Chapter 12
Three hours later
.
They stepped through the gold-rimmed portal into freezing rain.
Glitching badly, Peter kept Vanessa and Richard ahead of him. Fisk's wife shivered in the weather and immediately wrapped herself tighter in her coat, which was fine for the milder New York winter they'd left behind but held up poorly against the sleet. She kept a white-knuckled grip on the arm of her son, who bowed his head against the frozen rain and looked sideways for the menacing silhouette of his father.
The rain battered against Peter's glasses and he wiped off the lenses, hoping they were weather-proof. He was breathing hard. Drawing a deep breath hurt. It seemed a long time since he'd broken out of the quantum chamber.
He saw immediately they were on the roof of Fisk Tower. Just to their right was a blue helipad. Beyond the skyscraper's railing lay the rest of New York, looking uncharacteristically small and remote in the inky night. This high up, the wind howled and whipped like daggers at any exposed flesh. The rooftop seemed a world apart, set aside like a city in the clouds.
Beside Peter glowered the hooded Prowler, silent and implacable.
The portal sizzled closed behind them. Vanessa looked back at it as if watching a rope bridge burning down behind her. Wong, grim-faced, returned his hands to his sleeves.
“My instructions are to leave now,” he told Peter, eyes flicking briefly to the masked presence next to him. “Afterwards, you will come to the Sanctum and I will take you home. For good.”
Peter nodded, still focusing on his labored breathing. He'd been right to think Vanessa and Richard would lead him face-to-face with Fisk. Without an exact location, even a sorcerer could not open a portal directly to him.
Atoms weaved in and out of this dimension. Peter looked like a television signal partly lost in the airwaves. Wong's brows furrowed in concern at how quickly his condition had deteriorated in the last few hours.
“See you at the Sanctum,” said Peter pointedly.
Unhappily, Wong sketched another portal in the air and retreated, leaving them on the rooftop.
Despite its proximity to Kingpin himself, he'd surely chosen the location for its security. Not only was it squarely on his home turf, but there were no bystanders, no one for Vanessa and Richard to approach for help should their presence in this dimension prove unwilling. It was certainly that.
The Prowler touched a finger to a communicator in his ear. “I have them,” he said in his filtered growl, and looked at the blinking light of a security camera. Peter had to imagine that Fisk was watching through the lens and turned away, adjusting his glasses.
In response to an unheard request for a code, the Prowler said: “Halcyon.”
“Is that his code for everything?” Peter said grumpily. “He just like the word or something?”
The Prowler ignored him and listened to the instructions Kingpin was now giving over the earpiece. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We'll go there now.”
Vanessa watched them and clutched at Richard's coat in a way that both shielded her son and tried to draw comfort from his presence.
“Please, take us back,” she turned to Peter and pleaded. “You don't have to do this.”
“I'm sorry. This is for the best,” he told her, and put a head to his spasming chest with a grimace. “Let's go.”
There was nothing for the wife and son to do but allow themselves to be ushered along. They drew into a small enclosed structure on the roof containing a short flight of steps leading to an opulent, red-on-gold-patterned hallway decorated with marble busts and classical paintings. A large set of double doors stood directly opposite them.
Persistent glitching made Peter jittery and short of breath. It wouldn't be too long now, he could hang on. Maybe even now Banner and Shuri were just waiting for him to get back—assuming he could expect a welcome back there. Of course he could.
The Prowler led the way to the entrance. Vanessa and Richard followed reluctantly behind, Peter bringing up the rear of the group and cutting off any chance of escape.
Covertly, he drew the transmitter from his pocket and, under the guise of scratching his nose, whispered something into it.
Prowler opened the doors. Vanessa and Richard stopped short, eyes wide with fright. The masked henchman said only, and with no room for argument, “In.”
They entered into a marble foyer. Kingpin's tastes, hewn from the rough rock of a hardscrabble upbringing, clearly reflected his wife's influence in the penthouse's classical design. Vanessa Fisk, nee Mariana, was born a sophisticated New York socialite whose circles ran concentric with Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, ensconced in that increasingly small bubble of old New York money immortalized in oil paintings and donor plates by priceless works of art at the Met. Though Fisk had already made much of his sizable fortune by the time they wed, Peter knew from his own universe that the marriage had been looked down upon by the purebreds as an unequal exchange of status. She had loved him once, to marry him.
None of that history was evident in her face. She and her son looked around as if expecting Fisk to jump out of the shadows.
They moved forward into a lofty, open space that presented the New York skyline on a platter. Every piece of furniture was expensively upholstered; there were artful sculptures placed selectively around the living room and an elaborate Turkish rug softened the cold gray marble floor. Bereft of family portraits passed down the generations, Kingpin had settled instead for collecting valuable works of art that hung in gilt frames.
Despite using most of his concentration to corral his cells, Peter couldn't help but wryly muse: And some people live like this. He'd trade mansions to go home to his shoebox with MJ.
Wilson Fisk stood against the windows, waiting for them like an ominous judge.
Revealed in silhouette, the Kingpin looked large as ever. For all that bulk Wilson Fisk drew forward almost furtively, eyes locked on the white faces of his wife and son. Then his glance flicked to the Prowler, who nodded his confirmation and said: “They're real.”
“Vanessa. Richard,” Fisk breathed, as if speaking to amnesiacs who had to be reminded of their history together. Harsh lighting threw his craggy face into sharp contrast.
Kingpin was a terrible man, Peter reminded himself, trying to focus. It wasn't easy, now that the glitching had grown so painful. Fisk's only understanding of love was reflected through a prism of pure selfishness; it would destroy what it sought to preserve. He was a murderer, a kidnapper, a thief and a liar. He didn't deserve the pity that Peter could no more help than stop water from running through his fingers.
Wife and son drew together. “Stay back!” she shrieked. “Stay away!
“Vanessa, baby, it's me,” he said. Spreading his hands, Fisk came closer. “You know me!”
Richard found his voice. “You stay back! Don't touch her!”
Peter nervously touched the glasses he wore. Fisk didn't notice them.
He tapped on the transmitter but didn't dare speak into it now.
Breaking the silence, Peter said: “Kingpin. The deal?”
Not taking his eyes off Vanessa and Richard, Kingpin nodded. “Go. I ain't saying a word. That's a deal.”
Desperately, Vanessa backed away and looked to Peter like he was her last hope. “Take us back,” she cried. “Please! This isn't our home!”
“'Course it is,” said Kingpin, advancing, “this is home, this is the home we built!”
He seemed hurt by their fright, breathtakingly oblivious to his own hand in causing it.
Tears falling, Vanessa shook her head, sending her cascade of handsomely graying dark hair over her face. “It's not, it's not home,” she sobbed.
Unnerved despite himself, Peter started to say, “You'll be safer here—”
Gripping her son's arm, Vanessa turned to run. They fled through the foyer, heading to the entrance, where the gold-on-red-patterned hallway lay just beyond.
“Vanessa!” Kingpin shouted, and he took off after them. Peter hastened to jump out of his way but the man's wild arms flung out unexpectedly and caught him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the floor, winded and splintering into pieces. His glasses, previously invisible to anyone else's eye, flew off to crash on marble and shatter.
Vanessa and Richard vanished.
Peter froze, glitching in place.
Oh God.
Kingpin was so close to the door leading to the hallway. He stopped just before it like a locomotive heaving to a heavy standstill, staring, perhaps distantly registering the hallway's pattern had changed slightly, to a wallpaper Peter knew from his own universe.
Fisk stared at the place where Vanessa and Richard had vanished like a mirage in the desert. “Not—not real,” he said uncomprehendingly. “But...” His gaze slowly turned to the Prowler, who had been his insurance, and to the henchman's claw tips, which were extended and ready.
Too soon, thought Peter, raising to his elbows, too soon! Glancing at the broken B.A.R.F. holographic projector he muttered, “Aw, crap, I owe Stark so much money.” He stumbled to his feet to try and push Kingpin through the doorway, but a full-body seizure dropped him back to his hands and knees.
“Wong!” Peter shouted, struggling to rise.
Instantly a fizzling gold wipe shifted the hallway pattern subtly, from gold-on-red back to red-on-gold, like the dial of a kaleidoscope rotated ever so slightly. Wong darted into view in the doorframe.
Faster than anyone with his bulk could be expected to move, and seemingly on robotic instinct, Fisk snatched his gun and fired several successive shots at the sorcerer, who dived out of sight from the doorway, unable to throw up a portal in the time it would take to riddle him with bullets.
“You—you lied—why...” he breathed, rotating his boulder-like shoulders to the Prowler.
“Blame me,” said Peter raggedly, holding his ribs and lurching to his feet. “My idea.”
Fisk's eyes rolled to Peter. The barrel of his gun traveled with his gaze. “You—you thought to lure me back to your universe? To find, what,” he said in a shaking, florid rush, color rising in his cheeks, “your FBI there, surrounding me? Or S.H.I.E.L.D.?”
“Extradition treaties between universes is complicated,” Peter panted. “Whatever deal you made in this dimension won't hold up in mine. Not when you're monkeying around with realities.”
“Give yourself up,” said Wong firmly, advancing cautiously back through the doorway with golden defense spells thrown up.
“What you said, that they'd be safe...” Kingpin's chest heaved as he shook the gun at Peter. “That was true, I'd have kept them safe!”
“At the expense of their freedom, their free will?” Peter snapped, feeling a leg start to give under him. “You were right about one thing, Wilson—Vanessa and Richard are still alive in my universe. Do you know why? Do you get why they lived there, when they died in so many others?”
Wong drew closer.
Fisk stood transfixed, letting the gun droop in his hand, almost childishly intent on hearing Peter's answer.
“Because in my universe, she left you,” said Peter.
He'd helped her do it.
After he'd failed to put his universe's Wilson Fisk behind bars, in the wake of his impotent frustration he'd turned his efforts to enabling Vanessa and Richard to safely leave the man whose criminality had been horrifyingly exposed, if not punished by jailtime. At least he could do some good there. Even without a conviction, it remained a rare bright success in his memory.
“There is no universe,” he said, suddenly angry, fighting to stay upright, “where I'd ship them back to you.”
For a moment Kingpin continued staring in that open incomprehension, then clouds passed over his face and Peter saw the last traces of vulnerability drop forever.
What Miles had told him of Blond Peter's last words flashed through his head: “It won't work. They're gone.”
Those words had plucked the nerve stringing Wilson Fisk together: the idea that his will was so immense it could supersede all reason or decency. It wasn't real love, as that Peter had known, but Fisk could no more accept the truth than bring his wife and son back to the living and he'd killed the first person to tell him so.
“You...” His knuckles turned white and the gun went back up to aim at Peter.
A crackling of electricity alerted him to the Prowler flexing his claws. The barrel swiveled to the man who'd turned on him.
Peter knew immediately what the Kingpin would do. There was no reality in which he tolerated betrayal from a subordinate, as Miles had learned to his great sorrow.
Fisk's eyes turned to flint. “No one betrays me,” he snarled, “and lives.”
As he fired at the Prowler, Peter moved.
Wong couldn't reach Aaron Davis in time, but Peter could.
.
.
Three hours earlier
.
Peter stepped through Wong's sizzling gold portal into mostly darkness. A moment later, the Prowler followed and the portal fizzed shut behind them.
The henchman's mask traveled left and right, his white eyes the brightest thing around. His night vision could penetrate the dark easily, but the surroundings did not yet make sense to him.
“Where are we?” he growled.
“We're supposed to be in the Upper East Side,” said Peter, stumbling into the edge of a table and grunting. “Wong must've miscalculated our drop zone. I mean, s'not like catching an Uber.”
He fumbled around on the table, feeling his way over power tools and half-finished gear. “Too bad there's not a spell for Google Maps. Hopefully we're not in, like, Staten Island. I bet this is how everyone ends up there—on accident.” Peter's hand found a purchase on a small work lamp and turned the switch.
The room was swathed in a low, yellow light, illuminating the outlines of strange equipment. It took Peter all of five seconds to find what he was looking for. He discreetly slid on a pair of thick rubber work gloves that went halfway up his forearm while pretending to poke around. “Pretty techie, huh?” he commented. “Weird.”
“Someone's squatting here.” The Prowler was looking distastefully at a futon in the corner.
“Or maybe,” Peter said through gritted teeth, “they just like to nap.”
He plucked a small device from the work station and darted toward the Prowler, who seemed to recognize the trap as soon as Peter reached him and reacted.
Crackling claws streaked for Peter's face at the same time that Peter ducked, sliding beneath the slash and spinning back to face him. He blocked the next incoming blow by seizing the Prowler's wrist and slamming a Converse shoe up squarely in the man's hooded face, the only part of his suit that wasn't wired into an electrical field. The henchman would have flown backward but for Peter's grip on his wrist, making him snap like a rubber band.
Immediately the Prowler activated the electric wiring in the exolayer of his suit. Lightning met the insulated rubber of Peter's glove.
“Geez, you hug your mom with this suit?” Peter asked, whipping the Prowler into a nearly flawless front somersault. The henchman landed flat on his back with a satisfying 'oof.' “Nice form, but you didn't stick your landing—”
He was interrupted by a frenzy of flashing lights the Prowler abruptly emitted from a device on his arm, straight up into his face.
Peter threw up a hand to block the strobing from his vision, but it was too late. It triggered an atom seizure that made Peter stagger back, clutching his head while he fractured into agonizing pieces.
In an impressive feat of agility, the Prowler swung his legs around in a kind of break dance and regained his feet. He approached the debilitated Peter like a wary cat gauging the incapacitation of a prey it'd wounded.
With supreme effort, Peter threw up every bulwark he could against the glitching and reclaimed some control. The Prowler noticed and rushed forward to take out his unprotected legs with an electrified kick.
Peter had to hastily leap up to avoid getting his legs swept out from under him. The jump carried him to the rough-hewn ceiling, to which he kept his feet stuck while reaching down to slap the device he'd been holding in one hand on the Prowler's back.
For a second the man comically tried to reach the device, just out of reach, circling like a dog chasing its tail, then realized Peter was still on the ceiling. “What?” The white eyes widened.
“Bonk,” said Peter, flicking him between the eyes. He put a little mustard on it and the Prowler staggered back.
Stripping off a glove, Peter shot a web that sealed the little device in place on the Prowler's back. The henchman yanked his fingers away before they could get glued to his suit.
Peter fired more strands at the Prowler's ankles. Snarling, the henchman tried to send a shock up the line the way he had at the convention center.
Nothing.
Grinning, Peter yanked and sent the Prowler to the floor, then hoisted him up like a punching bag to dangle from the ceiling.
Then he glitched and crashed gracelessly to the ground, totally ruining the cool somersault to the floor he'd intended to execute.
“Shitty form, and you didn't stick your landing,” said the Prowler evenly.
Indignant, Peter leapt up and stuck his finger close to the mask. “Hey! Inducing a violent seizure is one thing, but turning a guy's one-liners against him? That's low.”
He webbed the Prowler securely, leaving only his hood fully exposed. Then he stepped back and exhaled a small, slightly breathless laugh. “Well now, that's better.”
The white eyes glared daggers at him.
“Can't activate your suit?” Peter asked him. “Good. Not exactly how I wanted to field-test my little gizmo, but bad guys tend to be my only focus group.”
He plucked a gadget from the workbench identical to the one he'd stuck on the Prowler's back and showed it to him, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “It's a spot EMP. Disables any electronic it's attached to. I've been workshopping names for it. So far it's between the ElectriCull—get it?—or the Volt Bolt. I got the idea from Star Wars. You know, those little things they stick on 'droids to make 'em behave? I thought about calling it the AnVoid but I don't know if everyone would get it. Spider-shaped, natch: gotta stay on brand. I admit sometimes I come up with the pun before the product. The Caddy Longlegs isn't quite ready for the Home Shopping Network.”
“How do you have Spider-Man's webs? Why were you on the ceiling?” the Prowler demanded.
“Because you were on the floor, duh. I thought we could have a little chat.”
“Oh yeah, Shelob?” muttered the Prowler, twisting a little in his coccoon.
Peter stopped cold. Did this bad guy seriously just reference Lord of the Rings? “Okay, as much as I'd suddenly like to discuss Tolkien ad nauseum, Scowler, we don't have a lot of time. I need your help.”
He twiddled the henchman back to face him.
“My help?” the man said scathingly. The web strand kept trying to unwind and he twirled in place, rendering the bite in his voice a little impotent. “What do you think I'm here for?”
“Not what you think you're here for. You're Kingpin's last powered-up lackey, I figured he'd send you along to babysit—'specially once I mentioned gimmicks. Thank Inception for that idea. I wanted to talk to you where he couldn't butt in.”
“And what,” said the Prowler with withering disdain, “makes you think you're gonna get anything out of me?”
“Because I know who your nephew is.”
The man froze.
Peter reached for the hood and pulled it off, finally revealing the stunned face of Aaron Davis.
He was younger in this universe, of course, but a career as the Prowler hadn't yet aged his features prematurely; he was still new to the game.
“That's not a threat,” Peter told him, grimacing at the sweaty mask—the Prowler hadn't learned the secret of baby powder yet—and tossing it on the workbench. “Do I look like Kingpin? Wondering where I got Spider-Man's fly moves, right? Come on, you're already putting it together.”
Davis stared at him wordlessly, drifting clockwise. Peter spun him back around.
“You know I was pulled from another universe while I was trying to get back to mine,” Peter went on, keeping his hand on the Prowler's shoulder to stop him spinning. “There was a Peter Parker there, too. Kingpin killed him. You were there. Kingpin killed you too. And there was a Miles Morales.” Who hopefully Kingpin hadn't killed as well.
Peter considered the man dangling upside-down in front of him, who was taken aback at the mention of his nephew.
“Why did you back off at the convention center?” he asked.
It had bugged him ever since that first tussle over the megaconductor, which seemed ages ago now. When he'd asked Parker about it the kid had no idea; he'd never even come across the Prowler before. There was nothing he could think of to account for the vulnerable fear the henchman had shown when it seemed he might have killed Spider-Man.
Davis didn't answer, assessing him with sharp, dark eyes.
“What also interests me,” said Peter conversationally, releasing his hold on Davis's shoulders and circling to keep the henchman in front of him, “is that you didn't tell Kingpin who Spider-Man was right away.”
A crease appeared between Davis's brows.
“If you'd told him as soon as you found out, soon as we'd left the Sanctum, we'd have heard from him a lot sooner, wouldn't we? Does Kingpin even know the timeline? Or does he think we went to the Sanctum after we left Alchemax?”
“Shut up,” said the Prowler roughly.
“Why did it take you so long?” Peter said, leaning close. “Did it slip?”
“I didn't tell him!” the Prowler snapped.
A moment passed where he seemed to regret the outburst.
Then he shook his head, causing the cocoon to shift sideways, and said in an angry rush: “I told him you entered that Sanctum place alone.”
Peter rocked back. “What?”
“There's no cameras around there, so he bought it...but then he started looking around for others. There was something in the footage from the convention center, where you two bumped into each other and it seemed like Parker almost recognized you...” Seeing Peter's incredulity, the Prowler's white eyes narrowed. “That place was full of techie crap. Do you think he can't get hold of security tapes? Stark doesn't own the convention center. It bugged Fisk that the kid from the footage looked so familiar.”
Peter frowned. “Familiar? Where would he have seen Parker before?”
The Prowler hesitated, then seemed to decide it was not worth holding back now. “There was a photo.”
“A photo,” Peter repeated.
“You know who the Scorpion is, yeah? Mac Gargan? We worked together once in a while. Got me this gig.”
“You may yet get to thank him in person.”
Ignoring that, the Prowler said, “Dude's nuts. I didn't like him, didn't want to work with him again, but I needed the job. Kingpin sets his boys up.”
“Before tearing them down, usually,” Peter said dryly.
“Will you shut up? I took the job. But Mac was always stuck on Spider-Man. He'd put Mac in Rikers before he busted out. Back when the Vulture was handing out Chitauri tech like candy, Mac had made a deal to get hold of a big cache, but it was busted up on the ferry by Spider-Man and the FBI. Mac always said there were rumors Toomes knew Spider-Man's real name. Toomes denied it, but...Mac never really bought it.”
Surprised, Peter leaned against the workbench. “Why would Toomes protect Spider-Man?” His own experiences with the Vulture were more painfully straightforward.
“That's what Kingpin wondered too. He started looking into it. I dunno how, whether it was posted somewhere—it's not up now—or if it was some piece of evidence the police had, or what—but somewhere he saw a photo Toomes's wife took on the night of his kid's Homecoming dance. His daughter and her date. It was Parker. It was just a random photo, though, Kingpin never thought twice about it 'til he recognized the kid on the convention center's cameras. It was just a hunch, don't think he actually expected to find Spider-Man, but then he sees that same kid was awarded an internship at Stark Industries...and Spider-Man saved Toomes's daughter during a school trip to D.C.”
Swiveling slowly, the Prowler added, “He gambled. He still wasn't sure Spider-Man was Peter Parker 'til he called you and Stark.”
Their damned poor poker voices, Peter inwardly groaned. “What if he'd been wrong?”
“Kingpin wouldn't care. If it wasn't Parker he'd just put that out there anyway. A hostage is a hostage.”
“Has anyone else put this together?” Peter snapped. “I mean it. Does anyone know outside the two of you?”
“No. Mac was already on the Raft and Kingpin doesn't give shit away for free.”
Even as he inwardly cursed himself and the long, star-crossed damnable history of Parker luck, Peter suddenly felt more hopeful. “He only went looking for security cameras because you told him about the meeting.”
“I work for him,” the Prowler said flatly.
“So why do you give a damn what happens to Spider-Man?”
For a moment the man seemed like he wouldn't answer. Then, reluctantly: “He stuck his neck out for me, once. Deal gone wrong. He saved my life.”
“And you repay him by doing grunt work for Kingpin?” Peter said witheringly, pacing to a stop before him. His atoms were seizing painfully, making his temper worse. He stuck his face close to Davis's. “Parker didn't save your ass so you could go back to being a lowlife!”
“Hey, I got people to look out for,” Davis said just as angrily. “I owed Spider-Man so I honored it. But Kingpin holds every key to this city!”
“You didn't just honor a debt, you sheltered a man you knew your boss wanted dead. Don't give me that crap.”
“Guys like me don't become superheroes, prick!” Davis threw back, swinging. “Or Avengers!”
“So your only other option is a villain?” Peter said, incredulous. “Was there literally no other job opening in New York City?”
“Not for me,” said Davis. “Nothing worthwhile. I—I'd already dug myself in too deep.”
It was an admission borne of agitation, and now his gaze found the work bench, traveling over all the detritus of Peter's efforts.
“And you thought this would be worthwhile? Did you realize what you were getting into, when you signed up to work for that man? What you'd have to become?” Peter said, cradling a glitching arm.
“Kingpin can make things happen for you. For your family.”
“For Miles, you mean.”
Davis glowered but didn't deny it. “Yeah. For Miles.”
Peter sighed, flexing his aching hand. “Aaron, I know the kid your nephew grows up to be. He'd never want whatever Wilson Fisk could give him. And he wouldn't want that for you either. He's a good kid. That's why he's Spider-Man now.”
Davis's eyes grew huge. “Spider-Man?”
“Yeah. Complete with radioactive blood and everything.” Suddenly tired, he dropped his arm. “I don't know if it will happen in this universe, Aaron. I hope it doesn't have to, because being Spider-Man sucks sometimes. Sometimes it's great. But I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Because you know what's part of the formula making up every Spider-Whatever in every universe?”
He poked Davis in the chest. “Tragedy. And for him, that tragedy will be you. It was for the Miles I know.”
Why was that always the common denominator? Why did the foundation of Spider-Man's commitment to life have to always be rooted in death? If Uncle Ben hadn't died, if Peter hadn't stared into the wild-eyed face of his murderer and sworn to be better than that, would he still be as good a guardian to others?
Or maybe he would have been a better one, if Ben had lived. It was one of the questions Peter had had to learn to stop asking himself. Peter was who he was not just because Ben Parker had died, but also because he'd lived; the twelve years he'd had to be a father to Peter were enough to sustain a lifetime as Spider-Man. So, too, had Aunt May's guidance been an anchor.
“If you love him, you’ll stop. You’ll go be a better man. Screw the Avengers if you think a superhero is the only hero Miles wants. You’re already the man he wants to be. You’re not the man he should be. But it’s not too late.”
There had to be a better way than finding meaning in death. There had to be.
Peter chewed his cheek and asked: “If he does go down the same path, are you going to be there for him?”
“How do I know you're telling me the truth?” said Davis, almost hushed.
“It's a leap of faith. We all take them.” Peter thought, then slanted a look at him. “Actually I'm taking one now, banking on you. This Spider-Man's sticking his neck out for you, too, you know. The Avengers weren't gonna play as nice.”
“Neither will Kingpin, if I leave him,” said Davis lowly. “He'll find Miles. And Jeff, and Rio.”
He wanted to leave. Peter could see it. He just couldn't see a way out.
“I can help you,” Peter promised.
This wasn't a decision the Prowler could sleep on. It was life-altering and he had seconds to make the choice.
It seemed a long time before Aaron Davis gave a minute nod.
Peter just had time for a lovely moment of relief before clutching at his ribs, which were spasming badly.
“How come you're still glitching?” Davis frowned, turning his head to watch as he swiveled gently. “Shouldn't you be cured?”
“Wonder why you're not glitching? Magic's got nothing to do with it. Crazy Ock did a number on my atoms.”
An indecipherable expression flashed over Davis's face. “You're still going to die?”
“No,” Peter said firmly. “I am not.” He straightened with an effort. “Once and for all: you on board?”
Davis huffed, “Damn it man, I'm on board! Not like I was looking forward to kidnapping that lady and her kid anyway. Can you get me down now? All the blood's gone to my head.” Davis wriggled around in the cocoon. “My skull's about to pop.”
Peter made short work of dissolving the web strands. Davis thudded to the ground and kicked out of the web as it disintegrated.
“Uurgh,” he said disgustedly from the floor.
“Aww. Like a butterfly from a chrysalis, you emerge a better man.”
“Shut up.” Davis brushed his suit off and shook out his stupid cape. “What's your plan, anyway?”
As Peter took out the B.A.R.F. transmitter he'd filched from Stark's lab and began to mess with it, he told Davis the plan, haltingly and careful to note Davis's reactions. He thought they seemed genuine.
“I understood like half of what you said,” Davis said several minutes later, “but all of it sounded crazy. This is some sci-fi level shit.”
Peter threw the purple mask at him. “And you thought hero work was glamorous. You should see the sewers I have to go through.”
“You really think this will work?”
“It better. C'mon, have to make up for lost time we spent on that heart-to-heart.”
They checked their gear. Peter tucked the B.A.R.F. glasses away in their case, feeling reasonably sure about how they worked. Funny how the device Stark had invented for the purpose of therapy never seemed to get used to therapeutic purpose. The case he stuck in a deep coat pocket. Then, with a level look for Davis, Peter removed the EMP device from his back. Davis arched an eyebrow and didn't move to attack him. Peter gave an exaggerated sigh of relief that made the other man roll his eyes.
“Where are the wife and kid, anyway?” said Davis, taking one last look around while Peter locked up.
“Uh, they live on the Upper East Side.”
“Rich-lady-opolis.”
Peter stepped past him to wrench open the workshop's door. “Uh-huh.”
“And Kingpin?”
“Banished to Japan. Vanessa told him he could leave New York or she and Richard would. Fisk has some spice business out there and apparently,” Peter yawned, “spends his free time in violent disagreements with the local crime lords.”
Once they'd emerged from the glorified shed into evening air, Peter breathed deeply.
Davis watched him. “And you did that?”
“Did what?”
Gesturing, Davis said, “Helped her leave him. Divorce him.”
“Oh.” Peter secured the door behind them, glitching a little and pretending not to notice Davis's weighing look. “Yeah. Wasn't pretty, but we got there.”
Far cleaner, as separations went, was Peter's own divorce, conducted with such antiseptic efficiency that the sleazy lawyer he regretted hiring out of a newspaper clipping joked, oblivious to the misery of both parties involved, that they could have made at least some fuss for the sake of his hourly billing.
MJ hadn't wanted a penny of alimony. All she'd asked was that he not drop off the face of the planet, and even that was a promise he'd had trouble keeping.
“Where are we anyway? How are we supposed to get there?” Davis said instead of whatever he'd been thinking.
“We're in Forest Hills, and the subway, I guess. Should still be running express.”
Davis made a face. “Can't I hotwire something?”
“No. We wouldn't have time to return it.” Peter was not a hypocrite; he definitely intended to return Captain America's Beetle. And Tony Stark's hologram projector. And maybe devise a payment plan for the quantum chamber. And—“Your great redemption starts now.”
Davis rolled his eyes. “Can't it start tomorrow, like a diet?”
Now that Davis wasn't personifying intimidation as the Prowler, he was proving to be something of a laconic smart ass.
“Hey, you're still a criminal, Mr. Criminal. You've got to atone for all the crap you've done already, which hopefully doesn't include anything that will make me regret giving you a second chance. By the way, you can start by singing to the FBI.”
“Yeah, every nephew wants a snitch for a hero.”
“I mean it, Davis. This is your fresh start. You're not getting another.”
Though Davis muttered, “Yeah, yeah,” Peter saw acceptance there, and maybe even some relief at the unexpected call to grace. “Fine, we'll take the damn subway.”
“Great. You look like a nutjob in that cape, so no one will give you a second look.”
Davis scowled at him.
Peter lurched to the side and seized his chest, which convulsed with manic frenzy. After a minute he stood back up, panting sharply.
“Is it speeding up?” Davis asked, slowing.
Probably his little strobe-light trick had inflamed Peter's already excitable atoms, but he didn't tell the Prowler that. There had been a note of genuine concern in the question. Instead he repeated what he'd told Black Widow: “It escalates. C'mon.”
They were crossing the open space that led to the street from the overgrown, seemingly abandoned lot where Peter kept his lab. A subway entrance lay a few blocks down. Peter's hands were shoved into his pockets and he was concentrating on preventing his canvas shoes from sinking into one of the snowpiles lining the road, so when a surprised voice said “Peter?” his chin jerked up, totally startled.
Then he froze.
The woman standing before him was as incongruous in that moment as a polar bear that had wandered up and spoken his name.
Davis drifted to a stop, looking between them.
Peter found his voice. “MJ?”