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The next two chapters [The elephant in the room – Part 1 and The elephant in the room – Part 2] are already available, and in a few hours [The elephant in the room – Part 3] will be available as well.
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***
After tying the car thief to a pole, the next few hours turned into a blur of constant movement and violence.
Peter lost count of how many incidents he handled before the sky even gave any sign of light. Every corner, every alley, every dark street seemed to hide some crime — as if the city had taken advantage of the period he had been away to rot from the inside, to let the filth pile up in its deepest corners, letting the vermin crawl out of their holes.
There were two gang shootouts, both involving heavily armed groups. The first one he heard from afar — a rapid and deafening sequence of gunshots, followed by screams and the sound of glass shattering. When he arrived, three men were already lying on the ground injured, but that didn't stop both sides from continuing to shoot at each other, completely ignoring their own allies and any innocent person who might be nearby or living in the surrounding buildings.
Peter had to act quickly to disarm those shooters, using webs and precise punches to immobilize them before anyone else got hurt. In the end, fifteen men were restrained on the sidewalk, and he still had to stop the injured from bleeding out until the ambulances arrived.
The second shootout wasn't much different, just smaller, with only six criminals involved. But one of them was already dead when Peter arrived, having taken a shot to the side of the head.
After that, the night went on with him stopping the usual crimes: car thefts, store robberies, and muggings. There were so many that he stopped counting, with each one requiring a different approach: some criminals ran as soon as they saw him, others tried to argue, one or two came at him wielding a knife or a metal pipe, and there were those who were armed.
But in the end, the result was always the same: all of them ended up restrained with webs, waiting for the police to arrive.
***
He landed on the ledge of a building, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. 'Captain Stacy was right. Things got really ugly after we managed to limit Tombstone's operations.' Peter had thought at the time that it would be a good thing, that even if he wasn't in prison, having sixteen different government agencies watching Thompson Lincoln's every move would solve a large part of the city's crime problem.
That without a central leader, without a head to command the body, organized crime would collapse like a house of cards.
But that's not what happened.
Things only got worse.
It should have been obvious to Peter to make the connection. He had read enough history books to know that the fall of a leader — no matter how bad he was — rarely brought peace. No, what came after was a vacuum, and a vacuum demanded to be filled.
In the absence of a dominant force, several smaller ones rose and began to fight, to compete for space and expand in a disorganized way, bringing chaos and destruction.
'Is this what they call a necessary evil?' Peter asked himself bitterly, his eyes fixed on the horizon of lights that was Manhattan at night. 'What's the point of taking one monster off the throne if ten others are going to take his place?... in the end, I just made things worse—No,' he closed his eyes for a second, cutting his own thoughts short. That wasn't fair. He couldn't be that negative.
Taking down Tombstone was necessary. He did the right thing. The man was a cancer, a gangrene that spread slowly, infecting the city cell by cell. He financed gangs, bought off cops, trafficked weapons, drugs, extorted businesses. How many lives had he destroyed? How many families? How many young people had lost their futures because of him?
The problem wasn't removing him from the board, but rather what came after.
Peter sat on the ledge, his legs hanging over the void, and rested his chin on his hands. The city lights reflected in the lenses of his mask, creating small bright dots that moved with the traffic below. 'So what do I do? I can keep taking down criminals for the rest of my life, but that won't solve the problem.'
He needed a new approach. Something that wouldn't just contain the fire, but put it out for good. But how was he supposed to do that? How does he contain crime in an entire city? Was that even possible in the first place, in a city this big? '...I'm not going to find answers right now. I need to think this through calmly.'
SCREEEECH—
The sharp sound of tires screeching tore through the dawn air, echoing between the buildings and cutting through Peter's thoughts.
He looked down and saw a car speeding down the street, swerving, nearly hitting a pole. 'Well, break's over,' Peter thought, letting his body fall forward.
***
Peter got home an hour later, the sun already having risen and painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. He slipped in through his bedroom window at the exact moment he heard May starting to move around in the kitchen.
Moving quickly, but silently, he took off the suit, grabbed the clothes he would wear to school — a white button-up shirt, jeans, and black sneakers — and went straight to the bathroom. As soon as he closed the door, Peter let out a sigh of relief that everything had worked out, resting his hands on the sink for a moment before turning on the shower.
The cold water from the shower helped relax the muscles tense from hours of work, and also washed away the sweat and the smell of smoke that still insisted on clinging to his hair. He scrubbed the strands with shampoo until he felt the smell was gone, then used soap on his arms and chest, noting, to his happiness, that the burns had already healed.
When he finished, he dressed quickly and went downstairs, already adjusting his posture and tone of voice to seem like he had just woken up. "Good morning, May..." Peter said as he entered the kitchen, forcing a small yawn.
"Good morning, dear," May replied, looking at him with a smile over her shoulder before turning back to focus on the stove. The smell of pancakes already filled the air, mixed with coffee and melted butter. "Sleep well?"
"Yeah," he replied, sitting at the table and resting his chin on his hand.
"That's good. Just a few more seconds and the pancakes will be ready." May said, flipping the pancakes with the spatula.
"Can't wait—"
Dzzz! Dzzz! Dzzz!
Peter cut himself off as he felt the phone vibrate in his pants pocket. 'Seriously, someone's calling at this hour?' He frowned, wondering who the hell would call him before seven in the morning... unless it was an emergency. A little concerned, he quickly took out his phone and to his surprise, the screen showed Harry's name. "Hey, Harry. Everything okay?" Peter asked as he answered.
[Dude, check out the video I sent you!]
Harry's voice came fast, excited, almost breathless.
"Uh, did something happen?"
[Just watch it!] Harry shouted before hanging up.
Peter pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a few seconds, completely confused. What had just happened?
"Did something happen to Harry?" May asked, worried, having turned and placed the pancakes on the table. The smell was wonderful, but Peter barely noticed, focused on seeing what his friend so badly wanted him to see.
"No, everything's fine. He just wanted me to watch a... video." His voice died in the middle of the sentence as he watched the first two seconds of the video.
***
The video Harry had sent was short — it couldn't have been more than forty seconds long — but the first two seconds alone were enough to make Peter's blood run cold. The recording had been made in Times Square, at night, with the neon billboard lights flickering in the background.
A group of men appeared in the footage, laughing and shouting, their drunken voices overlapping one another, and the image shook frantically, probably due to the cameraman's clumsy, uncoordinated steps, as he could barely walk in a straight line.
But none of that mattered. Because in the background of that shaky, poorly focused video, there was a man lying in the middle of the street.
He was face down, his arms stretched out to the sides and his legs spread at strange angles, as if he had been thrown there by a moving vehicle. He was wearing a purple suit that Peter would recognize with his eyes closed. The sleeves of the jacket were torn at the shoulders, and the back of the suit was so soaked with blood that it gleamed under the billboard lights.
And on his head, a cloth sack tied around his neck with a crude knot, stained red in several places.
That man, with that suit and build, could only be Hammerhead. One of the most brutal thugs who had ever worked for Tombstone, and one of the hardest villains Peter had ever faced. They had crossed paths several times, and in none of them had Peter managed to capture him. Hammerhead was strong, intelligent, unpredictable, and was an extremely skilled fighter, with a brutal and efficient technique that had already left Peter seeing stars on the ground more than once.
And now there he was… possibly dead.
The cameraman moved closer with unsteady steps and zoomed in on Hammerhead's head. The image shook, blurring for a moment before coming back into focus. He crouched down and extended his free hand toward the sack. "Let's see what we've got here, guys," he said with an amused, drawn-out voice, as if there wasn't a blood-soaked body right in front of him.
When the sack was removed, Peter felt his stomach churn.
Hammerhead's head was cracked, like the shell of a boiled egg someone had hit too hard against the edge of a pot. One eye was completely popped out of its socket, hanging by a strand of flesh that swayed slightly from the movement the cameraman made when lifting the sack. The other seemed to have simply exploded, leaving only a dark hole where all that blood must have come from.
His mouth was slightly open, the teeth broken and stained red, and a clear, thick fluid dripped from his nose and ears — a liquid Peter could only deduce was brain fluid.
'My God,' he couldn't take it anymore and closed the video. 'I think I'm going to throw up.'
"Peter?" He felt May's hand touch his shoulder — a warm touch, which contrasted with the cold running down his spine. "Peter, what is it? You look pale." She asked, her voice full of concern.
"N—it's nothing," he said, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He slipped the phone into his pants pocket in a quick, almost nervous motion, then ran his hands over his thighs, wiping the cold sweat from his palms. "I just remembered I have a test today. And I didn't study at all."
May narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, yes, I am," Peter said hurriedly, looking at the pancakes on the table. The image of Hammerhead's head came back in full force to his mind, making his stomach churn. "May, can you put them in a container? I'll eat on the way. I need to get there earlier to see if Gwen has any notes."
***
Ten minutes later, Peter was already swinging at high speed between the buildings. His body moved on autopilot, reacting on instinct to each swing, while his mind remained completely fixated on that video. The image of Hammerhead seemed burned into the back of his eyelids. Every time he blinked, he saw the dangling eye, the cracked skull, the clear fluid running down from the ears and nose.
Who did that?
The question reverberated endlessly in his head. Hammerhead wasn't weak — far from it. The man had a head that looked more like a war tank. Peter knew the man could withstand blows capable of killing any ordinary human being. So for someone to do that to his head— to crack his skull like that —it would require absurd strength.
Or enough endurance to land blow after blow against that nearly unbreakable head.
Peter considered Tombstone, but dismissed the possibility almost immediately. Tombstone was discreet. Calculating. The kind of man who cleaned up his own mess before anyone could see it. If he had killed Hammerhead, the body would've never been found. It would have disappeared into a river, a landfill, or one of the countless places in New York where bodies could vanish forever. Tombstone would never leave a corpse sprawled out in the middle of Times Square for anyone to see.
So, who was it?
That had been, without a doubt, a message. No one dumps a body in the busiest spot in the city without wanting it to be seen. Whoever it was, they wanted New York's underworld to know. They wanted everyone to know that Hammerhead was dead.
The question was: who?
Peter began to mentally categorize the names of his enemies, one by one. The ones who were locked up — in prison or in Ravencroft: Doctor Octopus, Silvermane, Rhino, Shocker, Ricochet, Mysterio, Electro, Eddie and Ox. Dead: Green Goblin and Sandman. And finally, those whose whereabouts were unknown: Vulture, Kraven and Sable.
Since there had been no news of escapes or "resurrections", only these last three remained as possible culprits. Even so, Kraven had probably already left the country after their last confrontation, and Vulture would hardly have the capability — or competence — to defeat Hammerhead in that manner.
So... Sable?
Silver Sable — the silver-haired mercenary, daughter of Silvermane. Peter hadn't had many encounters with her, but the few were enough to form a clear picture. She had resources, she was cold, disciplined, wanted her father out of prison and back in command of crime in New York. On top of that, Sable fought as well as most of his supervillains. She and Hammerhead had also once been lovers — a relationship that, Peter imagined, must have been marked by conflicts, betrayals and resentments.
All of that indicated that she had the means — and more than enough motive. But would Sable kill her ex in such a brutal way?
She didn't seem like that kind of person, who would turn a murder into a spectacle. Sable gave off that whole professional air, that if she killed someone, it would be with a shot to the head, a knife in the back, something quick and efficient. Not a public display of brutality.
Which brought him back to square one.
Peter swung upward, landing on top of a commercial building for a moment. From up there, the city stretched out before him — the buildings, the streets, the cars, the people tiny down below. Everything looked normal. Everything looked the same. But it wasn't.
Something had changed.
Peter could feel it. The culprit wasn't someone he knew.
Someone new had entered the game.
Someone strong enough to kill Hammerhead.
Someone cruel enough to do that.
Someone who deliberately left the corpse in Times Square for everyone to see.
Peter thought about the boss of the thugs from that black van, from the night before last. Unfortunately, he hadn't found anything so far, nor gotten any kind of lead. Even after capturing several criminals, none of them resembled those men.
But... maybe Hammerhead's death was connected?
Peter couldn't say. Not yet. But one thing was certain: Hammerhead was dead — and whoever was responsible was out there, somewhere, probably feeling very satisfied with themselves.
THWIP!
***
Unlike the previous day — which had been surprisingly calm, with him only having to stop once on the way to school — that morning seemed determined not to grant him the same luxury.
At the first interruption, a bicycle thief was trying to escape, pedaling desperately against traffic. It only took a few seconds for Peter to intercept him, knocking him off the bike and leaving him properly incapacitated for the authorities before returning the bicycle to its owner.
The second was a man choking on a piece of bread, surrounded by people in panic who didn't know what to do. Then came a purse snatcher, followed by a fight between two homeless men in the middle of the sidewalk.
Four stops. Four problems solved. No major delay.
Or at least, that's what it seemed.
When Peter finally approached the school and slowed down to land at the usual spot where he used to change, something made his body lock up for a moment—not something, but rather a sensation. It wasn't the sharp and immediate tingling of his spider-sense. It was different. It was something else, more diffuse and subtle. Like that feeling everyone gets when they are being watched.
His muscles tensed automatically, and Peter shot another web without hesitation, keeping himself moving as he passed right by the school as if it had never been his destination.
He only stopped two blocks later, dropping down into a narrow alley behind a restaurant whose appearance—and smell—made it clear it definitely wasn't a place that had passed any health inspection.
'Great, now I have...' He pulled his phone from his backpack 'Seven minutes before the first class. Wonderful. I'm going to have to run like hell.'
***
'How did things end up like this?' Peter asked himself bitterly, staring at the teary eyes of Gwen Stacy at his side.
***
[Did you enjoy it? If so, give my other fanfic a chance as well: ATLA: The Bastard of Fire Nation!!!]
Disclaimer: This story and its characters belong to Sony Pictures and Marvel Comics (Disney). This is merely a fanfiction written by a fan, with no intention of infringement.