Chapter Forty-Four
Rubbing the space between his eyebrows Peter made a circular motion with his hands letting Fury know to give him more information.
His one eye narrowing, Fury decided to give him this one due to the stress the boy was under currently, "It is simple really. There are two forces at work, the first one which is somewhat friendly with my organization is not very quietly being taken out. I need the situation taken care of…"
"And why are you coming to me? All out of soldiers or is it just my lucky day?"
He couldn't say he liked the sarcasm the kid was giving him, but at least he was asking questions. Some lesser people would blindly go into things and he didn't need a puppet.
"Think of it as a test. I'm interested in you as an asset, and I believe we can help each other."
Thinking it over a little, Peter fingered his chin in contemplation. "Tell me, what can you offer. I'm not a hired gun and I won't be gunning down innocents. If you plan on using me as a killer you can just…"
Holding up a hand Fury held off Peter's tirade, "You won't be doing any of that. To tell you the truth… Yes, killings happen every day in the organization. I will not stand here and lie to you. You'll be aligning yourself with a devil, but I stand by the idea that sometimes in this world for good people to live peaceful lives some evils have to be snuffed out."
Shaking his head Fury met the eyes of the man in front of him, "But I would never force anyone to participate in murder. If there is a way around taking lives, we try very hard to take people down without crossing that line, but we will not shy away from taking that step if necessary."
Pausing a moment, Fury continued, "As for what we can offer, a detail for your aunt and financial support for your little girlfriend's hospital stay. The former being complimentary regardless of your answer. We can discuss if you have any other request afterward."
"Alright, let's just say this is a trial for the two of us then. Regardless of whether or not we are going steady now… I'm heading out to Bayville, what do I need to know to save lives?"
Thirty minutes later-
Peter was getting out of MJ's red Honda accord when he had gotten to the fence line of the… what did they call it the 'X-property' line? It honestly seemed like they were putting the letter everywhere. Peter would hate to have to use the X-toilet or some other variation thereof…
His tangent thought was cut short when he spotted two teen girls dodging laser fire attempting to get close to the front door.
He didn't have time to process much else as one of the two girls fell down as a new gun popped out of the ground beside her.
Acting on pure instinct Peter jumped over the gate that was blocking MJ's car from entering and blasted a web line at the downed girl. With an EEP sound, Tabitha was yanked away from certain death into the arms of a tall dark and handsome man… wait is that?! "Ben?"
Shaking his head, Tabitha understood that this wasn't the person she knew but someone that looked very similar to him.
Jumping clear of the firing range he met up with the other girl Kitty if he remembered correctly.
"Alright, I need to catch up. What is happening?" Peter asked eyeing the two girls.
---
A week passed, and most of what Ben did was just to get used to the new world he was residing in. One main difference he noticed was the 'age of heroes' (as some liked to call it) seemed to have started later than in his own world. Yeah, there was Capt. America that lived around the time of world war two, but in this world, she was a girl... He didn't even want to understand how that happened. She was also black which was odd he had to admit, but that wasn't too surprising in and of itself. Considering anything that could happen is possible somewhere in the multiverse.
Other than that tidbit of information Gwen was really the first masked superhero to go public in this world. Regardless of whether or not there were heroes, there was a whole lot of villains, even if he eventually went back to his original world one day it was evident this world could use another backing it's currently only one.
Besides keeping up with current affairs, Ben did some odd labor jobs here and there under the table and managed to buy a camera and a small burner phone. He then took some great shots of Gwen in her Spidey suit fighting some random thugs. When he sold them to the highest paying paper, he kind of felt a little guilty. They were the clearest pictures anyone had managed to get off her crime-fighting, and the bugle paid well for them.
Though it seemed, no matter how heroic the pictures of Gwen were, Mayor Jameson still managed to make her seem like a villain. After dropping off the latest set of pictures Ben was walking with Gwen's arm in arm down the street chatting.
"J.J. is always like that even in my world he's always saying these things, 'That spider's a menace! or Public Enemy #1." Ben said trying to cheer her up.
"He's still a jerk." She shot venomously. "I understand you needed the money, but can we try to find a different method. I mean yeah, he will probably get photos of us one way or another but do we really have to be the ones to provide them?"
"You have a point. I'll think of another way." Ben promised.
"Well, at least this one didn't make a team of spider slayers hunt you." Ben joked but spotted the fact that she was unamused by his attempt at humor.
"No, he is just funding the local government to hunt me down for my best friends de..." She couldn't finish her sentence before their spider-sense went off.
It was directed to a man in a long brown trench coat walking towards them. Ben spotted a Skoal ring on his jeans and he was wearing a pair of well-worn cowboy boots.
When he spoke, his voice was scratchy like a lifelong smoker, "Hey freelancer you got a name?" He flashed a badge.
Gwen pulled her hood down as Ben stepped in front, "You first and let me see that badge again."
"Detective Oswald Brocker, so you got a name? and don't I know you miss?" He held out the badge longer this time.
"Unless you have better taste in music then shoes, then I doubt you know me." Gwen snapped, she recognized the cop. Her dad was never fond of this one. Her spider-sense picked up two more threats behind them. She saw Ben tense she knew he felt it too.
"I don't think I like that attitude. I think we need to take a ride downtown." The detective's voice had anger now.
"We aren't going anywhere with you or your two goons," Gwen said. Ben nearly face palmed till he heard the electricity surge as metal struck.
"Shocker" Ben whispered.
"So, it seems you are that good. I didn't think Ol' Shockey was that well known. Seems Mr. Murdock was right." The detective smirked.
"Matt? What's a blind lawyer gotta do with this?" Ben questioned clearly confused.
Gwen elbowed him, "He's the Kingpin's blind lawyer."
"Your Stacy's brat! Get em!" The cop yelled as Ben dodged the first shock blast barely. Gwen was able to dodge too. The other villain dropped the trench coat and was a female in beetle armor.
"I'll take the handsome one, you grab the girl." She took two steps till Gwen swept her knee hard enough to drop her, "Hands off bug girl. He's spoken for."
The cop pulled a gun till Reilly fired two Web balls at him from under his sleeve. One hit the gun the other the face. The cop frantically tried to remove it stumbled into the street as Shocker looks towards the sky, "FACE ME SPIDER-WOMAN!" He never saw Gwen's kick to his face.
As nettle went to stand another Web ball hit her face. Spider-sense went nuts on both. Ben turned to see a truck about to hit the cop. He did a quick jump and kick sending the cop into a parked car across the street narrowly missing getting hit himself.
All he could utter was, "Great power, great responsibility."
A gasp sounded out across the street catching Ben's attention, then he spotted them. Both Uncle Ben and Aunt May, it was evident May was looking at him hard with a surprised look on her face. Not really knowing what to do he ran, he just had to get out of there.
"Gwen? What's going on?" May asked but was quickly guided out of the area by Uncle Ben.
Following him closely both of the spiders rounded a corner, when they were halfway up a building they managed to get into costume. Shooting out a web he attached two ends to the roof, using lines as an anchor point, he swung his body in a circular centrifugal motion. He shot way up into the sky then back down again kicking the beetle girl square in the chest with both feet, managing to shatter part of her armor a little.
As he landed again, shocker began taking cheap shots at him with the gauntlets.
Ben with every bit of grace of an acrobat began to dodge each blast. Ben decided to riel the guy up a little with his possibly copied charm, "No wonder you're working with dirty cops, not ready for the big leagues are ya, chump."
"SHUT UP AND FRY!" Shocker said sounding frustrated.
"Wow, your just as articulate as you were at home Shockey."
"Don't want to shut up? Then I'll mak…" With a well-placed kick to his head, Gwen cut short what the Shocker was going to say.
Standing over the unconscious goon Gwen dusted off her hands, "Don't worry Ben rescuing 'man-sels in distress' is just part of my job."
"My hero," Ben replied dryly, but he couldn't help the smile on his face beneath the mask.
With pop sounds, Ben fired two balls of webbing tying up the criminals easily. Hearing sirens nearing them they jumped up to the side of a tall building while Ben took the opportunity to start taking pictures as the cops showed up to clean up the mess. Making sure both shocker and Beatle were safely in custody they left the scene.
Later that night in an alley a worn pair of cowboy boots walked through a few puddles, stopped and spit a glob of cancer on the street and kept walking to a black limo. The person inside pushed open the side door inviting the cowboy inside. Once seated Brocker eyed a man sitting opposite of him with a cane, and a pair of red glasses donning a sharp-faced man.
"I believe our deal didn't involve my associates getting arrested," Murdock said almost playfully.
"Yeah well, you also said one Spider. Not two." The Detective shot back grumpily.
"So, two Spiders…" Murdock mumbled to himself. "This second spider has experience? Of course, he knew the pictures would make them an easier target. Well played." Murdock eyed the cop. He disliked the disrespect he showed so far.
"Well, he also said he knew you…" Brocker drawled out his words. "And you work for Kingpin. He even called you Matt…" His words were cut off and the silence within the car was defining.
Murdock's cane was now dripping with Brocker's blood. Murdock was done listening to the ramblings of a knuckle-dragging hick, and within seconds there was a grotesque head of the cowboy was laying in the floorboard of the limo. He should have met him outside of the car he thought briefly before giving instructions to the driver to go back to his estate.
"So, there is a new player hmmm. Seems like it might be the 'Merger' if I'm not mistaken. I think for all to go right I'll need to even the scales a little." As they drove off Murdock contemplated how he would make this situation work for him.
As an idea came to him, and he smiled.