Author's Note: I really didn't expect it to take a year to the day to get this chapter up but things have not gone as I hoped. This story is still being worked on but as I said updates will be unscheduled and will come as they do.

Please do enjoy the chapter as it is.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, both are owned by Marvel.

The Rogue Symboite
By: David Knight

Volume 3: A Spider, a Digger and a Widow
Chapter 2: An Eventful Evening

With only their spider-senses and instinct to rely on, Spider-Man instantly vaulted off to the side as the bar struck the pillar he had been crouching on.

"Listen, I've got an idea," Spider-Man said, vaulting over the barrage of wooden beams being thrown in his direction and hoping Jade's reflexes were as sharp as Venom and Carnage's had been, "Why don't we take this outside, away from all these nice people?"

"Not interested," Digger said, lifting the bar from the ground and slamming it towards Spider-Man, who managed to hold his own against the object. "Just wanna smash you like the bug you are."

"Wanna know the problem with that?"

Digger blinked as his arms were suddenly being restrained by red... hair?

Behind the green skinned brute the Jade Widow smiled. "It ain't just him you have to worry about."

"You crazy dame! Don't you know to stay out of..." Digger growled only to stop as he suddenly lost hold of the bar he had a grip on. Due to his partner's interference, Spider-Man was able to shove the bar back into Digger's face. The man fell backwards into a wall.

"Honestly, if you can't play nice," Spidey quipped as he began spraying Digger with every ounce of webs he had. "I have to put you into time out."

"What is this gunk!" Digger rumbled, trying to tear through it. "You got the broad to do your dirty work and you still have to fight like a little coward! Come on! Be a man!"

"Hey! I take offence to those sexist remarks!" the Jade Widow quipped as she added her own webbing to the mix. She looked right at Spider-Man. "Seriously? What decade did this guy come from?"

"Honestly, I am little scared to find out," Spider-Man replied. OK, two whole cartridges are enough to stop a train; add that with what Jade used and it's probably two trains.

And yet as both heroes saw, Digger was slowly ripping through the webbing constricting him.

"This isn't good," Jade Widow observed.

"Yeah. Given how he's ripping through that, that green skin isn't just for show."

Jade Widow blinked. "You're not saying..."

"Yup. Really wish I wasn't. But I'm fairly certain it's Hulk Green."

Digger ripped off the last of the webbing, eyeing Spidey with a nasty look in his eyes. "Okay you rotten goomba, it's you and me."

"Aren't you forgetting someone, old timer?" the Jade Widow asked, no small amount of irritation in her voice.

"Are you deaf you stupid dame. This is a man's fight. So why don't you get a skirt and cower away in fear somewhere like a proper broad should!"

The tension could be felt by everyone left in the room as Spider-man became concerned by the way his partner was. It was enough to give his Spider-Sense signals.

Without warning, the Jade Widow threw a punch at Digger… one that elongated in size and mass and hit the Hulk like being in the face, knocking him off his feet.

"This guy is really pissing us off," Jade Widow growled.

"Easy there Jade," Spider-Man cautioned, though more to the symboite than to Rogue. There were still civilians in the building, watching their fight. The smoke had managed to obscure that symboite powered like strike but if Jade started pulling her other symboite powers, like creating weapons out of her costume, that would pose a problem. The hair trick no one even blinked at, given what Medusa could do.

"We know, keep to the normal tricks, but there is something really wrong about this guy."

"You don't have to tell me that," Spidey agreed as Digger advanced once more, he launched at the green skinned man with both feet out in a flying kick.

Only for Digger to grab them effortlessly and swing around once before sending Spider-Man into a wall, with Jade Widow firing off her webbing so soften the blow.

Yet the moment she did that, Digger moved faster than she could have expected, and wrapped his arms around her head. "Go to sleep you crazy broad!"

"Get off me!" Jade Widow snapped, throwing her back in his face. She started using her hair to act a defence but the way he had her gave her little leverage and the fact that he was cutting off her oxygen supply wasn't helping. She was trying to hit to let her go but as strong as he was compared to a normal human, Digger's physical strength was on the level of what she used to fight with.

"Don't you get I am trying to be nice!" Digger spat, increasing his hold around her head and neck and she could feel the strength behind it. "Either you go down, or I got no problem snapping your crazy neck!"

Jade Widow tried to fight back as best as she could, but she was starting to see spots. She wasn't getting enough air and could feel herself going limp.

"Finally listening to the man honey," Digger sneered, preparing to twist her neck. "But maybe I should..."

"How about not!"

Digger felt something impact him hard in the back of the head, the force making him let get go his victim. "You damned goomba! Don't you know to wait your turn!"

"Considering you were about to murder my partner, no," Spider-Man retorted though on the inside he was glad this worked out. When he came to, he had saw the position Jade Widow had been in. Despite his earlier sexist remarks about Jade staying off to the side in fear, the not-hulk thug struck Spidey as lacking the morals to care about whether or not it was 'polite' to hit women, meaning he'd have no problem snapping the Widow's neck.

Spotting some broken pieces of concrete he had webbed them up together, fashioned a line and spun it into a circle until there was enough force behind it that he could hit the back of the man's head. He didn't expect to hurt the green figure, but just get him to switch his attention.

It worked.

"Time to put you into time out," Spider-Man said, going for a strike only for Digger to move faster than he thought, giving a clothesline to him that really hurt before grabbing him by the legs.

"Let's see how you like being the rock!" Digger yelled, spinning several times before tossing the masked hero into the far side wall, only this time to go through it. "And he's out of there!" he laughed only until he heard the sirens. "Damn. Not in the mood for the cops. Don't want Forelli to have too much warning, not yet anyway."

His evening done, Digger made his way out of the club and into the sewers. It wasn't all a wash. He managed to put the hurt on costumed punks that should not be going out in public in silly costumes. And what is up with the dame? Really? How stupid can she be? He paused in thought. Or is it just all dames are like that in this time.

Before Digger made his next move, he need to figure out what had changed since he had last been out on the town.

Rogue gasped, already becoming more aware of surroundings. Even more so to know her 'costume' wasn't exactly its proper state, looking more like a normal symboite form. Jade?

I was more concerned about keeping the lights on Anna Marie, as that was more important than keeping my form stable, her symboite responded, even as she watched her Jade Widow costume return to normal form. Deciding to just hope that nobody had seen that, Rogue hurried over to check on Spider-Man, who was staring in bemusement at the imprint he'd left in the wall.

"Think we could sell that?"

"Huh?" Jade Widow looked at him not understanding the question.

"Those," Spider-Man indicated the damaged wall. "Our equivalent of laying hands in concrete, you know…"

She let out a slight laugh at that. "At least you're normal," And what does it say about me that I actually like that about him? As she led him out to the police cars out front, doing her best to make it look like they were just walking side-by-side rather than her supporting him. Once outside the club, they carefully 'avoided' dealing with other officers until they found who they were looking for, Lamont.

"Didn't go as planned I take it?" Lamont reasoned by the way they looked. "Did this guy say anything we could use?"

"Not really," Spider-Man said thoughtfully.

"Except that he didn't even know who Spidey was and seemed out of place in the club," Jade Widow added. "I mean, not recognising me I can understand, but the way the guy talked, it was like he was straight out of the fifties."

"That matches what some of the others have told us," Lamont mused, as he took a sip of his coffee. "He kept talking about the Starlight Club like it was still in business, but that place closed fifteen years ago."

"You said his prints matched three different guys, all of whom disappeared something like forty years ago," Spider-Man mused.

"Yeah," Lamont nodded. "So the culture gap matches."

"Still doesn't explain how this guy can have multiple prints."

"Maybe he's planting them to throw us off?"

"Bit too simple for something this big," Jade Widow mused, as Lamont was called away somewhere else; the green skin gave a lot of warnings, but until they knew what they were dealing with, neither she nor her new partner wanted to mention it to anyone else and inspire excess panic.

"You okay?" Spider-Man looked anxiously at her.

Jade Widow let out a sigh of frustration. "I thought I'd gotten better with trying to fight without falling back into my old style. But when that big green menace got behind me and choked me out, I couldn't think of anything but trying to power out."

"Ah," Spider-Man nodded, glancing around to be sure nobody was close enough to hear their dialogue before he continued. "Well, you've got to keep in mind it can take time to adjust; I spent a few months without my powers a couple of years back-"

"Months?" Jade Widow looked at him in surprise. "But you were never-?"

"I was basically replaced by my… clone… while I retired for a bit," the wall-crawler shrugged, ready to continue until seeing the rigid stance she had. "What?"

"Please just tell me Mister Sinister was not involved with that."

"Mister Who?" Spider-Man clicked his fingers in recollection. "Oh. He's one of your old villains, right? Probably not really relevant right now but no, he wasn't the mad scientist that created my clone." He looked back to the Widow who looked much more relaxed after hearing that. "Have you..."

"Had a clone of myself before? No. Jean was the unfortunate one in that case and it's a long story that isn't really relevant to our current situation."

The wall-crawler couldn't' agree more. "Anyway, the point I was trying to make before we got distract was that I've spent a fair bit of that time panicking about doing anything physical even when I knew other people without powers could do it, like jumping over an alley, but I… well, I didn't have to deal with that for long before I got my powers back, but I coped. You just need time to adjust and a bit more practice, and you'll get there."

"Thanks," Jade Widow smiled at him, before she looked more thoughtful. "And on the topic of practice, I need to ask you…"

"Hey, you."

Looking around, the two spider-themed vigilantes found themselves looked at a tall man, at least a head higher than Spider-Man and apparently twice as wide, dressed in a sharp black suit with a red tie.

"You talking to us?" Spider-Man asked.

"What, you see some other hey-you in a funny costume standin' here?" the man replied.

"Do you mind?" Jade Widow replied with an irritated tone. "We were in the middle of a conversation."

"Do I look like I care what you want lady?" the muscle said dryly. "My boss, Mr Forelli, wants to see you both."

Forelli… Spider-Man reflected. That's what Digger was yelling the last time he trashed a place.

"Yeah?" the wall-crawler said, discreetly adjusting a glove so that Jade could tap an area of exposed skin, allowing her to share his recent idea. "What does he want?"

"I look to you like a guy Mr Forelli tells his innermost thoughts to?"

"Mmmmmmm… no," Spider-Man said, jokingly dusting off the other man's suit as he discreetly readjusted his glove. "But I bet your mother thinks you're still a cutie."

"My mother's on the horizontal hold," the man said, taking a puff of his cigarette. "Now get in the car."

"I appreciate the invitation, but I try not to get into closed spaces with total strangers," Spider-man countered as the man walked back to the car. Only to see Jade Widow open the door. "Wait what you doing?"

"I'm getting in the car," Jade Widow stated simply. "I'm not going to just start web swinging like this. I'm taking the seat and enjoy the free ride."

"And what about the whole no confined spaces issue I just mentioned?" Spider-Man reiterated.

Jade Widow simply walked to the bruiser who looked back at her. Within a second, a tendril of her red hair moved like a whip, its tip becoming like a spike and slammed into the ground, making a two inch hole. "You try anything funny, you get one of those in you. Clear?"

To Spider-man's amazement, the Mafioso merely nodded and moved aside, letting her get into the car and there was a hint of fear in his eyes. It was gone the moment he closed the door and looked back to him. "That is one scary wife you got pal."

"She's not my wife," the wall-crawler said, deciding to resist the urge to elaborate; while they were still defining Jade Widow's 'public' history, there was no point giving away too many details too early.

"So fine," the man said, tossing his cigarette away. "You gonna run alongside or something?"

"I don't know what's more ridiculous," Jade Widow grinned as she and Spider-Man followed the tall man up to the building entrance he'd parked in front of. "That you actually rode all the way here on the front of a car, or that someone gave you a ticket…"

"It's just for Spider-Man, so I'm pretty sure it's not legal even if there was any kind of legitimate rule against travelling like that, and stop laughing about it, would ya?" Spider-Man retorted before the two of them walked into the building lobby. Regardless of their long experience in an unconventional line of work, Spider-Man couldn't help but be impressed at the scale of the lobby, and even Jade had to concede that Rogue hadn't often encountered people who could afford to have an indoor fountain.

"Thank you for coming," an old man said from the top of the stairs, who the two heroes guessed was Forelli. The old man was wearing an orange velvet dressing gown over a white shirt, purple tie, grey trousers, and purple glasses, somehow managing to look distinguished despite the unconventional style of his clothing.

"Well, it is Bingo Night at St. Catherine's, but since we've been friends for all these years-"

"We just met," Forelli said.

"See, you're just no fun anymore," Spider-Man replied.

"Ah. A wise guy," Forelli said, turning to enter a room that was some kind of lounge, with leisure seats scattered around it and a bar against one wall. "I've known plenty of wise guys in my time. They're all dead now. Me, I have no sense of humour. And I've lived a nice, long time."

"No, without a sense of humour, it just seems long," Spider-Man mused to Jade as they walked into the bar.

"You say something?" Forelli asked.

"Not a word."

"This thing you fought," Forelli said as he poured himself a drink at the bar, apparently accepting that response. "This Digger, you know he's been coming after my business interests."

"You call racketeers and drug dealers 'business'?" Jade Widow questioned.

"I didn't bring you here for an argument," Forelli said. "I brought you here to ask you a question."

"No way do those pants go with that jacket," Spider-Man quipped.

"That wasn't the question."

"Oh."

Seriously, I'm almost inclined to agree with the mobster. Parker isn't being that funny at all. Jade commented to her partner, who told her to hush.

"If this guy is coming after my interests, then it's only a matter of time before he comes after me," Forelli continued. "I want to hire you both as my bodyguards."

"Hire us?" Jade looked at Forelli in surprise. "You're kidding."

"Were you not listening to what I said before about not having a sense of humour? I want to hire you both for protection. My guys can take care of most problems, but this guy is way outside their league."

"Sorry," Spider-Man said simply, "Not interested."

"I can pay very well for people of your skills."

"Not interested."

"You wouldn't have to do anything more than you already do, which is to protect people,"
Forelli assured them. "It would just give me a measure of comfort to know I could call on you."

"Again. Not interested." Spider-Man reiterated.

"I'm offering ten thousand dollars per day for each of you."

"Ten thousand dollars a day?"

Seriously? He's surprised the mobster is willing to pay him to save his own hide? Jade said to Rogue.

I really don't think that's the issue here, Anna Marie replied to her partner. But this is certainly a new scenario to be in for sure.

Well just so you know, Parker's already gotten the mob boss to agree to ten grand a day for him and you just to protect his miserly old self. As if you even need money, Jade scoffed.

Yeah I know I said I wanted to get another job, but this wasn't what I had in mind, Jade Widow returned. However... she exchanged thoughtful glance with Spider-Man, who returned the favour.

"Have I mentioned expenses are covered?" Forelli added.

"Deal," Spider-Man confirmed. "Plus one other thing. If this guy's coming after you and your interests, I'm betting there's some kind of grudge involved. So give… who is this guy and why is he tearing up all the disagreeable parts of town?"

"Truth is, I have no idea," Forelli said, as he sat down on a sofa while Spider-Man perched on the opposite end, Jade Widow standing by the wall-crawler to watch him. "My… sources in the department tell me that fingerprints found at the scene of his prior rampage match those of several men I knew a very long time ago."

"All of them dead, I understand?" Spider-Man asked.

"Which makes this very… disturbing to me," Forelli said. "The last time I saw them, they were all happy, healthy… they had come to Vegas for a dinner. We'd arranged the meeting to work out some differences in opinion. Unfortunately, I was delayed here in New York."

"And did these… differences get worked out?"

"After a fashion," Forelli replied. "What happened to them, or where they disappeared to, I have no idea."

"None?"

"At all."

Jade appreciated that Rogue didn't encounter this type of criminal on a regular basis, and any genetic memory she had from other symbiotes tended to focus on people screaming rather than making this kind of deal, but she had a strong feeling this man wasn't being entirely honest…

"Sorry; deal's off," Spider-Man stood up.

"Wait-" Forelli began.

"My partner and I aren't going into this blind or with our hands tied behind our backs, or-"

"All right, all right," Forelli sighed as he stood up. "Give me until tomorrow to pull together what you'll need. To have any plans for the weekend?"

"No, why?"

"You'll see," Forelli stated as he put down his glass. "Now there are two other things. While you are in my employ, your protection extends both to me and my family."

"I think your boys can take care of themselves. I'm not getting into this to be-"

"I wasn't referring that family," Forelli said, opening the door to reveal a tall young woman with short dark hair. "This is my daughter, Lynne."

"Oh."

"Lynne, these are our guests," Forelli explained. "I believe you've seen this gentleman in the news from time to time. He and his… new associate… are here to protect us."

"You're right," Lynne said, though her tone implied she was none to impressed with either of them. "I have seen him in the news, and I wonder if he's here to protect anybody."

"You read the Bugle, don't you?" Spider-Man noted.

"Every day."

"Yeah, that's about as unbiased as asking the Friends of Humanity their opinion on mutants," Jade Widow observed. "I get that you don't have any reason to believe me over anyone you know about so far, but he's good at what he does and he puts saving people above everything else."

"I'm sure you'll find them most capable, Lynne," Forelli said as he walked up the stairs. "Give them a chance. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to rest. It's been a long day."

"All right… good night, father."

"Listen, I don't know what you think, but-" Spider-Man began.

"My father is a gentle, generous man who trusts people too much," Lynne said coldly. "You hurt him and I'll make sure you'll regret it."

"A gentle-?" Spider-Man began.

"Oh, I forgot the other thing I was going to mention," Forelli said, turning around to toss something towards the two heroes. "You'll each have to wear one of these."

"Pagers," Jade looked at the objects incredulously as she grabbed them from the air. "You want us to wear pagers?"

"I'm afraid so; it's part of the bargain," Forelli said. "After all, I can't exactly count on you simply sensing when I may be in trouble, now, can I?"

Half an hour later, the two spider themed heroes webswung away from Forelli's home, only to go several blocks before landing on a rooftop to talk.

"So," Rogue looked at Peter, "I take it this doesn't happen very often?"

"Getting hired as a bodyguard by a crime boss? Definitely an odd day for me," he admitted.

"Good tah be sure."

"But he's not wrong," the red-clad wall-crawler observed. "He's not asking us to do anything we wouldn't do anyway, and we do need to find this Digger guy before he takes it any further."

"As long as we know who he's after, we can keep track o' him before he starts hitting anyone else?" Jade Widow questioned.

"Which means keeping a line of communication open to this guy, and if he's willing to pay us anyway…"

"Ah get it," Jade Widow nodded. "Not your usual M.O., but we have an unconventional opportunity here so we might as well use it, right?"

"Bingo," Spidey nodded. "So, right before we had the Mafia come down upon us, you were about to say something."

"For agreeing to let me use the Widow name for this new identity, Natasha wants me to have a training session with her," Rogue answered. "I'm going to take her up on that, see if she can't help me tomorrow."

"Huh."

Jade Widow looked at her new partner in a peculiar way. "What?"

"Maybe it's just me, but whatever Natasha has planned, don't take her word at face value," Spider-Man suggested. "Things just don't go as you plan."

Anna Marie simply shrugged, thinking maybe he was over reacting on this. For the moment they had a demented wannabe Hulk on the loose.

Who knew how that was going to turn out?

At that moment, Digger was walking through the sewers licking his wounds from the fight against those two costumed freaks. "They wore me out quicker than I thought, those rotten circus freaks," he groaned as she put his hand against the wall, purple liquid coming out of his wound.

"Gotta keep it together… can't keep wandering around getting into things before we know what's what and who's who, like those freaks in the spider costumes. Only way we're getting our piece of flesh… our piece of Forelli… is by knowing where to hit him, and who we got to worry about. We've been gone a long time… gotta catch up."

He continued moving for a while longer, rambling on at times. "Gotta rest, too… feel tired, more tired than we oughta. Maybe that guy did something to us… or maybe we just can't go full bore all the time, or maybe-"

A newspaper caught his eye in the water. One he fished out of the drink when he saw the headline. "Martin and Lewis broke up…?" He realized this point he needed to go back to a promise he had made earlier.

He needed to learn about the times of today and when he did, he just knew he could put Forelli in the ground without a hitch.

Better start looking for more papers in this cesspool of a sewer.

Early in the morning, Anna Maria woke up and went to the location Natasha told her to find her, a seemingly abandoned warehouse. "Natasha! I am here!" she called out but got no response.

Was she running late or was it something else that she missed? She pulled out her phone, ready to text Natasha to see where she was at.

But then suddenly a loud sound seemed to bombard her ears, Rogue instinctively throwing her hands to her ears even as it did nothing to block the sound. Instead the sound caused her pain, not just in her ears but all over her body causing her to drop to her knees in agony.

And not just her.

Anna Marie could hear Jade's screams, could feel her pain, could see her symboite being slowly being driven out of her own body, wondering what was causing it…

"Up here."

She heard the words, barely even if they were muffled by the horrible sound. But looking up to an upper level catwalk, she saw her 'trainer' standing there in uniform with some sort of device in her hand.

But what Rogue took more notice off, was a pair of machines at either end of the walk way that looked as if they were directed at her and they seemed like the sources of her pain.

Sonic cannons.

"I told you that I wouldn't be going easy on you," the Black Widow said to the downed Jade Widow.

To Be Continued…