. Peter noted how he specifically did not identify himself as a part of the Thunderbolts. Despite still having the uniform on. "The rest of our team is working on clearing an exit to our extraction point."

Peter could tell Cletus was grinning under his helmet. "We're gonna get y'all out of here."

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