66
The negotiation room Fury had allocated was as sterile as everything else in S.H.I.E.L.D. Soft, sound-absorbing panels lined the walls. Comfortable but heavy chairs were bolted to the floor. The lighting was muted. This was a "soft" interrogation room, designed to calm people down and loosen their tongues. Right now, sitting in the center of it all, was Peter.
"Gwen? Is it clean?" I asked first. Her abilities were more reliable than any electronics.
She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, then nodded.
"It's clean." Just to be safe, I launched my spiritual sonar, sweeping my mental vision over a hundred-meter radius. There were no Hydra stormtroopers hiding in any of the neighboring rooms. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were forming a dense but invisible ring around us.
"So, it was you," Gwen exclaimed indignantly, recognizing the mental ping. "Back then, in the room."
"Guilty as charged. I peeked. I couldn't resist," I joked before turning to the silent Peter. "But since Fury kept his word, and he's the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., by the way, let's begin."
I took a small NZT tablet from my inventory and held it out to Peter. He looked first at the tablet, then at me. There was skepticism in his eyes.
"And what's this? Is it another one of your tricks?" Gwen asked.
"It's a cognitive enhancer," I explained. "It'll help Peter process information faster and control his emotional outbursts. Believe me, Pete, you're going to need this today."
He hesitated, but after glancing at Gwen's serious face, he took the tablet and swallowed it. After a minute, the drug took effect. His gaze sharpened, his pupils dilated slightly, and his tension gave way to intense concentration.
"What's all this for? I understand everything already, anyway. You're working with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. And you want to recruit Gwen and me, too. Right?" he asked.
"We'll discuss S.H.I.E.L.D. later. But for now..." I extended my hand. "Gwen, give me your phone. Open the gallery."
Gwen flushed, understanding where I was about to start. It was a calculated, cruel cut into his emotions. She pulled herself together, unlocked the phone, and handed it to me. On the screen was a folder containing incriminating evidence on Morris Bench. I turned the display toward Peter and slowly scrolled through it.
"Morris Bench. He's a meta-villain," I said, my tone lecturing as the photos of Bench flashed across the screen. Peter listened without interrupting. I reached the first photo of Bench with a red-haired girl. It was a relatively innocent shot. Peter's face twisted. He recognized her.
"She... was sick. Well, that's what she told me..." he muttered. His mind, under the influence of the NZT, tried to find another explanation, but found none. Waves of betrayal and pain crashed against his self-control.
"It was a lie, Pete," I answered, softly but inexorably. "And as you can see, lying was the least of her transgressions."
"Peter, you deserve better than that," Gwen added, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"This was suspicious to me from the very start. She was all over him on the very same day that her ex, Harry, flew out of the country. But we didn't share so many secrets back then, so I kept my suspicions to myself."
"This... No... I mean, yes..." Peter finally spoke. His gaze was fixed on the dark screen, but he wasn't seeing it. With the NZT, his brain was assembling an ugly picture. "Now it's clear where her new jewelry came from, and why she became so cold. But why? Why didn't she just break up with me?"
"Harry," I said. "She didn't do this for herself. She did this for him."
Peter raised his eyes, and a bitter understanding flashed in them.
"Her thing with Bench isn't as painful to Harry as a public relationship with his friend, or at least a close acquaintance, would be. She chose you as the most effective weapon she could use to cause him pain."
"But Harry's at a boarding school. He wouldn't even know about it."
"That doesn't prevent her from sending him messages, or emails, or letters, all with photos of you together in them. What matters to her is the ritual itself."
"I... I'm just a way to spite Harry," Peter said quietly. There was no anger in his voice now. There was only devastation.
"And a source of some resources," I added with a crooked smirk. "Besides, you're not accounting for the physical danger that she's bringing into your home."
"What do you mean?"
Bench is a metahuman. Just imagine what would happen when he learns that the girl he thinks is his girlfriend has another guy.
"Don't even think about that," Gwen shook her head. "Men can get too impulsive about things like that."
"Idiots. They're impulsive idiots," I corrected him. "But, Peter, I want to believe that you're not one of them."
"I... I am an idiot," Peter admitted with a sigh. There was no anger in him now. There was only a cold, scorched emptiness and determination. "But at least I'm not impulsive. It's over with MJ. Consider her no longer part of my life."
Victory. The main thing was that this wasn't just self-deception. He seemed serious.
"Excellent," I smiled. "Now that we've removed that tumor, we can discuss the important things."
"Yes. The danger." He latched onto that. "Tell me, what happened a few days ago? And what guarantees are there that it won't happen again?"
"And how did everything look from your end?" I asked. "Did you see anyone in particular? The house had no signs of a struggle, and I'm sorry about the broken window, by the way."
"That's another mystery solved." Peter nodded. "It was sleeping gas. We fell asleep at home and woke up in the hospital. The doctors told us we were found in an abandoned warehouse at the docks, and that if it hadn't been for an anonymous call, which I'm assuming was from you, we wouldn't have come around until night."
I nodded and told him my version of events. I told him about Kraven, who'd been hired to kidnap me. I told him about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the moles in their organization who had led to the failures. I kept silent about Hydra. I told him about the bureaucratic agreements, which included round-the-clock, invisible protection for him and his family. To my surprise, Peter was interested in something else.
"John..." he began, nervously clasping his hands together. "Some of the technologies we used were, formally speaking, invented by me."
I felt awkward. He was thinking like a scientist. He was being practical. I wasn't offended. I appreciated his practicality.
"Pete, that's a fair question," I said. "You're thinking about patents. I'm thinking about a body count. I don't care about the money or the patents on tech that I consider to be in the past. The question is, who's going to become the media face of our company? Who's going to paint a big, fat, red target on their own back? Who's going to deal with the problems when they show up at our doorstep? I have a plan for that. Can you say the same?"
"Is it a plan to become the new Tony Stark?"
"That, too." I nodded. "But I also have a plan for you. It involves six-figure salaries, a high position in R&D, Nobel Prizes, and recognition in scientific circles. You'll have all of this, Pete. Just stay part of the team. Contribute. And stay away from redheads."
"It's over with her. You don't need to remind me." Peter ran his hand through his hair, some of the tension leaving him. "As for the plan, that's fair. But there's going to be a target on my back, too, and on Gwen. I'm tired of being weak. I'm tired of feeling helpless when the people I love are threatened."
"There is a way for you to become stronger." I saw a spark of hope in his eyes. "For now, it's just a theory, but it's a solid one. The problem is that, in the coming days, I'm going to be bound hand and foot. Pulling something like that off here, in S.H.I.E.L.D., isn't an option."
"Is this another one of your tricks?" Gwen asked.
"Something like that," I admitted. "I'm going to provide security for you and your family. You're going to continue living just as you did before, without any contact with me. After a while, I'll draw all the attention to myself, and then they'll forget about you."
"Live as before?" He smiled bitterly. "With the knowledge in my head, that's impossible. I could create stimulants to turn myself into a kind of super-soldier. I held back because no one was coming after us. But now they are. I decided to wait for an explanation from you before I did anything. I can't live as before."
"With great power comes great responsibility," I said thoughtfully.
"How do you know that?" Peter and Gwen blurted in unison, staring at me in shock.
"And you two." They turned to each other with matching amazement.
A silence filled the room.
"What?" I decided to defuse the situation. "It's just a phrase. And even though I'm not a hero, I agree with it, to some extent. Peter, the main thing here is that you don't engage in any amateur activity. No superhero tights and no serums. I need your body to be in a clean, baseline condition."
"That sounded a little ambiguous." Gwen smiled.
"Yours, too." I smirked.
"So, what kind of enhancement are we talking about?" Peter was burning with impatience.
My theory about turning him into Spider-Man flashed through my mind, but not yet. My Essence Smith skill was still at a basic level. It gave me a foundation. Technomancy, which I would soon unlock, might give me the necessary tools. For now, I didn't want to give him any false hopes.
"As soon as I get full access to a personal laboratory, I'll explain everything to you in detail. That should happen sometime next week."
It was Friday now. I was hoping that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't observe weekends.
"And now, Peter, next on your agenda is the mission with Doctor Connors. I understand that, due to the recent events, you haven't been thinking about it," I said.
"Yes," I turned to Gwen. "Gwen, your agenda is to rest and walk around in your new suit. Show yourself to the public." Peter cast an envious glance at her. "You both need to prepare yourselves. Starting next week, it's going to be nothing but intensive work days."
"And what about the University lab?" Peter asked.
"Objectively speaking, you've outgrown it. At least you have, Peter." I looked at Gwen. "No offense. You'll have to decide for yourselves. It's going to be awkward trying to balance both, and scheduling conflicts are bound to arise."
"Whatever. Blondes don't get offended," Gwen joked. "I've been thinking about quitting there, anyway. This is the perfect opportunity. This new spot looks a lot more promising."
"You're serious?" Peter stared at her. "But what about your thesis? It's tied to Connors' research."
"It's only officially connected to him," Gwen shrugged. "Continuing similar research in our new corporation's lab won't be difficult."
"You won't have any trouble with that," I confirmed. "This will free up our hands."
"I'll think about it for now," Peter said. "But tentatively, I'm in favor of working in your lab. This is all just happening too fast."
"It's funny how all the good things happen so fast," I chuckled.
"And the bad ones too," Peter sighed.
"Two people sat in this room, looking at a half-full glass," Gwen began.
"Actually, an optimist and a pessimist walk into a bar, and the bartender says, 'Forget it. There are no glasses here,'" I blurted out. Gwen snorted. Peter looked confused for a second, then caught on.
"I'm a realist," he objected.
"In jokes like that, the realist usually shows up right after the first two." I nodded. "Your 'rather agreement' thing makes me happy. These days, you need to be more categorical."
"You'll become one, whether you like it or not," Peter grumbled.
"You already made a categorical decision about Mary Jane. That was the first and most important step."
We talked for a couple more minutes and decided we'd handle the rest later. I attached a spy dragonfly to them. Then I returned to the laboratory.
//=================//