Back to GatefoldIssue #31 by Cory Wiegel and Adnan Khan
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"MY FRIEND OF MISERY - Part One"
Peter Parker looked about, observing the scene below him. It wasn’t anything special. There was nothing impressive about it. What was fairly different about it, though, was that it seemed normal. The loud streets of Manhattan buzzed with activity, people moving to and fro, with that lovely background sound of car horns blaring.
Normalacy, Peter smiled to himself, What was that?
In the last few months - no, it was weeks - Peter had felt the reprucussions of what happens when one’s life wasn’t normal. People always complained about their lives lacking that special spark that made it exciting. They were tired of their boring, mundane lives where they continuously went to work, came home to the family, and repeated the process the following day. What Peter would have given for that opportunity. The opportunity to just come home to a family. He knew that would never be a possibility. Not for him. Not as long he was the amazing Spider-Man.
Peter chuckled to himself as he thought about his one time stage name. He honestly could not remember if he came up with it, or if it was his beloved fans. The fact was, no matter how he looked at it, he didn’t feel that amazing these days at all.
“Eugene,” Peter mumbled to himself, thinking of his close friend who had been shot and was laying in a hospital room in a coma. The man, considered awkward by some, still hadn’t woken up. Peter sighed to himself. Eugene was just the beginning of his issues.
The thing was, Eugene hadn’t been the only one who had been shot when Peter’s apartment had been stormed by a group of thugs. They had also shot Eugene’s then girlfriend, Jill Stacy.
The cousin of Peter’s greatest love and greatest loss, Gwen Stacy.
Jill had been shot in the head and killed instantly. She hadn’t had a chance. Peter sighed. He needed to clear his head. He jumped from the ledge he was sitting on and nose-dived towards the ground.
He was feeling suicidal.
When he was just barely above a hundred feet from the ground, he stuck out his right arm and spun a web which nailed its target: the side of the building across from where had just been. He reached up with his other arm and grabbed the web and swung himself towards the next building.
Web slinging usually cleared his head, but thoughts of Jill came flooding back into his mind. She was dead. There was nothing he could do. Three Stacy’s dead in his long career as Spider-Man. Three Stacy’s that he had befriended, that he had become incredibly close to.
Anyone he ever came close to ended up losing their life. It was a horrible thought. His own wife had succumbed to the same fate.
Peter continued to swing, faster and faster as his frustration grew. Everything he touched!
Peter sighed and thought of the one positive thing that had come out from the last few months. He had fought the Rose Goblin a few months ago, which had led to the return of his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin. Norman Osborn had returned, but that wasn’t all. Along with Norman came Peter’s long thought deceased daughter, May. May had been kidnapped by Norman at her birth, but she had been returned to him.
Only to be taken away again, Peter thought miserably. The thugs who had burst into his apartment and shot his two friends had also taken his daughter.
Peter stopped swinging, and this time instead of firing a web at the next building, released the previous web line that he was holding and went somersaulting onto the nearest ledge. His feet slid slightly as he landed, but he managed to stop, and stared out at the loud Manhattan streets again.
His life had been a downward since Mary Jane had been killed in an air plane accident not so long ago.
“God, MJ, I can’t do this without you,” Peter muttered to himself sadly. Without her, without her support, he didn’t know what to do. Peter could hardly remember managing anything on his own before they had gotten married. “Please…please MJ,” Peter could feel the tears coming. Those seemed to come a great deal nowadays.
“MJ…help me…” Peter looked down, directly at the ledge he was on. Why did these things happen to him, he thought. He was a good person, he was sure of it. Sure, he made mistakes, but everyone did. It wasn’t fair.
“Why do bad things happen to good people?” he wondered aloud.
“I don’t know Spider, but I can tell you, that question has been asked before.” Peter looked up and saw the gorgeous figure of the Black Cat land on the ledge next to him.
He knew she was beautiful, and the skin-tight outfit she wore left nothing to the imagination, yet…yet that didn’t do anything for him. Any normal man would have killed to be in his position, but he didn’t feel anything.
“Hey,” he mumbled to her, and then he cleared his throat and repeated, “Hey.”
The Black Cat frowned at Peter, but decided to ignore his tone. “Sorry I’m late, but you don’t make it easy when you run from the spot we’re supposed to meet.”
Peter looked up and smiled under his mask. “Sorry... I had to clear my head. You know how it is.”
“Hm, I suppose I do. Anyways, I’m glad we could finally meet up like this. Some interesting things have been going on since you’ve been gone and…dealing,” The Black Cat sat down on the ledge and leaned against the wall with her legs crossed. “You know the Hobgoblin’s back in town, right?”
Peter nodded, “I’ve heard things.” As Spider-Man, whenever he took down anyone from a common crook to second or third string super villains, they all seemed to mention the Hobgoblin. He motioned for her to continue.
“Well, it seems he’s reconsolidating his power in the criminal underworld, and he’s doing a pretty good job of it. Nearly all of Manhattan's lower street gangs are now under his influence, if not completely under his control. With the way things are going down around the world and what not, heroes aren’t having time to focus on simpler criminals.”
“Who'd of thought?" Peter asked rhetorically as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “That's something we'll need to look into, but for night that will have to wait. C’mon Felicia, surely you realize we have more pressing concerns.”
Felicia Hardy looked down at Peter, confused. “I thought that’s why you wanted to meet up with me? To talk about what to do with the Hobgoblin?”
“Oh, that’s important too.”
“Then what?”
Spider-Man sighed, and stood up on the ledge. He needed to get his life back together, and what better way to get the most essential part of his life back.
“We’re going to get my daughter back.”
Spider-Man flipped open the sky light and lightly placed it against the window it was a part of us. He swung down into the dark, abandoned building and took in his surroundings.
It was dark and abandoned.
“Hmph.” Peter muttered to himself and looked down at the address written on the piece of paper he was holding. “This is the place…” Spider-Man scratched his head in confusion and looked around again.
Peter’s spider-sense flared and he swung himself upward, performing a reverse somersault onto the wall behind him as the door exploded inward as laser fire blasted it out of the way. Peter sighed inwardly as he saw the familiar blue and white uniforms of the SHIELD Agents.
“There’s nothing better than a misunderstanding,” he muttered to himself as the agents spread out across the room, the captain to the left of Peter, yelling out to his squad.
“Go! Go! Go!”
The six agents on the left of Peter, including the captain launched what could only be described as large globs of goo at Peter. Peter easily dodged the globs and flipped down to the floor. The instead his toes touched the ground, he sprung back up into the air, and spinning perpendicular to the ground, he unleashed two quick bursts of his own ‘goo’. The two balls of webbing nailed their targets, and webbing sprung up around the two SHIELD agents and took them out of the fight.
“Got to love that impact webbing,” he muttered to himself again. Normally, Peter would be shouting out random wisecracks at the agents while trying to figure out the situation, but recently Peter had become quieter and a bit more reckless. Not to mention he talked to himself aloud more than he had before.
And for him, that was a great deal of talking to himself.
Peter’s spider-sense flared again and he immediately without thinking sprung flat-footed to the ceiling, flipping upside down. While clinging to the ceiling, he eyed the other seven agents. Four on his left, three on his right.
Peter swung both his palms out and fired a wide-spread blast of webbing at the SHIELD agents. The Captain nimbly somersaulted forward and fired three quick blasts at Peter. Peter easily avoided, but the blasts had taken out part of the ceiling, causing him to tumble to the ground under the rubble.
“SCREW THIS!” Spider-Man yelled angrily at himself and burst from the rubble that had covered him. As he came up, he saw that his webbing had not taken out a single agent, and that they had fired some sort of flame at the webbing as it had come at them to disintegrate it.
Peter grabbed a large chunk of dry wall to his right and hurled it as hard as he could at the captain. Peter smiled inwardly as he saw the drywall connect and shatter around the SHIELD agent’s uniform, and still go flying backwards into the wall. The impact against the wall caused the agent to crumple instantly.
Peter eyed the ceiling where the skylight had been but saw that it was covered in bars. His spider-sense shot up again and this time, instead of dodging out of the way, Peter dodged and dove straight towards the shooter. He tackled the agent to the ground, rolled over, and still maintained his grip on the agent’s uniform. Using the momentum from his somersault, he came up and flung the agent over his head the nearest SHIELD agent, taking two more out.
Peter then leapt back into the air as a large net came at him. As it flew by beneath him, he snagged a large chunk of rubble from the earlier collapse with his webbing and upon landing back on solid ground, he hurled it at the fourth SHIELD agent, causing the agent to drop his gun and grunt in pain as he fell over, in too much pain to get up again.
Peter had just taken out five shield agents in the span of fifteen seconds.
“I thought you guys were the best of the best,” Peter stated to the three remaining SHIELD agents who were stunned by the Spider-Man’s sudden burst of energy. Without even letting them think about what he was doing, Peter spun back upwards to the ceiling, and grabbed a bar. He landed upside down, used his adhesive abilities to gain footing on the ground, and tugged hard on the bar. The bar tore out of the ceiling, and Peter jumped back down and slammed it into the nearest SHIELD agent with just enough strength to knock the wind out of the agent.
Peter then spun his body around and swung it at the calves of the SHIELD agent who had been standing next to the agent he had just taken out. The agent fell backwards and finally Peter spun and stopped, with the bar slung over his shoulders behind his head.
“What, you want some?” Spider-Man teased the last standing baffled agent.
“Uh, uh, uhm,” the agent stuttered. Peter sprinted at him, and in less than a second, he had taken away his gun.
“Please, tell me more!” Peter cried and threw the bar hard on the ground to scare the agent even more. After a few more seconds of stuttering, Peter smiled, “aww, shaddup!” and smacked him lightly enough not to hurt him, but knock him over.
“Simulation, end!” someone yelled. Spider-Man turned around to find out who had spoken with such an authorative voice.
He shook his head in disbelief at the sight of Agent Charlene Brosnon and Daniel Toy walking into the room.
“Good job handling those rookies, Spidey,” Agent Toy said, “I must say, the sight of you ripping into those agents. Amazing."
“Rookies?” Spider-Man mumbled in surprise. He still didn’t know what to make of the situation.
"Yeah, rookies," Agent Brosnon spoke first. "As in fresh out of boot camp. Anything wrong with that?”
“I’m personally injured and feel very disrespected by the fact that you stuck a bunch of rookies on me,” Spidey replied, holding his chest with his palm as if he had been stabbed in the heart. "Just hurtful."
“It was a training exercise. You’re their first super-power,” Brosnon continued. “And I must say, they didn’t do so well, did they?”
“No, really? You think?" Spidey argued, aggravated. "They could have been hurt!”
“Yeah, well, you’re not hurt are you?” Toy asked.
“Well... no.”
“Well, don’t worry about it then," Toy explained with a smile. "It’s in their job description."
“My honor has still been tarnished.” Spider-Man mumbled, annoyed.
“Oh well,” Toy smiled and eyed Spider-Man, wondering when he’d ask what SHIELD wanted with him.
Spider-Man stared at them. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to talk. In fact, he was wondering what it was they wanted, but didn’t want to initiate the conversation. The last time the two agents had caught up with him, they had informed him of a friend of his dying. Russ Anderson, a NYPD detective who was a friend of Spider-Man. A rare thing in fact.
In fact, Spider-Man was wondering if they had wanted more from him in their initial meeting, why had they not just said anything. It was obvious now to him that Russ Anderson had not been their main concern and they were up to something else.
Agent Toy continued to stare at Spider-Man, unsure of why he wasn’t saying anything.
Agent Bronson let out an exasperated sigh. “Aren’t you going to ask what we want?”
“No.”
This threw Bronson off. “What?”
“I figured it’d annoy you guys more if I kept silent,” Spider-Man took a dramatic step to his right, stopped, and eyed them. “See, people expect me to be loud and, dare I say it, obnoxious? Anywhoo, I figured if I kept quiet for once, it’d throw you guys off and you’d decide not to drop any more bad news on me.”
Both Agents stared at Spider-Man quietly for a moment. An agent who had managed to stand up tripped over his own legs and fell back down.
“Hunh... well, uh, okay, I guess...” Toy glanced at Bronson and decided to continue, “The thing is this, uh…”
“Oh for God’s sake!" Brosnon groaned. "Basically, we need a favor Spidey. Due to the circumstances, we figured you were the man to do it.”
“A favor, huh?” Peter smiled under his mask in annoyance. “And how did I guess that?”
“Simple. You know if SHIELD does you a favor, that we at the least we want something out of it in return.”
“Ah," Spidey smirked and crossed his arms. "That’s how I knew...”
A large semi-truck rumbled out away from the city towards the suburbs of New York City, causing leaves and other debris on the road to flutter about in its wake. The truck proceeded to get on the interstate and proceeded to travel for a few more miles until the driver finally approached the exit it was looking for. It rolled past the gate of a large estate, continuing on its way to its destination.
What the truck driver didn’t know though was that he had left two large bits of cargo at the estate.
Spider-Man and the Black Cat swung from the top of the truck, snagging the top of the wall with their webbing and cables, respectively. The two long-time friends had little option as far as getting to their destination. There weren’t many large buildings to swing from, after all, and it was too late to rent a car. In fact, the only things they had out here were a few large trees and a few lamp posts. The two heroes swung over the large wall and landed softly on the grass on the other side.
“So, refresh my memory, Spider. Why are we SHIELD’s lap dogs?”
“I know it doesn’t seem right. SHIELD’s got agents throughout the facility, but they can’t risk blowing their cover. Apparently, the guy who owns this place is a big deal. Threat to national security and all that stuff, but SHIELD can't risk public involvement for some reason or another. Vigilante super-heroes exposing him to the local police, who then turn it over to the Feds, is the game here.”
The Cat looked at the Spider sideways, “Oh?”
“We’re doing our patriotic duty,” Peter said, shrugging. "Plus, SHIELD said this guy may be involved in Jill and Eugene’s shooting, as well as the kidnapping of my daughter.”
“Ah," Cat said. "Makes sense, I suppose.”
“It’s a little too late to start questioning the mission now.”
Spider-Man used his spider-sense to guide him through the security of the estate, and with the help of the Black Cat’s “luck” the two heroes managed to avoid the security systems, webbing up cameras only if necessary. After dodging and weaving through various lines of sites of guards and cameras, they stopped as they came up on a large looming wall. Spider-Man looked at Black Cat, who merely glanced back at him.
“Mi’ lady,” Peter said, bowing to Felicia and holding out his arms. Felicia smiled as Peter grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into a cradle position in his arms. The amazing Spider-Man then simply leapt onto the wall and ran up it, his body parallel to the ground.
“I’m not questioning anything, Peter,” Felicia explained when they reached the roof top. Suddenly, she looked directly at him, catching Spider-Man by surprise. “You know I’ll always have your back, right?”
Peter nodded. “I know, and I appreciate that.” He walked over towards the skylight and looked back at Felicia. “You ready?”
“Always,” she responded.
The two looked down through the skylight and saw a lavishly decorated room, Mahogany furniture scattered throughout it, with dark maroon and golden colored tones lining the cushions and curtains throughout the room.
Peter took a closer look and felt a sense of rage overcome him. In the far corner of the room, next to an empty fireplace, was a crib with a man standing over it. Peter could tell there was nothing particularly impressive about the man, but from the angle they are at, he could only that he was a bit elderly, with a hunch in his back.
“Listen,” the Black Cat said, her ears perking up.
Peter listened, hearing the faint sound of music playing in the background, and he shook his head. “It’s Bach.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, well... You ready?” Peter asked Felicia again, unnecessarily.
“Well, of course, but what’s our plan for getting the drop on this guy...?” The Black Cat trailed off as she caught Peter already moving on top of the skylight and crouching low on top of it. With one last glance at his partner, he reeled back his fist and then slammed it down into the glass window, shattering it.
Next Issue: Spider-Man and Black Cat face off against Baby May's abductor and uncover some startling news regarding why SHIELD sent them to take him out!
Normalacy, Peter smiled to himself, What was that?
In the last few months - no, it was weeks - Peter had felt the reprucussions of what happens when one’s life wasn’t normal. People always complained about their lives lacking that special spark that made it exciting. They were tired of their boring, mundane lives where they continuously went to work, came home to the family, and repeated the process the following day. What Peter would have given for that opportunity. The opportunity to just come home to a family. He knew that would never be a possibility. Not for him. Not as long he was the amazing Spider-Man.
Peter chuckled to himself as he thought about his one time stage name. He honestly could not remember if he came up with it, or if it was his beloved fans. The fact was, no matter how he looked at it, he didn’t feel that amazing these days at all.
“Eugene,” Peter mumbled to himself, thinking of his close friend who had been shot and was laying in a hospital room in a coma. The man, considered awkward by some, still hadn’t woken up. Peter sighed to himself. Eugene was just the beginning of his issues.
The thing was, Eugene hadn’t been the only one who had been shot when Peter’s apartment had been stormed by a group of thugs. They had also shot Eugene’s then girlfriend, Jill Stacy.
The cousin of Peter’s greatest love and greatest loss, Gwen Stacy.
Jill had been shot in the head and killed instantly. She hadn’t had a chance. Peter sighed. He needed to clear his head. He jumped from the ledge he was sitting on and nose-dived towards the ground.
He was feeling suicidal.
When he was just barely above a hundred feet from the ground, he stuck out his right arm and spun a web which nailed its target: the side of the building across from where had just been. He reached up with his other arm and grabbed the web and swung himself towards the next building.
Web slinging usually cleared his head, but thoughts of Jill came flooding back into his mind. She was dead. There was nothing he could do. Three Stacy’s dead in his long career as Spider-Man. Three Stacy’s that he had befriended, that he had become incredibly close to.
Anyone he ever came close to ended up losing their life. It was a horrible thought. His own wife had succumbed to the same fate.
Peter continued to swing, faster and faster as his frustration grew. Everything he touched!
Peter sighed and thought of the one positive thing that had come out from the last few months. He had fought the Rose Goblin a few months ago, which had led to the return of his arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin. Norman Osborn had returned, but that wasn’t all. Along with Norman came Peter’s long thought deceased daughter, May. May had been kidnapped by Norman at her birth, but she had been returned to him.
Only to be taken away again, Peter thought miserably. The thugs who had burst into his apartment and shot his two friends had also taken his daughter.
Peter stopped swinging, and this time instead of firing a web at the next building, released the previous web line that he was holding and went somersaulting onto the nearest ledge. His feet slid slightly as he landed, but he managed to stop, and stared out at the loud Manhattan streets again.
His life had been a downward since Mary Jane had been killed in an air plane accident not so long ago.
“God, MJ, I can’t do this without you,” Peter muttered to himself sadly. Without her, without her support, he didn’t know what to do. Peter could hardly remember managing anything on his own before they had gotten married. “Please…please MJ,” Peter could feel the tears coming. Those seemed to come a great deal nowadays.
“MJ…help me…” Peter looked down, directly at the ledge he was on. Why did these things happen to him, he thought. He was a good person, he was sure of it. Sure, he made mistakes, but everyone did. It wasn’t fair.
“Why do bad things happen to good people?” he wondered aloud.
“I don’t know Spider, but I can tell you, that question has been asked before.” Peter looked up and saw the gorgeous figure of the Black Cat land on the ledge next to him.
He knew she was beautiful, and the skin-tight outfit she wore left nothing to the imagination, yet…yet that didn’t do anything for him. Any normal man would have killed to be in his position, but he didn’t feel anything.
“Hey,” he mumbled to her, and then he cleared his throat and repeated, “Hey.”
The Black Cat frowned at Peter, but decided to ignore his tone. “Sorry I’m late, but you don’t make it easy when you run from the spot we’re supposed to meet.”
Peter looked up and smiled under his mask. “Sorry... I had to clear my head. You know how it is.”
“Hm, I suppose I do. Anyways, I’m glad we could finally meet up like this. Some interesting things have been going on since you’ve been gone and…dealing,” The Black Cat sat down on the ledge and leaned against the wall with her legs crossed. “You know the Hobgoblin’s back in town, right?”
Peter nodded, “I’ve heard things.” As Spider-Man, whenever he took down anyone from a common crook to second or third string super villains, they all seemed to mention the Hobgoblin. He motioned for her to continue.
“Well, it seems he’s reconsolidating his power in the criminal underworld, and he’s doing a pretty good job of it. Nearly all of Manhattan's lower street gangs are now under his influence, if not completely under his control. With the way things are going down around the world and what not, heroes aren’t having time to focus on simpler criminals.”
“Who'd of thought?" Peter asked rhetorically as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “That's something we'll need to look into, but for night that will have to wait. C’mon Felicia, surely you realize we have more pressing concerns.”
Felicia Hardy looked down at Peter, confused. “I thought that’s why you wanted to meet up with me? To talk about what to do with the Hobgoblin?”
“Oh, that’s important too.”
“Then what?”
Spider-Man sighed, and stood up on the ledge. He needed to get his life back together, and what better way to get the most essential part of his life back.
“We’re going to get my daughter back.”
Spider-Man flipped open the sky light and lightly placed it against the window it was a part of us. He swung down into the dark, abandoned building and took in his surroundings.
It was dark and abandoned.
“Hmph.” Peter muttered to himself and looked down at the address written on the piece of paper he was holding. “This is the place…” Spider-Man scratched his head in confusion and looked around again.
Peter’s spider-sense flared and he swung himself upward, performing a reverse somersault onto the wall behind him as the door exploded inward as laser fire blasted it out of the way. Peter sighed inwardly as he saw the familiar blue and white uniforms of the SHIELD Agents.
“There’s nothing better than a misunderstanding,” he muttered to himself as the agents spread out across the room, the captain to the left of Peter, yelling out to his squad.
“Go! Go! Go!”
The six agents on the left of Peter, including the captain launched what could only be described as large globs of goo at Peter. Peter easily dodged the globs and flipped down to the floor. The instead his toes touched the ground, he sprung back up into the air, and spinning perpendicular to the ground, he unleashed two quick bursts of his own ‘goo’. The two balls of webbing nailed their targets, and webbing sprung up around the two SHIELD agents and took them out of the fight.
“Got to love that impact webbing,” he muttered to himself again. Normally, Peter would be shouting out random wisecracks at the agents while trying to figure out the situation, but recently Peter had become quieter and a bit more reckless. Not to mention he talked to himself aloud more than he had before.
And for him, that was a great deal of talking to himself.
Peter’s spider-sense flared again and he immediately without thinking sprung flat-footed to the ceiling, flipping upside down. While clinging to the ceiling, he eyed the other seven agents. Four on his left, three on his right.
Peter swung both his palms out and fired a wide-spread blast of webbing at the SHIELD agents. The Captain nimbly somersaulted forward and fired three quick blasts at Peter. Peter easily avoided, but the blasts had taken out part of the ceiling, causing him to tumble to the ground under the rubble.
“SCREW THIS!” Spider-Man yelled angrily at himself and burst from the rubble that had covered him. As he came up, he saw that his webbing had not taken out a single agent, and that they had fired some sort of flame at the webbing as it had come at them to disintegrate it.
Peter grabbed a large chunk of dry wall to his right and hurled it as hard as he could at the captain. Peter smiled inwardly as he saw the drywall connect and shatter around the SHIELD agent’s uniform, and still go flying backwards into the wall. The impact against the wall caused the agent to crumple instantly.
Peter eyed the ceiling where the skylight had been but saw that it was covered in bars. His spider-sense shot up again and this time, instead of dodging out of the way, Peter dodged and dove straight towards the shooter. He tackled the agent to the ground, rolled over, and still maintained his grip on the agent’s uniform. Using the momentum from his somersault, he came up and flung the agent over his head the nearest SHIELD agent, taking two more out.
Peter then leapt back into the air as a large net came at him. As it flew by beneath him, he snagged a large chunk of rubble from the earlier collapse with his webbing and upon landing back on solid ground, he hurled it at the fourth SHIELD agent, causing the agent to drop his gun and grunt in pain as he fell over, in too much pain to get up again.
Peter had just taken out five shield agents in the span of fifteen seconds.
“I thought you guys were the best of the best,” Peter stated to the three remaining SHIELD agents who were stunned by the Spider-Man’s sudden burst of energy. Without even letting them think about what he was doing, Peter spun back upwards to the ceiling, and grabbed a bar. He landed upside down, used his adhesive abilities to gain footing on the ground, and tugged hard on the bar. The bar tore out of the ceiling, and Peter jumped back down and slammed it into the nearest SHIELD agent with just enough strength to knock the wind out of the agent.
Peter then spun his body around and swung it at the calves of the SHIELD agent who had been standing next to the agent he had just taken out. The agent fell backwards and finally Peter spun and stopped, with the bar slung over his shoulders behind his head.
“What, you want some?” Spider-Man teased the last standing baffled agent.
“Uh, uh, uhm,” the agent stuttered. Peter sprinted at him, and in less than a second, he had taken away his gun.
“Please, tell me more!” Peter cried and threw the bar hard on the ground to scare the agent even more. After a few more seconds of stuttering, Peter smiled, “aww, shaddup!” and smacked him lightly enough not to hurt him, but knock him over.
“Simulation, end!” someone yelled. Spider-Man turned around to find out who had spoken with such an authorative voice.
He shook his head in disbelief at the sight of Agent Charlene Brosnon and Daniel Toy walking into the room.
“Good job handling those rookies, Spidey,” Agent Toy said, “I must say, the sight of you ripping into those agents. Amazing."
“Rookies?” Spider-Man mumbled in surprise. He still didn’t know what to make of the situation.
"Yeah, rookies," Agent Brosnon spoke first. "As in fresh out of boot camp. Anything wrong with that?”
“I’m personally injured and feel very disrespected by the fact that you stuck a bunch of rookies on me,” Spidey replied, holding his chest with his palm as if he had been stabbed in the heart. "Just hurtful."
“It was a training exercise. You’re their first super-power,” Brosnon continued. “And I must say, they didn’t do so well, did they?”
“No, really? You think?" Spidey argued, aggravated. "They could have been hurt!”
“Yeah, well, you’re not hurt are you?” Toy asked.
“Well... no.”
“Well, don’t worry about it then," Toy explained with a smile. "It’s in their job description."
“My honor has still been tarnished.” Spider-Man mumbled, annoyed.
“Oh well,” Toy smiled and eyed Spider-Man, wondering when he’d ask what SHIELD wanted with him.
Spider-Man stared at them. He wasn’t sure he wanted them to talk. In fact, he was wondering what it was they wanted, but didn’t want to initiate the conversation. The last time the two agents had caught up with him, they had informed him of a friend of his dying. Russ Anderson, a NYPD detective who was a friend of Spider-Man. A rare thing in fact.
In fact, Spider-Man was wondering if they had wanted more from him in their initial meeting, why had they not just said anything. It was obvious now to him that Russ Anderson had not been their main concern and they were up to something else.
Agent Toy continued to stare at Spider-Man, unsure of why he wasn’t saying anything.
Agent Bronson let out an exasperated sigh. “Aren’t you going to ask what we want?”
“No.”
This threw Bronson off. “What?”
“I figured it’d annoy you guys more if I kept silent,” Spider-Man took a dramatic step to his right, stopped, and eyed them. “See, people expect me to be loud and, dare I say it, obnoxious? Anywhoo, I figured if I kept quiet for once, it’d throw you guys off and you’d decide not to drop any more bad news on me.”
Both Agents stared at Spider-Man quietly for a moment. An agent who had managed to stand up tripped over his own legs and fell back down.
“Hunh... well, uh, okay, I guess...” Toy glanced at Bronson and decided to continue, “The thing is this, uh…”
“Oh for God’s sake!" Brosnon groaned. "Basically, we need a favor Spidey. Due to the circumstances, we figured you were the man to do it.”
“A favor, huh?” Peter smiled under his mask in annoyance. “And how did I guess that?”
“Simple. You know if SHIELD does you a favor, that we at the least we want something out of it in return.”
“Ah," Spidey smirked and crossed his arms. "That’s how I knew...”
A large semi-truck rumbled out away from the city towards the suburbs of New York City, causing leaves and other debris on the road to flutter about in its wake. The truck proceeded to get on the interstate and proceeded to travel for a few more miles until the driver finally approached the exit it was looking for. It rolled past the gate of a large estate, continuing on its way to its destination.
What the truck driver didn’t know though was that he had left two large bits of cargo at the estate.
Spider-Man and the Black Cat swung from the top of the truck, snagging the top of the wall with their webbing and cables, respectively. The two long-time friends had little option as far as getting to their destination. There weren’t many large buildings to swing from, after all, and it was too late to rent a car. In fact, the only things they had out here were a few large trees and a few lamp posts. The two heroes swung over the large wall and landed softly on the grass on the other side.
“So, refresh my memory, Spider. Why are we SHIELD’s lap dogs?”
“I know it doesn’t seem right. SHIELD’s got agents throughout the facility, but they can’t risk blowing their cover. Apparently, the guy who owns this place is a big deal. Threat to national security and all that stuff, but SHIELD can't risk public involvement for some reason or another. Vigilante super-heroes exposing him to the local police, who then turn it over to the Feds, is the game here.”
The Cat looked at the Spider sideways, “Oh?”
“We’re doing our patriotic duty,” Peter said, shrugging. "Plus, SHIELD said this guy may be involved in Jill and Eugene’s shooting, as well as the kidnapping of my daughter.”
“Ah," Cat said. "Makes sense, I suppose.”
“It’s a little too late to start questioning the mission now.”
Spider-Man used his spider-sense to guide him through the security of the estate, and with the help of the Black Cat’s “luck” the two heroes managed to avoid the security systems, webbing up cameras only if necessary. After dodging and weaving through various lines of sites of guards and cameras, they stopped as they came up on a large looming wall. Spider-Man looked at Black Cat, who merely glanced back at him.
“Mi’ lady,” Peter said, bowing to Felicia and holding out his arms. Felicia smiled as Peter grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into a cradle position in his arms. The amazing Spider-Man then simply leapt onto the wall and ran up it, his body parallel to the ground.
“I’m not questioning anything, Peter,” Felicia explained when they reached the roof top. Suddenly, she looked directly at him, catching Spider-Man by surprise. “You know I’ll always have your back, right?”
Peter nodded. “I know, and I appreciate that.” He walked over towards the skylight and looked back at Felicia. “You ready?”
“Always,” she responded.
The two looked down through the skylight and saw a lavishly decorated room, Mahogany furniture scattered throughout it, with dark maroon and golden colored tones lining the cushions and curtains throughout the room.
Peter took a closer look and felt a sense of rage overcome him. In the far corner of the room, next to an empty fireplace, was a crib with a man standing over it. Peter could tell there was nothing particularly impressive about the man, but from the angle they are at, he could only that he was a bit elderly, with a hunch in his back.
“Listen,” the Black Cat said, her ears perking up.
Peter listened, hearing the faint sound of music playing in the background, and he shook his head. “It’s Bach.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, well... You ready?” Peter asked Felicia again, unnecessarily.
“Well, of course, but what’s our plan for getting the drop on this guy...?” The Black Cat trailed off as she caught Peter already moving on top of the skylight and crouching low on top of it. With one last glance at his partner, he reeled back his fist and then slammed it down into the glass window, shattering it.
Next Issue: Spider-Man and Black Cat face off against Baby May's abductor and uncover some startling news regarding why SHIELD sent them to take him out!