So I'll be real here, this is going to be a short story, it won't be as long as some of the others stories that I have going here. There's next to zero romance in this, at least in present tense but we will see a few flashbacks that'll hit you right in the feels and make this roller coaster of a story even more heart wrenching and dark and tragic and stuff because I need a Logan esque story filled with angst and heartbreak to go with my portfolio dammit!
This picks up shortly after Felicia Hardy's betrayal and before her supposed death at the end of 'The Heist, the first episode/story in the City Never Sleeps DLC of Spider-man PS4. Basically I'm going to be taking Peter down a very dark route here as the last chance at possible happiness after all he's endured and lost is quite literally blown up in front of him by Hammerhead.
It won't be instant but rather slowly build until Peter comes face to face with the Maggia crime boss and after that… all bets are off.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel characters seen, mentioned or used.
In the nine years that Peter's been Spider-man he's had his fair share of wins and losses. He wished he could say the wins out numbered the losses, and to most it was true... but what the losses he did get lacked in quantity they more than made up for it in quality.
Recently Hammerhead, one of the Dons of the Maggia Crime Family made a power move against the other Dons by having Felicia Hardy aka the Black Cat steal several flash drives that held the information to the Maggia's wealth. And he was close to accomplishing his goal, very close... until Felicia thought the wealth belonged to her more than it did Hammerhead. She made a compelling case he supposed, she did work for it unlike her deranged employer.
And Felicia wouldn't have been able to pull it off if it wasn't for Peter himself.
After seeing her again after so long, after everything that's happened the past year with Li, the Devil's Breath, Otto... May.
Sure he had Miles and hos mother, and Mary Jane and even Yuri but after all that happened with Otto and Li, all the pain they inflicted on him, Peter wasn't sure if he could ever fully trust someone again, not like he used to.
Then along came the Black Cat again after so long without hearing from her for so long that he feared she may have been one of he thousands the Devil's Breath took before the antiserum was dispersed. It felt like the universe was finally ready to give him a break after so much, a genuine win and he was ready to grab it with both hands and never let it go, like a life line in a sea of pain, loss and solitude. And just to add icing on the cake she told him that she had a son, a son that could very well be his if the math he did added up right and he knew it did. And her child, possibly their child, was being held by Hammerhead to force Felica's cooperation into helping him take control of the Maggia...
Long story short, there wasn't a child.
No big daring rescue to save what Peter believed was to be his son at the end of this crazy adventure, no big tearful meeting with someone that looked like him and Felicia, no happily ever after or as close as to one people like them could get in this life. No, it was all just an elaborate ploy by Felicia to help her acquire all five of the flash drives, the entirety of the Maggia family's wealth. A wealth that numbered in the hundreds of millions if not billions. To say that Peter was crushed would be an understatement. The possibility of having a child, a son with someone he loved, well it made all the pain he's endured up to that point seem like it may have been worth it only for reality to come and slap him in the face and tell him it wasn't true...
It killed something inside of him honestly.
As Peter stood there in the vault, his head against the door and his eyes closed, he struggled to keep himself calm. To fight down the tears that wanted to escape as the pain in his chest seemed to intensify with every breath he took as the reality of Felicia's lie bared down on him like a monster from the dark. When he finally believed that he could speak and opened his mouth to ask Felicia a question that he's long sense dreaded to hear the answer to, it came out in only a low pain filled whisper.
"Was any of it ever real Felicia?"
Peter wasn't sure if the woman could even hear him through the several inch thick steel door and part of him hoped she didn't.
"Was what real Spider?" he heard from the other side, her voice filled with both amusement and a hint of curiosity lace in between the words that rolled of her silver tongue.
"This..." Peter was able to get out before he chocked on his own words "Us... was it ever real, or were you just planning this from the moment we first met? Slowly maneuvering me to here like some damn chess piece"
His question was met with silence.
Peter honestly thought she left with how quiet it got, how heavy the air grew and how dark everything seemed as he stood there, still as a statue. Finally he heard the faint shuffling of Felicia's feet on the other side of the door and what sounded like her placing her hand on the metal, her claws almost silently scrapping against the door.
"Some of it was real... not all... but some"
It wasn't quit the answer Peter was expecting... but it wasn't the one he hoped for.
"Felicia... you can still do the right thing" Peter said in a pleading tone. He hated how desperate he sounded, how pathetic it made him seem "Please, just take the drives to the Police and I'll... I'll help you with your next big score, whatever it is. Please... you can do so much good for the world. Don't throw it all away for a bunch of money... please"
Like he did, he threw all of his Uncle's teachings and ideals out the window for some extra cash, because he felt like the world owed him... and the world decided to take one more thing from him to prove that it never will owe him a damn thing. He refused to let Felicia go through that like he did, refused to let the universe use her as some punching bag because it was getting tired of using him.
"I'm sorry Spider... but no score can top something quite like this" Felicia said with a sigh in her voice as it dropped in volume to a whisper he could barely hear, even with his enhanced hearing "And the ones that can... they aren't worth you dirtying yourself even more over"
Peter had no reply to that and even if he did, the muffled yells from outside would have cut him off. It sounded like more of Hammerhead's men had shown up.
"Guess that's my cue to go Spider, I'll raise a glass to you on the Riviera" Felicia said before the sounds of her footsteps heading away from the vault door reached Peter's ears.
"Felicia? FELICIA STOP!" Peter shouted as he slammed his fist into the vault door, causing it to shake a little.
She didn't respond.
"No, no, no, no, no! Come on, come on fucking move you fucking waste of metal!" Peter said as he slammed himself against the vault door again and again causing it to shake as he could hear several of Hammerhead's men just outside the vault.
"Hey, I think someone's in there still" one of them muttered.
"Sounds like the bug" the other said with a snort "Don't worry about him, he ain't going anywhere. Just call the others and let them know we got him cornered"
"It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel" one of them snickered.
"Or a Spider in a vault" another agreed with a laugh.
"Shit" Peter hissed before he punched the door with a growl, pouring all of his frustration into the blow at the situation he found himself in, trapped and alone without any way of getting out.
The vault shuddered from the force of Peter's blow and sent a stab of white hit pain up Peters hand and into his wrist and arm. The wall crawler pulled his hand back to see the white padding on his knuckles had split and blood was leaking out. For whatever reason this seemed to trigger him and he suddenly slammed his fist into the door again, this time even harder than before.
KOOOOM!
Peter gritted his teeth as he pulled his fist back and slammed it into the metal again, the force of the impact denting and crushing the steel but also splitting open his knuckles and sending pain up his hand and into his arm. But he didn't care, he just pulled his hand back and slammed it into the same spot again before he reared his other fist back and slammed it into the same spot with just as much force.
KOOOOM!
KOOOOM!
KOOOOM!
With each hit, the steel door shuddered and bent as the metal broke and cracked under Peter's blows. Blood splattered across it's surface and on to the floor as Peter slammed his broken fists into the vault door again and again, rage, desperation, fear and god knows how many other emotions fueling him. Peter could hear men on the other side, shouting and cursing in fear as they watched and heard Spider-man quite literally punch his way out of a vault. With a final yell Peter slammed his fist into the door and sent it flying off it's hinges and thought the wall and into the yard outside.
One of the Maggia who was standing there felt his eyes widen as he saw Spider-man standing there, breathing heavily, his fists bleeding on to the ground and his lenses narrowed to slits. He shared a brief look with his companion who seemed just as startled before they both heard a 'twip' followed by a web line hitting them both in the chest. Both men looked down and then at Spider-man just before he yanked them both towards him and sent his bloodied bruised and possibly broken fists into their stomachs.
Peter heard one man gasp in pain as the literal wind was knocked out of him and collapsed to the floor clutching his core with a pained expression while the other emptied his stomach's contents on to the floor before falling face first into it. He didn't give them much mind as he walked past them and towards the door and prepared to shoot a line out and swing after Felicia before he heard a phone ring from one of the men. He paused halfway out the door and turned to see that a smart phone had fallen out of the man who threw up's pocket. Peter shot a web line and snagged it off the floor and yanked it to him and caught it in one practiced motion.
'Caller I.D... the boss' Peter read on the screen as he swiped right and held the phone up to his ear and was greeted to the sound of Hammerhead's voice, laced with anger and annoyance.
"Well, did that bitch get her hands on the drive or did you stop her?" the Maggia crime lord asked "Hello, can you hear me? I said did she get her hands on the drive? Hello?"
Peter didn't respond, he simply held the phone and listened to Hammerhead's breathing and muttered curses before the sound of typing could be heard in the back ground. Peter heard the faint whining of an old camera moving and looked up towards a darkened corner to see it turn and look right at him just as he heard Hammerhead sigh.
"You know web head, your little slut is proving to be a bigger pain in my ass than a the other Dons ever were" Hammerhead said before he chuckled "Something I'm sure you've already figured out yourself right? I mean, you don't look to happy from where I'm standing"
Peter's grip on the phone tightened a little, not enough to crush the device, but enough to crack the screen a little as he glared up at the camera with a dark look under his mask.
"You know, there was a time that the Maggia were the most feared Family in America. No one, and I mean no one would dare look at us wrong, not unless they got tired of living" Hammerhead explained with a sort of longing in his tone "Politicians, cops, hell even a few government agencies were in our pocket. Guys like Fisk, they wouldn't even have gotten a fraction as far as he did in our hay day... then people had to go and stop being afraid. Then to make matters worse, the Maggia got soft"
Peter could hear more men coming but he didn't move, his gaze focused on the camera as Hammerhead continued to talk, his voice growing steadily angrier and louder as he went.
"Then you guys popped up on the scene, in your bright colored outfits and crazy ass powers and suddenly it's all about having super powers or world domination. The good old days were done because of your kind web head!" Hammerhead growled before he snorted "But that's all gonna change soon enough. And hey, about the flash drives, don't worry about them or your little bed warmer anymore. See I left a nice surprise at her penthouse waiting for her that'll send her sky high-"
Peter didn't hear what the man had to say as he crushed the phone and rushed out of the room and took to the air again with a strand of web. He quickly had his suit call Felicia's number and hoped to god that she picked up as he reached through the air, swinging as fast as he realistically could. Sometimes Peter wished he had something like Ironman's suit or even the power of flight itself, anything to get him moving faster than his web shooters.
"Miss me already Spider?" Felicia answered in a teasing tone.
"Felicia, Hammerhead knows where your at, he's coming for you" Peter said in an urgent tone as he raced over the rooftops. H didn't know how Hammerhead knew where Felicia was, all that mattered to Peter was that he stopped her from being another life that the crazed Mob boss took.
He could hear Felicia sigh over the line "I don't get you Spider, I just literally screwed you over and yet here you are, still trying to 'save me'. How the hell can you be so damn nice all the time?"
"Felicia please, Hammerhead's gonna kill you!" Peter pleaded as images of May's final moments flashed through his mind and the feelings that were associated with them.
Weak, helpless... he was too late to save May, he'd be damned if he lost Felicia too.
"Yeah, well he can get in line" Felicia said with a laugh "He wouldn't be the first and I can assure you he won't be the last"
"Dammit Felicia this isn't a fucking joke!" Peter snapped in anger "Hammerhead is going to kill you. He won't stop until your a fucking corpse at his feet like every other person that thought they could screw him over!"
The Black Cat went silent at this, she never heard her Spider lose his cool like this before "...Well it pays that I still have all nine lives left"
"Felicia!" Peter said, he was getting close, just a few blocks from her penthouse.
"Love you Spider, I'll... I'll miss you" Felicia said before the call ended.
"No Felicia- agh dammit!" Peter yelled as he pushed himself harder and harder.
He was just down the street from her place, he just needed a few more seconds and he'd be there. With his eyesight, augmented even further by the lenses in his suit, Peter could see her approaching the door to her penthouse's patio, her back to him. Pure unadulterated terror struck Peter as he web zipped to the corner of a building and launched himself off it with so much force that the concrete actually shattered from his lift off.
FELICLA!" Peter shouted as he soared towards the woman as she slowly turned back towards him with a small smile as she opened the door-
BOOOOM!
The shockwave of the explosion sent Peter flying back, his ears ringing from the sheer volume of the blast and his insides felt like they were slammed against the back of his body. Everything was a blur as Peter felt his body collide with the edge of a rooftop before gravity pulled him down and he felt himself fall towards the ground some hundred feet below, his spider-sense flaring in his skull like a fire alarm. He tried to fight off the feeling, tried to regain hiss senses and raised an arm to shoot a web line out to catch himself before his back suddenly collided with the roof of a car...
...
"Just how durable are you?"
Peter blinked as he turned his head from the window that showed a raging storm outside to look at Felicia as she rested her chin on his chest and looked up at him with curiosity. Her hair was a mess and her makeup was smeared from all the sweat, kissing and bodily fluids the two exchanged over the past few hours. And the way his apartment's crap lighting and occasional flashes of lightning outside hit her just right made her seem eternal in a sense, like she wasn't real but she was.
To the wall crawler, she never looked more beautiful and he's met the likes of Emma Frost and Black Widow.
Peter gave an amused grin as he rested a hand behind his head while the other ran through Felicia's white locks, causing her to close her eyes and breath in deep as his fingers traced patterns over her scalp "Why you asking?"
"Just curious is all" Felicia moaned as she leaned into Peter's touch before she sat up and slowly climbed on to his wait, her slit resting on his slowly hardening member. She brushed her hair to the side as she looked down at her lover "I've seen you on the news take hits from guys like Rhino, Sandman, hell even Stilt-Man when he caught you with that field goal kick the other day. Yet you get up and walk it off like it's nothing"
Peter chuckled at this, his hands making their way up Felicia's sides "Well it's not so much I'm really durable, even though I am, so much as I'm just really stubborn. You knock me back down and I just get back up... eventually... when I've stopped crying and withering in pain usually"
Felicia grinned softly at this as she leaned down, her hair falling around the two like a small white curtain "Well, try not to get hit too much by guys like that. I'd hate to find out my favorite Spider got his ribs crushed because he thought he could go toe to toe with the Juggernaut"
Peter couldn't stop the laugh from escaping as he reached up and cupped Felicia's face and had his thumb run over her lips for her to capture with her mouth and lightly bite down on it.
"You know, it's funny that you mention that..."
...
At first Peter didn't feel the impact, at least the pain.
Just an uncomfortable pressure on his back and several pointy edges poking into his back and shoulders and the back of his thigh. Then little by little Peter's pain receptors kicked on and he began to feel the damage done to his body. His back felt wet, especially around the areas he could feel something digging into his back and his left shoulder felt like it may have been dislocated. He could hear people around him, some screaming from the explosion above them, others asking Peter if he was all right and others getting on their phones and calling the police about what just happened.
Peter blinked several times as his vision began to clear and he found himself staring up at the dark light polluted sky of Manhattan with a few people's faces at the corner of his vision as they tried to get a better look at the wall crawler.
"Hey, I think he's-" one of them began before Peter sat upright suddenly and hissed out in pain as he felt his suit tear from the jagged metal that was once the rooftop of a nice looking Chevy.
"ARRRGH!" Peter growled in pain as pain raced up his back. He tried to slide off the car but he ended up toppling over and hitting the ground with a pained groan.
"Oh shit, hey someone call an ambulance" a man said as he crouched down next to Peter "Hey Spider-man, are you okay?"
"Dude just got flung into the air by a explosion and landed on a car, what do you think?" another person said in a sarcastic tone as he came to Peter's other side to try and help the wall crawler stand "Don't worry Spidey, help's coming"
"F-Felicia...?" Peter said in a dazed state, his head was spinning and he could barely focus as he looked around for the tell, tell whit hair of the infamous thief.
One of the men blinked at this and shared a look with the other man "Uh, their ain't no Felicia here, least any I can see"
Peter stumbled forward before he extracted himself from the two good Samaritans , ignoring their please for him to stop as he looked up at Felicia's burning apartment and leaped into the air and shot a web line out towards it. If he wasn't agonizing over the pain his body was in when he landed on a car, he was now as he struggled to keep a grip on his web line while his entire body screamed in pain. Peter wasn't certain what was keeping him conscious, let alone able to keep moving but he'd take it. All that mattered was seeing if Felicia was still alive. He landed on what was left of the balcony's ledge and looked around frantically, ignoring the heat as he desperately tried to find Felicia, bruised and half dead, but so very much alive.
But he didn't, all he saw was fire and smoke and even if he could see through it, the force and heat of the explosion, and at the distance Felicia was from the epicenter of such a blast... their wouldn't be much of a body left to find.
"No, no, no, no, no" Peter said as he tried to take a step forward before the pain in his leg became too much and it finally gave out, causing him to fall to his knees with a pained scream. He closed his eyes in frustration and slammed his bloodied, broken hand into the ground with a yell as he fought back the tears that were threatening to fall as the penthouse burned before him.
Felicia Hardy had used up all nine lives.
She was gone.
...
Next chapter, Loss...