“I really don't think we should be here, Ricky,” Alfredo Laredo said, his eyes shifting uneasily from right to left and back again before settling on the thin man sitting across from him.
“I really don't give a crap what you think, Alfie,” Ricardo Laredo replied, his voice as thin as his wiry frame. He regarded his overweight sibling – and how any man of the same bloodline as Anthony “Pa” Laredo could be that goddamn fat Ricky would never understand – with narrowed eyes. “We're here because we was asked ta be here.”
“But we've been sittin' here for two hours now. Ain't nobody gonna come. Maybe Pa made a mistake.”
Ricky resisted the urge to reach across the table and slap his brother upside the head. “Pa don't make mistakes, fat boy. I should mess you up.”
“I'd rather we left and you did that,” Alfie flinched as a man at the next table over got up and moved for the bathrooms, “than stay here and risk getting the attention of these yahoos.”
“What you'd rather do don't concern me neither, Alfie. You want Pa's attention instead?”
“Even that'd be better than this,” Alfie said. “I really don't like it here. He nodded his head toward the plate glass window behind Ricardo's head, but Ricky didn't turn around to look. He knew where they were, and glancing at the painted white letters – Sal's Bar – etched on the glass wouldn't change a goddamn thing.
“You know what they call this place, don'tcha?” Alfie said, and his voice, which usually sounded as thick as the fat around his fat cow neck, had grown nearly as soft and thin as Ricky's. “The Bar With No Name.”
“You're starting to piss me off, Alfie,” Ricardo said. He eyed another of the patrons of the bar as the mammoth of a man – Ricky thought he might be the Rhino, but he couldn't say for sure – slid off his barstool and moved for the restroom. Only a few seconds later, another guy, this one with a shock of bright green hair, did the same.
“I ain't tryin' ta piss you off, Rick,” Alfie said. “I know Pa don't make mistakes, and if he says we got to meet the Kingpin's” – and Alfie dropped his voice again as he said the name, until he was barely audible, even in the relative silence of the bar – “guy, then that's what we gotta do. I just don't see why we gotta meet him here.”
“Because the Kingpin is doing right by the Laredo family, you freakin' dimwit, and that means what the Kingpin says goes. Pa is in good with the man, and when the man extends his hand you shake it, you don't spit in his palm. Capice?” Ricky said, his voice little more than a snarl. But now another man was getting up, and suddenly Ricky wasn't so sure of his words. There was no way all these crooks were hearing the same call of nature. Something was going on here.
“Phone for you,” a voice said at his ear, and he saw Alfie's eyes grow to the size of saucer plates, his hands clutching the table in front of him so hard his knuckles turned white. Ricardo whirled, his hand immediately darting beneath his jacket.
The man standing behind him was huge, but not fat-huge like Alfie. He was nearly as big as the guy Ricky had recognized as the Rhino, but this guy was black, and he was holding a cell-phone out to Ricardo Laredo as if it belonged to him, like it'd dropped out of his pocket as he sat down.
“No need for the gun, sir. All I got is this here phone for you,” the man said, eyeing the place underneath Ricky's jacket where his thin fingers had settled.
“That ain't mine,” Ricardo said in his whisper of a voice. The big black guy shrugged, obviously not deterred in the slightest.
“Phone for you, Mr. Laredo. Important call. An emergency.”
Ricardo Laredo narrowed his eyes. Was this the guy they were supposed to meet? He didn't think so. But he wasn't about to risk Pa's business because he was too frightened to pick up a goddamn phone, and he'd been planted here for the better part of two hours, so at least this was something to do. He'd humor the black guy, and if the guy tried anything, he'd plug him one right between the eyes.
He snatched the phone from the fingers of the giant and pressed it to his ear. “ Laredo here.”
“Ricky?” the voice on the other end of the line said, and Ricardo recognized it immediately.
“Pa? Pa, what's the problem?”
His father's gravely voice rattled in his ear. “I got no problem, Ricardo, ‘cept for my natural curiosity as to why you'd be calling me with an emergency and then go and ask me what my problem is.”
“Pa, I never called--” Ricardo said, glancing back at his brother. His jaw dropped. Alfredo Laredo was hunched over the table, his beefy stomach spilling over the edge, a miniature waterfall of blood running from his thick neck, spilling over his stomach and pooling on the cheap wood.
Ricardo jumped to his feet, pulling his gun in a slick, easy, practiced fashion. He retreated as he turned, fully intending to fill the black bastard that had murdered his brother with enough lead to kill a thousand men.
But the man wasn't there.
“Ricky? Ricky, what's happening there?” a faint little voice at his hip said. His father. His father was still on the phone with him. Ricky brought a shaking hand – the phone carried along with it – to his trembling lips.
“ Pa. He killed Alfie,” Ricky said. He was spinning in a slow circle, his weapon held out in front of him. A shadow danced along the wall in the shape of the large black man, and Ricky fired.
“Ricky! Ricky, calm down! Who killed Alfie? The Kingpin? Was it the Kingpin's guy?”
“Alfie's dead!” Ricky roared, and as he inhaled to cry out again, he realized he was standing knee deep in smoke. The smoke curled into his mouth, and Ricky retched violently as it assaulted his throat. He barely registered the buzzing voice of his father in his ear as he scrambled for the door to Sal's Bar, his legs kicking the smoke up into his vision.
And then he saw it. A man stood outside the plate glass window of the Bar With No Name, and this man made the black man from before look like a toddler. There was only one man Ricardo Laredo knew with that sort of size, with that sort of maddening girth.
“Kingpin,” Ricky said, his thin voice growing ever fainter as he choked on the fumes surrounding him. He raised his gun to fire, and this time he screamed the name as clearly as he could. Screamed it so his father would hear who was responsible for the deaths of his two boys. Ricky would undoubtedly die today, but there would be revenge for this betrayal. Bloody, terrible revenge.
Ricardo stepped on something, and it rolled easily beneath his foot. He lost his balance, his gun fired uselessly into the ceiling, and as he hit the ground the phone and weapon sailed from his clutching fingers, lost in the smoke. He heard his father's voice one final time, crying out to him, calling his name, and then there was only silence. Ricky sat up, running his hands along the ground in search of his gun. He was probably a dead man, as dead as Alfie, but if he could take one of the bastards who did this with him, so much the better. The phone was useless now. His father knew who had done this, and Anthony “Pa” Laredo was not a man you crossed. Not even if you were the Kingpin of crime.
Ricky's hands found something that wasn't the gun. It felt round, with grooves cut into the sides of it. A lot like a piece fruit or a baseball or a--
Ricardo Laredo lifted the object in front of his eyes, and he blinked. It was a miniature pumpkin, spilling plumes of smoke from its top. Ricky turned it in his hands, and saw a grinning Jack O'Lantern face slashed in the orange sphere.
“No, no, no,” Ricky said, and in the still of the bar he heard a sound like a bowling ball rolling down an alley. He looked down, and another pumpkin collided with his knee. Ricardo Laredo sighed, and in that sigh was utter defeat. He had been beaten and manipulated by a grinning killer, and now his father would pay for his error. Ricky screamed a profanity his mother would have struck him for had she been alive to hear it, and then the bomb exploded, and he was consumed in fire.
“I really don't give a crap what you think, Alfie,” Ricardo Laredo replied, his voice as thin as his wiry frame. He regarded his overweight sibling – and how any man of the same bloodline as Anthony “Pa” Laredo could be that goddamn fat Ricky would never understand – with narrowed eyes. “We're here because we was asked ta be here.”
“But we've been sittin' here for two hours now. Ain't nobody gonna come. Maybe Pa made a mistake.”
Ricky resisted the urge to reach across the table and slap his brother upside the head. “Pa don't make mistakes, fat boy. I should mess you up.”
“I'd rather we left and you did that,” Alfie flinched as a man at the next table over got up and moved for the bathrooms, “than stay here and risk getting the attention of these yahoos.”
“What you'd rather do don't concern me neither, Alfie. You want Pa's attention instead?”
“Even that'd be better than this,” Alfie said. “I really don't like it here. He nodded his head toward the plate glass window behind Ricardo's head, but Ricky didn't turn around to look. He knew where they were, and glancing at the painted white letters – Sal's Bar – etched on the glass wouldn't change a goddamn thing.
“You know what they call this place, don'tcha?” Alfie said, and his voice, which usually sounded as thick as the fat around his fat cow neck, had grown nearly as soft and thin as Ricky's. “The Bar With No Name.”
“You're starting to piss me off, Alfie,” Ricardo said. He eyed another of the patrons of the bar as the mammoth of a man – Ricky thought he might be the Rhino, but he couldn't say for sure – slid off his barstool and moved for the restroom. Only a few seconds later, another guy, this one with a shock of bright green hair, did the same.
“I ain't tryin' ta piss you off, Rick,” Alfie said. “I know Pa don't make mistakes, and if he says we got to meet the Kingpin's” – and Alfie dropped his voice again as he said the name, until he was barely audible, even in the relative silence of the bar – “guy, then that's what we gotta do. I just don't see why we gotta meet him here.”
“Because the Kingpin is doing right by the Laredo family, you freakin' dimwit, and that means what the Kingpin says goes. Pa is in good with the man, and when the man extends his hand you shake it, you don't spit in his palm. Capice?” Ricky said, his voice little more than a snarl. But now another man was getting up, and suddenly Ricky wasn't so sure of his words. There was no way all these crooks were hearing the same call of nature. Something was going on here.
“Phone for you,” a voice said at his ear, and he saw Alfie's eyes grow to the size of saucer plates, his hands clutching the table in front of him so hard his knuckles turned white. Ricardo whirled, his hand immediately darting beneath his jacket.
The man standing behind him was huge, but not fat-huge like Alfie. He was nearly as big as the guy Ricky had recognized as the Rhino, but this guy was black, and he was holding a cell-phone out to Ricardo Laredo as if it belonged to him, like it'd dropped out of his pocket as he sat down.
“No need for the gun, sir. All I got is this here phone for you,” the man said, eyeing the place underneath Ricky's jacket where his thin fingers had settled.
“That ain't mine,” Ricardo said in his whisper of a voice. The big black guy shrugged, obviously not deterred in the slightest.
“Phone for you, Mr. Laredo. Important call. An emergency.”
Ricardo Laredo narrowed his eyes. Was this the guy they were supposed to meet? He didn't think so. But he wasn't about to risk Pa's business because he was too frightened to pick up a goddamn phone, and he'd been planted here for the better part of two hours, so at least this was something to do. He'd humor the black guy, and if the guy tried anything, he'd plug him one right between the eyes.
He snatched the phone from the fingers of the giant and pressed it to his ear. “ Laredo here.”
“Ricky?” the voice on the other end of the line said, and Ricardo recognized it immediately.
“Pa? Pa, what's the problem?”
His father's gravely voice rattled in his ear. “I got no problem, Ricardo, ‘cept for my natural curiosity as to why you'd be calling me with an emergency and then go and ask me what my problem is.”
“Pa, I never called--” Ricardo said, glancing back at his brother. His jaw dropped. Alfredo Laredo was hunched over the table, his beefy stomach spilling over the edge, a miniature waterfall of blood running from his thick neck, spilling over his stomach and pooling on the cheap wood.
Ricardo jumped to his feet, pulling his gun in a slick, easy, practiced fashion. He retreated as he turned, fully intending to fill the black bastard that had murdered his brother with enough lead to kill a thousand men.
But the man wasn't there.
“Ricky? Ricky, what's happening there?” a faint little voice at his hip said. His father. His father was still on the phone with him. Ricky brought a shaking hand – the phone carried along with it – to his trembling lips.
“ Pa. He killed Alfie,” Ricky said. He was spinning in a slow circle, his weapon held out in front of him. A shadow danced along the wall in the shape of the large black man, and Ricky fired.
“Ricky! Ricky, calm down! Who killed Alfie? The Kingpin? Was it the Kingpin's guy?”
“Alfie's dead!” Ricky roared, and as he inhaled to cry out again, he realized he was standing knee deep in smoke. The smoke curled into his mouth, and Ricky retched violently as it assaulted his throat. He barely registered the buzzing voice of his father in his ear as he scrambled for the door to Sal's Bar, his legs kicking the smoke up into his vision.
And then he saw it. A man stood outside the plate glass window of the Bar With No Name, and this man made the black man from before look like a toddler. There was only one man Ricardo Laredo knew with that sort of size, with that sort of maddening girth.
“Kingpin,” Ricky said, his thin voice growing ever fainter as he choked on the fumes surrounding him. He raised his gun to fire, and this time he screamed the name as clearly as he could. Screamed it so his father would hear who was responsible for the deaths of his two boys. Ricky would undoubtedly die today, but there would be revenge for this betrayal. Bloody, terrible revenge.
Ricardo stepped on something, and it rolled easily beneath his foot. He lost his balance, his gun fired uselessly into the ceiling, and as he hit the ground the phone and weapon sailed from his clutching fingers, lost in the smoke. He heard his father's voice one final time, crying out to him, calling his name, and then there was only silence. Ricky sat up, running his hands along the ground in search of his gun. He was probably a dead man, as dead as Alfie, but if he could take one of the bastards who did this with him, so much the better. The phone was useless now. His father knew who had done this, and Anthony “Pa” Laredo was not a man you crossed. Not even if you were the Kingpin of crime.
Ricky's hands found something that wasn't the gun. It felt round, with grooves cut into the sides of it. A lot like a piece fruit or a baseball or a--
Ricardo Laredo lifted the object in front of his eyes, and he blinked. It was a miniature pumpkin, spilling plumes of smoke from its top. Ricky turned it in his hands, and saw a grinning Jack O'Lantern face slashed in the orange sphere.
“No, no, no,” Ricky said, and in the still of the bar he heard a sound like a bowling ball rolling down an alley. He looked down, and another pumpkin collided with his knee. Ricardo Laredo sighed, and in that sigh was utter defeat. He had been beaten and manipulated by a grinning killer, and now his father would pay for his error. Ricky screamed a profanity his mother would have struck him for had she been alive to hear it, and then the bomb exploded, and he was consumed in fire.
Back to GatefoldIssue #30 by Mike Exner III
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"JOY AND SORROW, INSEPERABLE"
Peter Parker moved through the newsroom of the Daily Bugle like a ghost. He felt the eyes of the staff on him as he passed, but he knew if he looked up for even a brief moment, those eyes would be cast downward again, returning hastily to their work. He was almost tempted to do it anyway, just to relieve himself of his suspicions, but he resisted the urge. He was here for a reason, so he moved quickly along the thin corridors created by the cramped cubicles and stopped in front of one that was nearly adjacent to the office of J. Jonah Jameson. The man inside the cubicle wasn't paying any attention to him either, but Pete had an idea the man knew he was here all the same.
“Anything, Ben?”
Ben Urich looked up from his computer screen, feigning surprise, and turned to face the young man standing over him. “Peter, hey. How are you holding up?”
“I'll take that as a no,” Peter said. He ran his fingers through his hair, taking his tongue between his teeth, savoring the pain that followed as he bit down, allowing it to keep the despair at bay.
When Peter looked back up at Ben, the man was looking at him with an expression of great pity. Peter looked away. He'd been getting that look from just about everyone lately: from his Aunt May to his roommate Randy, who had fortunately not been around when Jill and Eugene were gunned down like dogs in his apartment. Peter clenched his fists, exhaled, struggling to keep his emotions in check.
“Peter,” Ben said, his voice faltering, wavering with its own emotion, and Peter thought he might go insane if he had to listen to the man lament for him. But then, to his credit, Urich's voice cleared, hardened; and he continued. “Pete, I know this is hard. I won't pretend I know exactly how hard, because no one who hasn't lost a child can possibly understand what you're going through right now, but…”
Ben took up a pencil, placed the eraser in his mouth and began chewing at it. He wasn't allowed to smoke in the newsroom, and Peter had noticed him pick this habit up to compensate. Somehow, though he thought it would have made him feel even worse for Ben to start his nervous tic, Peter felt his nerves calm a bit by the ridiculous familiarity of the action.
“Go on, Ben,” Peter said. “Whatever you have to say. I need to hear it.”
Ben forced a smile, and although Peter was sure the man wanted it to look hopeful, it twisted his face into an unpleasant grimace. “You have to face facts, Peter. May has been missing for four days now. There've been no ransom demands, and your friends were gunned down without a second thought when she was kidnapped. As hard as it might be for you, you have to deal with the very real possibility that May isn't coming home.”
Peter was looking at the floor, his eyes boring holes in the cheap carpet beneath his feet. Everything Ben was saying to him now was something he had already considered. As painful as it was to think about, he knew it was possible that May was already dead. It was very possible, in fact, but was it likely? Peter didn't think so. He had learned from Mary Jane's death that denial was a bitter enemy, worse than any enemy he'd ever faced. A lot of the things that had happened to him over the past few months were a direct result of him rejecting the fact that Mary Jane had died. When lives hung in the balance: his own, his Aunt May's, Randy's, Jonah's, he was at his worst, and it nearly cost him everything he held dear. But he didn't feel like he was stuck in denial now, because no matter what the police thought, or Ben Urich thought, or anyone else thought for that matter, none of them – not a one – knew that Peter Parker was really Spider-Man. And that turned May's kidnapping, ransom note or no, into a whole new ballgame.
But that's just what you said when my plane went down, Tiger, the voice of Mary Jane spoke in his mind, and though Peter tried, he couldn't shut it out. Everyone tried to tell you that I had died, and instead of accepting what happened, you let it consume you. Are you prepared to go through that all over again?
No. No, he wasn't. It was a thin line he was treading, and no matter how he tried to justify his feelings, the fact of the matter was that he just wasn't sure of anything. There was no reason at all for anyone to kidnap May, to kill Jill and put one of his best friends in a coma, unless that person knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.* But kidnappings occurred each and every day, all over the country, so was it really that much of a stretch to believe this was just another in a countless number of foul acts performed by heartless criminals all over the world, a random stroke of violence in a twisted world? He honestly didn't know.
[*These tragic events took place in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #28 – Mike]
Peter cleared his throat. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable. “Ben, I know what you're saying, and I understand why you feel you have to say it, but--”
“Peter,” a voice said from behind him, interrupting the conversation, and Peter silently blessed the voice as his savior. He turned around, and looked into the aged face and warm eyes of Robbie Robertson.
“Robbie, hey,” Peter said, taking the man's hand in his own. “I was hoping I'd run into you. How's Jonah holding up?”
Robbie smiled. “He's still taking it slow, doctor's – and Marla's, I think – orders.* But you know Jonah, the second he's able he'll be back on the warpath.”
[*Jonah was shot by Scrier in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #23 – Mike]
“No doubt about that one,” Peter said, smiling a little in spite of himself. “I just dropped by to have a word with Ben--”
“About his daughter,” Ben chimed in, and Peter shot him a nasty look.
“I already knew, Pete,” Robbie said, taking the younger man by the arm and capturing his attention anew. “The Bugle's resources are yours. I asked Ben to make it his number one priority.”
Ben nodded, continuing to chew on the eraser of his pencil. “I've passed it along to all my contacts at the department, and… a few outside of it as well. They're keeping me updated constantly. If there's anything at all to report, well, I trust them implicitly.”
“And I trust you, Ben,” Pete said. “I'm sorry if I came across as a little rude before, it's just--”
“You got nothing to apologize about, Peter,” Ben said, lifting his hands in a warding off gesture. “Just keep your head up, all right?”
“I will.”
“C'mon, Peter. I'd like to talk to you for a minute about something,” Robbie said, his hand still clutched around Peter's elbow. “Let's go to my office.”
Minutes later Peter Parker was swinging across the city as the Amazing Spider-Man. The words of Robbie Robertson were still playing their way through his mind, but he tried not to focus on them too heavily as he dipped, dodged, and darted his way across the concrete and steel of New York City . There would be time to deal with what Robbie had passed along in his office later. Right now, the only thing Spider-Man wanted to do was get over to County General . Randy was sure to be there already, and he'd agreed to meet his roommate before visiting hours were up so they could hang out with Eugene .
“Spider-Man!” a blaring voice called from below, and Spidey's first instinct was to yank on his webline sharply, then release it as his strength carried him up and away in a slightly curving arc towards the face of the nearest building. He expected an attack at any second, and he'd have to leap off of the building to avoid being hit and reduce the chance of any repeated blasts hitting the structure he was clinging to, threatening innocent bystanders. But his spider-sense didn't even slightly tingle as he tensed his muscles, and so he arched his back, and looked in the direction he'd heard the voice originate from.
“Nice moves, man,” the voice came again, and Spider-Man could see it was coming from a man dressed in dark black business attire. There was a woman with blazing red hair and a matching suit standing next to him. The guy had a megaphone. “Seriously, dude. Jet Li has like, absolutely nothing on you, webslinger!”
“Uh, thanks!” Spider-Man said, straining his voice so it'd carry along the man-made chasm separating him from the suits.
“Sure thing!” the male agent said, giving Spider-Man the thumbs-up signal. “But say, you mind coming over here for a second or two so we can rap?”
“Uh, sure,” Spider-Man said, scratching the back of his head. If this was an attack, it was assuredly the silliest one he'd ever been involved in.
“What?”
“I said…!” Spider-Man started, then sighed. “Oh, nevermind.”
He pushed off with his legs, and his fantastic strength catapulted him across the abyss and over to the building his audience was standing on. He fired a webline, and let it pull him up and over the two gazing up at him. He came to a stop on a billboard jutting from the top of the roof, and peered down at his newfound friends.
“Man, you never cease to impress!” the man in the suit said into the megaphone, and his partner visibly cringed. She tapped him on the shoulder, pointed at the megaphone and then made a cutting motion across her neck. The man nodded, and then shut the megaphone off. “Sorry. Guess I don't need this thing anymore.”
“As much as I appreciate the compliments – and believe me, with all the bad press I get I really appreciate the compliments – I still have to ask… who are you guys?” Spider-Man said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what are you doing up on a roof in business formal in the middle of the day?”
“All excellent questions, webslinger,” the man said with a smile, “and I'll answer them in order. My name is Daniel Toy, Danny to my friends, Agent Toy to everybody else. This lovely young lady next to me is Agent Bronson. We're SHIELD. As to why we're here, well, if you step on down, I'd be more than happy to relinquish that bit of intel to you.”
“I'm sorry, did you say Bronson?”
“Charlene Bronson,” Agent Toy reiterated, smiling thinly.
“You're kidding me, right?” Spider-Man said, leaning against the web-bag with his civvies in it as he regarded the agents below.
“My parents had a sick sense of humor, wallcrawler,” Agent Bronson said, and then pointed at the ground with one well-manicured finger. “Now are you going to come down from there to talk, or are we going to have to shoot you down?”
“Make my day, punk,” Spider-Man said in a gravely voice.
“I'm… not entirely sure, Spider-Man, but I think that was a Clint Eastwood quote, not Chuck Bronson,” Agent Toy said, making a shooting gesture with his thumb and forefinger. “You know, Dirty Harry?”
“Oh… right,” Spider-Man said, his shoulders slumping as he walked parallel to the flat surface of the roof down to where the two agents stood. He hopped down the last couple of feet and then stood there, looking at his own reflection in the dark sunglasses Toy and Bronson wore. “So what's up? Fury got a secret mission for me?”
“Uh…” Agent Toy said, his brows knit in confusion.
“Aw, I'm not under arrest am I?” Spider-Man said, slapping his palm against his cloth-covered forehead. “I told my tailor not to use underage labor to make these costumes.”
“No, Spider-Man,” Bronson said, and she reached inside her jacket, pulling a manila folder from within. “My partner is a bit on the excessive side, but we're actually here to deliver this.”
Spider-Man took the folder. “What is it?”
“About two months ago, a man was recruited into SHIELD by former Head of Operations, and the previous leader of X-Factor, Forge.”
“Wait, former Head of…? What happened to Fury?”
“Don't interrupt her when she's on a roll, webhead,” Toy said, clapping Spider-Man on the shoulder. “It makes her crabby.”
“Forge recruited this man out of respect for his position, the regrettable nature of his fall from grace, and his… friendship with a certain super-powered operative working here in New York .”
Spider-Man blinked under his mask. “You mean me?”
Agent Bronson nodded. “That's right. Detective Russ Anderson of the NYPD was recruited about six weeks after the unfortunate business that occurred between yourself and the terrorist cell known as the Brotherhood of Mutants. He worked as a special deputy of sorts, directly under Forge, and he gained the confidence of his new employer rather swiftly.”
“Sounds like him,” Spider-Man said. The good humor had fallen out of his voice. He cracked open the file folder, and saw two photographs staring him blankly in the face. One was of a smiling Russ Anderson, clad in a black suit not unlike the one Toy and Bronson were wearing now, but underneath it was the picture of the charred corpse of a man Spider-Man couldn't easily identify. Though he was quite certain he knew who it was.
Spider-Man passed a gloved hand over the photograph. “What is this? What--?”
“He was killed, Spider-Man,” Toy said, and now the jubilance had drained from his voice too. “He died in the line of duty.* Our intelligence informed us that Anderson took the fall for the incident that you were responsible for. We came across a number of journal pages, and we included them in the package you're holding now. Personal effects have been relayed to his next of kin. He didn't have much of either. One of his last requests, relayed through his own lips, to Forge's lips, to ours and now to your ears, was that you got this information in the event of his death. That you knew he didn't die for nothing. That you knew he died in the service of his country.”
[*former NYPD Detective Russ Anderson died in M2K's Wolverine Annual 2003 – Mike]
“Jesus,” Spider-Man said, and found that his legs had turned to jelly beneath him. He slumped back, and collided with the sign he'd been perched on only moments ago. It supported his weight. Without it, he was sure he'd have fallen on his backside. “Who did it? Who killed him? I can help you--”
“It's been taken care of, Spider-Man,” Bronson said, and she smiled tightly. “I know it's small consolation, but the persons responsible have been dealt with.”
“Is there anything we can do, webslinger?” Agent Toy said, and even through the dark glasses the man sported, Spider-Man could see the honest sincerity in his face, hear it in his voice. “For you, I mean?”
Spider-Man shook his head. “I… I just want to be left alone right now.”
“Fair enough,” Toy said, and he jerked his head at Bronson, indicating they should make themselves scarce. The two agents moved nimbly across the roof of the building and entered the service door leading to the stairwell.
“You should have told him the rest, Toy,” Bronson said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Man said he wanted to be left alone for a while, Bronson,” Toy hissed back, but he glanced over his shoulder at Spider-Man all the same, as if unsure he'd done the right thing. “And anyway, it hardly matters. We'll be back. We're not done with the wallcrawler yet.”
Spider-Man watched them go, oblivious of their conversation, and when they were gone, he looked out across the cityscape, and lost himself in his thoughts.
Two months ago
Spider-Man flipped through the air and let go of his webline. He dropped lightly on top of the car parked in front of the diner, and smiled as he heard the startled cry from within. The driver-side door popped open, and former Detective Russ Anderson stepped out into the cool New York evening.
“Howdy,” Spider-Man said. Anderson just shook his head.
“Are you capable of greeting people like a normal person?”
“Sure,” Spider-Man said, stretching out a hand. “Put her there.”
“You're an idiot,” Anderson said as he turned on his heel and made for the entrance to the diner. Spider-Man hopped off the roof of the car and followed him. The bells over the door tinkled cheerily as Anderson held open the door for the webslinger.
“No, Russ. No,” the woman behind the counter called out. “I do not want that costume in my café again.* I had reporters here asking me questions for nearly a week after the last time.”
[*Russ and Spider-Man first compared notes in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #17 – Mike]
“Aw relax, Maude,” Anderson said, waving her off. “Just get us a couple cups of coffee. We'll be out of your hair in no time.”
“Iced tea for me, Maude, if you don't mind,” Spider-Man said as he plopped down in the booth next to Russ. “Scoot over, man!”
“Uh, you mind sitting on the other side there,” Anderson said. “I'm not trying to hold your hand or anything.”
“Oh, I get it,” Spidey said, getting up and crossing to the seat across the table, “you'd rather play footsies.”
“You boys be nice now,” Maude said, placing a tray with the drinks, a carafe of milk and a small bowl of sugar with a spoon down in front of the two men.
“Thanks, Maude,” Anderson said, already scooping sugar into his coffee.
“Did I see suitcases in your car?”
“Can't get a thing past you,” Anderson said with a wry grin. “With those powers of observation you got, you might have made a decent cop.”
“No, I could never stand those silly uniforms you guys wear,” Spider-Man said.
“Uh huh. Just drink your damn tea.”
Spider-Man lifted his mask, and took a long slurp of his iced tea. He smacked his lips in satisfaction.
Anderson shook his head. “Could you be any louder? My mother would be thwacking you with a wooden spoon by now.”
“Aunt did that to me once,” Spider-Man said. “Hurts worse than a punch from the Rhino.”
Anderson chuckled. “You can probably guess why I asked you here.”
“I have an idea,” Spider-Man said. He reached behind his back and pulled out the newspaper that had been tucked into his pants. He placed it on the table. The Daily Bugle headline: “Cop Takes Rap for Terrorist Blast” practically screamed out at them from the front page. “Why'd you do it?”
“Because I knew you'd be crucified if I didn't do it.”
“If you read this rag with any consistency, you know I've had that happen a time or two before. What was so special about this time?”
Russ Anderson took another drink of his coffee. “I was there this time. I know you didn't mean any harm. You just made a mistake.”
“It cost you your job, Anderson ,” Spider-Man said. “You can't tell me you did it just to clear my name of something I might have eventually climbed out from under anyway. Level with me.”
“I'm pretty much by myself out here, you know?” Anderson said. He shook his head. “I was married once. We were happy. We had a dog. We were working on more than that…
“There was a car crash. Drunk driver hit us. Ran a red. I was driving at the time, but the bastard hit the car on the passenger side. My wife died instantly, Spider-Man.”
Peter looked down into his tea. “I'm sorry.”
Russ nodded. “I wanted to die after that. I honestly did. I gave the mutt to the pound because I couldn't take care of him anymore. I ate bad takeout whenever I got hungry, but I was just going through the motions. I cleaned my gun nearly every night, and I can still tell you exactly how gun oil tastes, or describe the exact texture of the gun barrel on my tongue.
“But I never pulled the trigger. I thought about it. I was like a cliché from Lethal Weapon or some movie like that. I gave up my detective position and took a job with Code Blue, the NYPD's superhuman crime division, and my life became my work. I took all of the chances and all of the risks, and I collected promotions and awards one after the other. But the one thing I could never get was what I was shooting for that whole time.
“I wanted to die honorably. I wanted to die in the line of duty, so I could see my wife. So I could just hold her in my arms again. I loved her so much.”
Anderson paused, rotating the cup of coffee in his hands on the tabletop. “On my last mission with Code Blue we were sent to a museum to resolve a hostage situation. Electro was holding a teacher and her class and demanding some sort of ridiculous ransom. We prepared our offensive just like always, and I took the point. I'd been doing that a lot lately, not only because I genuinely wanted to die, but also because some of the men had decided Code Blue wasn't for them, and we were a smaller group by that time. I wanted to keep my men alive.
“We tried to keep it as stealthy as possible, but somehow Electro had tapped into the museums security system, and I'm sure we were discovered the second we stepped inside, but he played with us, toyed with us, drew us in. He electrocuted one of my men, and then another, and another. And he taunted us over the loudspeakers as he did it, threatening to kill us all if we took another step. And God help me, I did take another step, hoping he'd kill me, but he blasted another of my men instead.
“It was only later on that I realized he hadn't killed any of my men. He'd been saving the majority of his juice for somebody else. I'm sure you know the guy. He dresses like a spider, does a high-wire act across the city like it was his own personal jungle gym.”
Spider-Man smiled slightly. “Yeah, I know him.”
Anderson nodded. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah,” Spider-Man said. “I got the drop on Electro while he was dealing with your team. We fought for a while. A few minutes maybe. I wrapped him up pretty quickly, if I remember correctly.”
“You did. Threw him into one of the dinosaur fossils. Triceratops came down on his head and he went down for the count. You hopped up afterward, just to check and see if we were okay. Talked directly to me.”
Spidey smiled. “I don't remember that at all.”
Anderson shrugged. “It doesn't matter. You bounced all around that place like a pinball, wrapped up Electro, checked on that teacher and them kids, even while some of my men were trying to arrest you. I just stood there, looking at you, and at the time I thought my men were dead. And I thought I'd killed one of them, do you understand?
“You were everything I wasn't at that moment, wallcrawler. You were everything I wanted to be. And I could feel my wife's eyes on me at that moment, and I was more ashamed than I'd ever been in my life of the things I'd done and the way I'd acted since her death. I felt horrible and wonderful at the same time. Horrible because I'd finally seen what I'd become, but wonderful because I finally had a chance to redeem myself.
“And so I finally accepted my position as a homicide detective again, and I put my all into being the best cop, the best man, I could be. And I followed your exploits whenever I could. And when that kid died in Tampa I knew things might get hot in the city, and I was busy investigating the death of Ryan Jent and Joannah Wilkins.* And you were involved, so I contacted you. I just kept one of the reasons to myself.
[*See M2K's Generation X #9 and Amazing Spider-Man #13 – Mike]
“But it wasn't enough for me just to talk to you, Spider-Man. You're a good man, and I knew you weren't behind those killings, and I knew you'd figure out who was behind it before long. But I tried to solve the case anyway. Repay you in some small measure for what you do for the people of New York every day. But then that horrible tragedy occurred, and I knew you'd be blamed, and maybe part of it was your fault. But I couldn't let all the good you do for this city go to waste. So I stepped up, and I took the hit for you. And I think it might be the single best thing I've ever done.”
Russ Anderson took a last gulp of his coffee and put the mug down on the saucer. “And that was what I wanted to tell you.”
“Where will you go?” Spider-Man said, his feet clinging to the side of the diner, his body resting in a seated position. Anderson was standing in front of the open door to his car. People were watching them now, some of them heading into Maude's “Sit Down and Eat” diner for a cup of coffee or bit of lunch, some gawking as they passed on their way to appointments elsewhere in the city.
“I've got a cousin in Baltimore . He's an officer in the SWAT division. Maybe I'll have a job waiting. Who knows, right?”
Spider-Man smiled. “I've got a cousin lives out that way myself. Been meaning to visit for a while. Maybe I'll see you around.”
“Never can tell,” Anderson said. “You keep your nose clean, all right? I really don't want to lose any more job opportunities because of you.”
“I'll do my best,” Spider-Man said, giving the man a salute.
Anderson nodded, then climbed into his car. He twisted the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. He backed out of the parking lot, and turned down the street. In an instant, he was gone.
Spider-Man skittered up to the roof of the diner and fired a webline. He tracked the departure of Russ Anderson's car with his eyes. “See ya ‘round, Detective.”
County General
“Stop playin', Gene. Time to wake up, boy,” Randy Robertson said. Visiting hours were almost over now, and he'd been hovering over Eugene 's bed for the better part of an hour. He'd cried a little when he first arrived, but the tears were all dried and gone now. All he felt inside was a cold sense of pity, and a bitter seed of anger. The pity he held for the poor young man laid up in the hospital bed in front of him, tubes shoved down his throat the only thing allowing him to draw breath, machines beeping and booping next to him monitoring the flimsy hold he had on life. The anger he held for someone else.
“Randy?” a voice said from behind him as a hand settled on his shoulder. Randy turned in his seat, scowling at his roommate. Pete winced. “Sorry I'm late.”
“Ain't me you should be apologizing to, man,” Randy said, and looked back down on Eugene . Peter followed his gaze. Eugene was the same as he'd been for the past couple of days now, his eyes clamped shut, his waxen skin a sharp contrast to his fire-engine colored hair. Peter tried to imagine the lifeless green eyes underneath the dead lids popping open with vitality as the comatose man jumped and bounded with joy in a suit of frogish-green, and he was dismayed to find that he couldn't.
“I'm so sorry, ‘Gene,” Peter said, anguish in his voice, and Randy saw that though his own tears had gone, Peter's most assuredly hadn't. It gave him a dull moment of pleasure to see Peter that way, crying over Eugene 's body, and a terrible shame followed directly after, smothering his anger and satisfaction in its wake.
“Pete,” Randy said, and felt a tear slip down his own cheek. Apparently his tears hadn't dried up after all. “Pete, my bad, man. I'm sorry too. I'm so sorry.”
Randy Robertson stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Peter Parker. They held onto each other like that for a long time, and when finally their embrace came to an end, they sat with their friend… together.
In the whisper soft silence of a penthouse suite in downtown Manhattan , a man sat in a plush leather recliner, his legs crossed in business-like fashion in front of him. Bach poured through the speakers above and around him, the surround sound system drowning him in auditory pleasures beyond anything he had ever experienced. He smiled, sharp white teeth splitting his lips, and the room seemed to brighten, the illumination of the lights growing exponentially. It continued to lighten, and then, as the outpouring of light grew so blinding that nothing could be seen save the brilliance pouring out of the windows and into the night beyond, a sound emerged, mingling with the sounds of Bach… garbling it. The man frowned. The light ceased. The other sound persisted. The man got up from his chair. He moved across the penthouse and opened the door to the single bedroom. The sound sharpened in volume and passion, and the man's frown intensified. He moved to the source of it, and looked down.
“Hush, little baby. Don't you cry,” the man said, gently rocking the cradle with the squalling infant inside. He stooped down, took hold of the child, and pressed a finger to the baby's lips. The child immediately quieted, a glazed look spread over its eyes. The man smiled. The lights brightened momentarily, then flickered back to normal.
“Now I am the spider, and your father is the fly.”
NEXT ISSUE: More Spidery goodness!
“Anything, Ben?”
Ben Urich looked up from his computer screen, feigning surprise, and turned to face the young man standing over him. “Peter, hey. How are you holding up?”
“I'll take that as a no,” Peter said. He ran his fingers through his hair, taking his tongue between his teeth, savoring the pain that followed as he bit down, allowing it to keep the despair at bay.
When Peter looked back up at Ben, the man was looking at him with an expression of great pity. Peter looked away. He'd been getting that look from just about everyone lately: from his Aunt May to his roommate Randy, who had fortunately not been around when Jill and Eugene were gunned down like dogs in his apartment. Peter clenched his fists, exhaled, struggling to keep his emotions in check.
“Peter,” Ben said, his voice faltering, wavering with its own emotion, and Peter thought he might go insane if he had to listen to the man lament for him. But then, to his credit, Urich's voice cleared, hardened; and he continued. “Pete, I know this is hard. I won't pretend I know exactly how hard, because no one who hasn't lost a child can possibly understand what you're going through right now, but…”
Ben took up a pencil, placed the eraser in his mouth and began chewing at it. He wasn't allowed to smoke in the newsroom, and Peter had noticed him pick this habit up to compensate. Somehow, though he thought it would have made him feel even worse for Ben to start his nervous tic, Peter felt his nerves calm a bit by the ridiculous familiarity of the action.
“Go on, Ben,” Peter said. “Whatever you have to say. I need to hear it.”
Ben forced a smile, and although Peter was sure the man wanted it to look hopeful, it twisted his face into an unpleasant grimace. “You have to face facts, Peter. May has been missing for four days now. There've been no ransom demands, and your friends were gunned down without a second thought when she was kidnapped. As hard as it might be for you, you have to deal with the very real possibility that May isn't coming home.”
Peter was looking at the floor, his eyes boring holes in the cheap carpet beneath his feet. Everything Ben was saying to him now was something he had already considered. As painful as it was to think about, he knew it was possible that May was already dead. It was very possible, in fact, but was it likely? Peter didn't think so. He had learned from Mary Jane's death that denial was a bitter enemy, worse than any enemy he'd ever faced. A lot of the things that had happened to him over the past few months were a direct result of him rejecting the fact that Mary Jane had died. When lives hung in the balance: his own, his Aunt May's, Randy's, Jonah's, he was at his worst, and it nearly cost him everything he held dear. But he didn't feel like he was stuck in denial now, because no matter what the police thought, or Ben Urich thought, or anyone else thought for that matter, none of them – not a one – knew that Peter Parker was really Spider-Man. And that turned May's kidnapping, ransom note or no, into a whole new ballgame.
But that's just what you said when my plane went down, Tiger, the voice of Mary Jane spoke in his mind, and though Peter tried, he couldn't shut it out. Everyone tried to tell you that I had died, and instead of accepting what happened, you let it consume you. Are you prepared to go through that all over again?
No. No, he wasn't. It was a thin line he was treading, and no matter how he tried to justify his feelings, the fact of the matter was that he just wasn't sure of anything. There was no reason at all for anyone to kidnap May, to kill Jill and put one of his best friends in a coma, unless that person knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.* But kidnappings occurred each and every day, all over the country, so was it really that much of a stretch to believe this was just another in a countless number of foul acts performed by heartless criminals all over the world, a random stroke of violence in a twisted world? He honestly didn't know.
[*These tragic events took place in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #28 – Mike]
Peter cleared his throat. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable. “Ben, I know what you're saying, and I understand why you feel you have to say it, but--”
“Peter,” a voice said from behind him, interrupting the conversation, and Peter silently blessed the voice as his savior. He turned around, and looked into the aged face and warm eyes of Robbie Robertson.
“Robbie, hey,” Peter said, taking the man's hand in his own. “I was hoping I'd run into you. How's Jonah holding up?”
Robbie smiled. “He's still taking it slow, doctor's – and Marla's, I think – orders.* But you know Jonah, the second he's able he'll be back on the warpath.”
[*Jonah was shot by Scrier in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #23 – Mike]
“No doubt about that one,” Peter said, smiling a little in spite of himself. “I just dropped by to have a word with Ben--”
“About his daughter,” Ben chimed in, and Peter shot him a nasty look.
“I already knew, Pete,” Robbie said, taking the younger man by the arm and capturing his attention anew. “The Bugle's resources are yours. I asked Ben to make it his number one priority.”
Ben nodded, continuing to chew on the eraser of his pencil. “I've passed it along to all my contacts at the department, and… a few outside of it as well. They're keeping me updated constantly. If there's anything at all to report, well, I trust them implicitly.”
“And I trust you, Ben,” Pete said. “I'm sorry if I came across as a little rude before, it's just--”
“You got nothing to apologize about, Peter,” Ben said, lifting his hands in a warding off gesture. “Just keep your head up, all right?”
“I will.”
“C'mon, Peter. I'd like to talk to you for a minute about something,” Robbie said, his hand still clutched around Peter's elbow. “Let's go to my office.”
Minutes later Peter Parker was swinging across the city as the Amazing Spider-Man. The words of Robbie Robertson were still playing their way through his mind, but he tried not to focus on them too heavily as he dipped, dodged, and darted his way across the concrete and steel of New York City . There would be time to deal with what Robbie had passed along in his office later. Right now, the only thing Spider-Man wanted to do was get over to County General . Randy was sure to be there already, and he'd agreed to meet his roommate before visiting hours were up so they could hang out with Eugene .
“Spider-Man!” a blaring voice called from below, and Spidey's first instinct was to yank on his webline sharply, then release it as his strength carried him up and away in a slightly curving arc towards the face of the nearest building. He expected an attack at any second, and he'd have to leap off of the building to avoid being hit and reduce the chance of any repeated blasts hitting the structure he was clinging to, threatening innocent bystanders. But his spider-sense didn't even slightly tingle as he tensed his muscles, and so he arched his back, and looked in the direction he'd heard the voice originate from.
“Nice moves, man,” the voice came again, and Spider-Man could see it was coming from a man dressed in dark black business attire. There was a woman with blazing red hair and a matching suit standing next to him. The guy had a megaphone. “Seriously, dude. Jet Li has like, absolutely nothing on you, webslinger!”
“Uh, thanks!” Spider-Man said, straining his voice so it'd carry along the man-made chasm separating him from the suits.
“Sure thing!” the male agent said, giving Spider-Man the thumbs-up signal. “But say, you mind coming over here for a second or two so we can rap?”
“Uh, sure,” Spider-Man said, scratching the back of his head. If this was an attack, it was assuredly the silliest one he'd ever been involved in.
“What?”
“I said…!” Spider-Man started, then sighed. “Oh, nevermind.”
He pushed off with his legs, and his fantastic strength catapulted him across the abyss and over to the building his audience was standing on. He fired a webline, and let it pull him up and over the two gazing up at him. He came to a stop on a billboard jutting from the top of the roof, and peered down at his newfound friends.
“Man, you never cease to impress!” the man in the suit said into the megaphone, and his partner visibly cringed. She tapped him on the shoulder, pointed at the megaphone and then made a cutting motion across her neck. The man nodded, and then shut the megaphone off. “Sorry. Guess I don't need this thing anymore.”
“As much as I appreciate the compliments – and believe me, with all the bad press I get I really appreciate the compliments – I still have to ask… who are you guys?” Spider-Man said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what are you doing up on a roof in business formal in the middle of the day?”
“All excellent questions, webslinger,” the man said with a smile, “and I'll answer them in order. My name is Daniel Toy, Danny to my friends, Agent Toy to everybody else. This lovely young lady next to me is Agent Bronson. We're SHIELD. As to why we're here, well, if you step on down, I'd be more than happy to relinquish that bit of intel to you.”
“I'm sorry, did you say Bronson?”
“Charlene Bronson,” Agent Toy reiterated, smiling thinly.
“You're kidding me, right?” Spider-Man said, leaning against the web-bag with his civvies in it as he regarded the agents below.
“My parents had a sick sense of humor, wallcrawler,” Agent Bronson said, and then pointed at the ground with one well-manicured finger. “Now are you going to come down from there to talk, or are we going to have to shoot you down?”
“Make my day, punk,” Spider-Man said in a gravely voice.
“I'm… not entirely sure, Spider-Man, but I think that was a Clint Eastwood quote, not Chuck Bronson,” Agent Toy said, making a shooting gesture with his thumb and forefinger. “You know, Dirty Harry?”
“Oh… right,” Spider-Man said, his shoulders slumping as he walked parallel to the flat surface of the roof down to where the two agents stood. He hopped down the last couple of feet and then stood there, looking at his own reflection in the dark sunglasses Toy and Bronson wore. “So what's up? Fury got a secret mission for me?”
“Uh…” Agent Toy said, his brows knit in confusion.
“Aw, I'm not under arrest am I?” Spider-Man said, slapping his palm against his cloth-covered forehead. “I told my tailor not to use underage labor to make these costumes.”
“No, Spider-Man,” Bronson said, and she reached inside her jacket, pulling a manila folder from within. “My partner is a bit on the excessive side, but we're actually here to deliver this.”
Spider-Man took the folder. “What is it?”
“About two months ago, a man was recruited into SHIELD by former Head of Operations, and the previous leader of X-Factor, Forge.”
“Wait, former Head of…? What happened to Fury?”
“Don't interrupt her when she's on a roll, webhead,” Toy said, clapping Spider-Man on the shoulder. “It makes her crabby.”
“Forge recruited this man out of respect for his position, the regrettable nature of his fall from grace, and his… friendship with a certain super-powered operative working here in New York .”
Spider-Man blinked under his mask. “You mean me?”
Agent Bronson nodded. “That's right. Detective Russ Anderson of the NYPD was recruited about six weeks after the unfortunate business that occurred between yourself and the terrorist cell known as the Brotherhood of Mutants. He worked as a special deputy of sorts, directly under Forge, and he gained the confidence of his new employer rather swiftly.”
“Sounds like him,” Spider-Man said. The good humor had fallen out of his voice. He cracked open the file folder, and saw two photographs staring him blankly in the face. One was of a smiling Russ Anderson, clad in a black suit not unlike the one Toy and Bronson were wearing now, but underneath it was the picture of the charred corpse of a man Spider-Man couldn't easily identify. Though he was quite certain he knew who it was.
Spider-Man passed a gloved hand over the photograph. “What is this? What--?”
“He was killed, Spider-Man,” Toy said, and now the jubilance had drained from his voice too. “He died in the line of duty.* Our intelligence informed us that Anderson took the fall for the incident that you were responsible for. We came across a number of journal pages, and we included them in the package you're holding now. Personal effects have been relayed to his next of kin. He didn't have much of either. One of his last requests, relayed through his own lips, to Forge's lips, to ours and now to your ears, was that you got this information in the event of his death. That you knew he didn't die for nothing. That you knew he died in the service of his country.”
[*former NYPD Detective Russ Anderson died in M2K's Wolverine Annual 2003 – Mike]
“Jesus,” Spider-Man said, and found that his legs had turned to jelly beneath him. He slumped back, and collided with the sign he'd been perched on only moments ago. It supported his weight. Without it, he was sure he'd have fallen on his backside. “Who did it? Who killed him? I can help you--”
“It's been taken care of, Spider-Man,” Bronson said, and she smiled tightly. “I know it's small consolation, but the persons responsible have been dealt with.”
“Is there anything we can do, webslinger?” Agent Toy said, and even through the dark glasses the man sported, Spider-Man could see the honest sincerity in his face, hear it in his voice. “For you, I mean?”
Spider-Man shook his head. “I… I just want to be left alone right now.”
“Fair enough,” Toy said, and he jerked his head at Bronson, indicating they should make themselves scarce. The two agents moved nimbly across the roof of the building and entered the service door leading to the stairwell.
“You should have told him the rest, Toy,” Bronson said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Man said he wanted to be left alone for a while, Bronson,” Toy hissed back, but he glanced over his shoulder at Spider-Man all the same, as if unsure he'd done the right thing. “And anyway, it hardly matters. We'll be back. We're not done with the wallcrawler yet.”
Spider-Man watched them go, oblivious of their conversation, and when they were gone, he looked out across the cityscape, and lost himself in his thoughts.
Two months ago
Spider-Man flipped through the air and let go of his webline. He dropped lightly on top of the car parked in front of the diner, and smiled as he heard the startled cry from within. The driver-side door popped open, and former Detective Russ Anderson stepped out into the cool New York evening.
“Howdy,” Spider-Man said. Anderson just shook his head.
“Are you capable of greeting people like a normal person?”
“Sure,” Spider-Man said, stretching out a hand. “Put her there.”
“You're an idiot,” Anderson said as he turned on his heel and made for the entrance to the diner. Spider-Man hopped off the roof of the car and followed him. The bells over the door tinkled cheerily as Anderson held open the door for the webslinger.
“No, Russ. No,” the woman behind the counter called out. “I do not want that costume in my café again.* I had reporters here asking me questions for nearly a week after the last time.”
[*Russ and Spider-Man first compared notes in M2K's Amazing Spider-Man #17 – Mike]
“Aw relax, Maude,” Anderson said, waving her off. “Just get us a couple cups of coffee. We'll be out of your hair in no time.”
“Iced tea for me, Maude, if you don't mind,” Spider-Man said as he plopped down in the booth next to Russ. “Scoot over, man!”
“Uh, you mind sitting on the other side there,” Anderson said. “I'm not trying to hold your hand or anything.”
“Oh, I get it,” Spidey said, getting up and crossing to the seat across the table, “you'd rather play footsies.”
“You boys be nice now,” Maude said, placing a tray with the drinks, a carafe of milk and a small bowl of sugar with a spoon down in front of the two men.
“Thanks, Maude,” Anderson said, already scooping sugar into his coffee.
“Did I see suitcases in your car?”
“Can't get a thing past you,” Anderson said with a wry grin. “With those powers of observation you got, you might have made a decent cop.”
“No, I could never stand those silly uniforms you guys wear,” Spider-Man said.
“Uh huh. Just drink your damn tea.”
Spider-Man lifted his mask, and took a long slurp of his iced tea. He smacked his lips in satisfaction.
Anderson shook his head. “Could you be any louder? My mother would be thwacking you with a wooden spoon by now.”
“Aunt did that to me once,” Spider-Man said. “Hurts worse than a punch from the Rhino.”
Anderson chuckled. “You can probably guess why I asked you here.”
“I have an idea,” Spider-Man said. He reached behind his back and pulled out the newspaper that had been tucked into his pants. He placed it on the table. The Daily Bugle headline: “Cop Takes Rap for Terrorist Blast” practically screamed out at them from the front page. “Why'd you do it?”
“Because I knew you'd be crucified if I didn't do it.”
“If you read this rag with any consistency, you know I've had that happen a time or two before. What was so special about this time?”
Russ Anderson took another drink of his coffee. “I was there this time. I know you didn't mean any harm. You just made a mistake.”
“It cost you your job, Anderson ,” Spider-Man said. “You can't tell me you did it just to clear my name of something I might have eventually climbed out from under anyway. Level with me.”
“I'm pretty much by myself out here, you know?” Anderson said. He shook his head. “I was married once. We were happy. We had a dog. We were working on more than that…
“There was a car crash. Drunk driver hit us. Ran a red. I was driving at the time, but the bastard hit the car on the passenger side. My wife died instantly, Spider-Man.”
Peter looked down into his tea. “I'm sorry.”
Russ nodded. “I wanted to die after that. I honestly did. I gave the mutt to the pound because I couldn't take care of him anymore. I ate bad takeout whenever I got hungry, but I was just going through the motions. I cleaned my gun nearly every night, and I can still tell you exactly how gun oil tastes, or describe the exact texture of the gun barrel on my tongue.
“But I never pulled the trigger. I thought about it. I was like a cliché from Lethal Weapon or some movie like that. I gave up my detective position and took a job with Code Blue, the NYPD's superhuman crime division, and my life became my work. I took all of the chances and all of the risks, and I collected promotions and awards one after the other. But the one thing I could never get was what I was shooting for that whole time.
“I wanted to die honorably. I wanted to die in the line of duty, so I could see my wife. So I could just hold her in my arms again. I loved her so much.”
Anderson paused, rotating the cup of coffee in his hands on the tabletop. “On my last mission with Code Blue we were sent to a museum to resolve a hostage situation. Electro was holding a teacher and her class and demanding some sort of ridiculous ransom. We prepared our offensive just like always, and I took the point. I'd been doing that a lot lately, not only because I genuinely wanted to die, but also because some of the men had decided Code Blue wasn't for them, and we were a smaller group by that time. I wanted to keep my men alive.
“We tried to keep it as stealthy as possible, but somehow Electro had tapped into the museums security system, and I'm sure we were discovered the second we stepped inside, but he played with us, toyed with us, drew us in. He electrocuted one of my men, and then another, and another. And he taunted us over the loudspeakers as he did it, threatening to kill us all if we took another step. And God help me, I did take another step, hoping he'd kill me, but he blasted another of my men instead.
“It was only later on that I realized he hadn't killed any of my men. He'd been saving the majority of his juice for somebody else. I'm sure you know the guy. He dresses like a spider, does a high-wire act across the city like it was his own personal jungle gym.”
Spider-Man smiled slightly. “Yeah, I know him.”
Anderson nodded. “Do you remember what happened?”
“Yeah,” Spider-Man said. “I got the drop on Electro while he was dealing with your team. We fought for a while. A few minutes maybe. I wrapped him up pretty quickly, if I remember correctly.”
“You did. Threw him into one of the dinosaur fossils. Triceratops came down on his head and he went down for the count. You hopped up afterward, just to check and see if we were okay. Talked directly to me.”
Spidey smiled. “I don't remember that at all.”
Anderson shrugged. “It doesn't matter. You bounced all around that place like a pinball, wrapped up Electro, checked on that teacher and them kids, even while some of my men were trying to arrest you. I just stood there, looking at you, and at the time I thought my men were dead. And I thought I'd killed one of them, do you understand?
“You were everything I wasn't at that moment, wallcrawler. You were everything I wanted to be. And I could feel my wife's eyes on me at that moment, and I was more ashamed than I'd ever been in my life of the things I'd done and the way I'd acted since her death. I felt horrible and wonderful at the same time. Horrible because I'd finally seen what I'd become, but wonderful because I finally had a chance to redeem myself.
“And so I finally accepted my position as a homicide detective again, and I put my all into being the best cop, the best man, I could be. And I followed your exploits whenever I could. And when that kid died in Tampa I knew things might get hot in the city, and I was busy investigating the death of Ryan Jent and Joannah Wilkins.* And you were involved, so I contacted you. I just kept one of the reasons to myself.
[*See M2K's Generation X #9 and Amazing Spider-Man #13 – Mike]
“But it wasn't enough for me just to talk to you, Spider-Man. You're a good man, and I knew you weren't behind those killings, and I knew you'd figure out who was behind it before long. But I tried to solve the case anyway. Repay you in some small measure for what you do for the people of New York every day. But then that horrible tragedy occurred, and I knew you'd be blamed, and maybe part of it was your fault. But I couldn't let all the good you do for this city go to waste. So I stepped up, and I took the hit for you. And I think it might be the single best thing I've ever done.”
Russ Anderson took a last gulp of his coffee and put the mug down on the saucer. “And that was what I wanted to tell you.”
“Where will you go?” Spider-Man said, his feet clinging to the side of the diner, his body resting in a seated position. Anderson was standing in front of the open door to his car. People were watching them now, some of them heading into Maude's “Sit Down and Eat” diner for a cup of coffee or bit of lunch, some gawking as they passed on their way to appointments elsewhere in the city.
“I've got a cousin in Baltimore . He's an officer in the SWAT division. Maybe I'll have a job waiting. Who knows, right?”
Spider-Man smiled. “I've got a cousin lives out that way myself. Been meaning to visit for a while. Maybe I'll see you around.”
“Never can tell,” Anderson said. “You keep your nose clean, all right? I really don't want to lose any more job opportunities because of you.”
“I'll do my best,” Spider-Man said, giving the man a salute.
Anderson nodded, then climbed into his car. He twisted the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. He backed out of the parking lot, and turned down the street. In an instant, he was gone.
Spider-Man skittered up to the roof of the diner and fired a webline. He tracked the departure of Russ Anderson's car with his eyes. “See ya ‘round, Detective.”
County General
“Stop playin', Gene. Time to wake up, boy,” Randy Robertson said. Visiting hours were almost over now, and he'd been hovering over Eugene 's bed for the better part of an hour. He'd cried a little when he first arrived, but the tears were all dried and gone now. All he felt inside was a cold sense of pity, and a bitter seed of anger. The pity he held for the poor young man laid up in the hospital bed in front of him, tubes shoved down his throat the only thing allowing him to draw breath, machines beeping and booping next to him monitoring the flimsy hold he had on life. The anger he held for someone else.
“Randy?” a voice said from behind him as a hand settled on his shoulder. Randy turned in his seat, scowling at his roommate. Pete winced. “Sorry I'm late.”
“Ain't me you should be apologizing to, man,” Randy said, and looked back down on Eugene . Peter followed his gaze. Eugene was the same as he'd been for the past couple of days now, his eyes clamped shut, his waxen skin a sharp contrast to his fire-engine colored hair. Peter tried to imagine the lifeless green eyes underneath the dead lids popping open with vitality as the comatose man jumped and bounded with joy in a suit of frogish-green, and he was dismayed to find that he couldn't.
“I'm so sorry, ‘Gene,” Peter said, anguish in his voice, and Randy saw that though his own tears had gone, Peter's most assuredly hadn't. It gave him a dull moment of pleasure to see Peter that way, crying over Eugene 's body, and a terrible shame followed directly after, smothering his anger and satisfaction in its wake.
“Pete,” Randy said, and felt a tear slip down his own cheek. Apparently his tears hadn't dried up after all. “Pete, my bad, man. I'm sorry too. I'm so sorry.”
Randy Robertson stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Peter Parker. They held onto each other like that for a long time, and when finally their embrace came to an end, they sat with their friend… together.
In the whisper soft silence of a penthouse suite in downtown Manhattan , a man sat in a plush leather recliner, his legs crossed in business-like fashion in front of him. Bach poured through the speakers above and around him, the surround sound system drowning him in auditory pleasures beyond anything he had ever experienced. He smiled, sharp white teeth splitting his lips, and the room seemed to brighten, the illumination of the lights growing exponentially. It continued to lighten, and then, as the outpouring of light grew so blinding that nothing could be seen save the brilliance pouring out of the windows and into the night beyond, a sound emerged, mingling with the sounds of Bach… garbling it. The man frowned. The light ceased. The other sound persisted. The man got up from his chair. He moved across the penthouse and opened the door to the single bedroom. The sound sharpened in volume and passion, and the man's frown intensified. He moved to the source of it, and looked down.
“Hush, little baby. Don't you cry,” the man said, gently rocking the cradle with the squalling infant inside. He stooped down, took hold of the child, and pressed a finger to the baby's lips. The child immediately quieted, a glazed look spread over its eyes. The man smiled. The lights brightened momentarily, then flickered back to normal.
“Now I am the spider, and your father is the fly.”
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