The abandoned subway tunnel beneath the Financial District smelled like stagnant water, rust, and decades of forgotten decay.
Peter stood in the center of the broken tracks. A localized beam of white light cut through the oppressive darkness, emanating from the spider emblem on his utility belt. He swept the beam over the cracked concrete pillars, illuminating the structural damage of the crumbling station.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Let me get this straight. You're actually passing up a free trip to Puerto Rico?"
Felicia Hardy dropped lightly from a rusted steel girder, landing in a perfect crouch. She wore her signature Black Cat tactical suit, the dark fabric swallowing the ambient light. She casually twirled the high-tensile grappling hook Peter had built for her around her index finger.
"The answer is simple, Spider," Felicia said, standing up and stretching her arms above her head. "The absolute best time to investigate the criminal underworld is when New York's most notoriously meddlesome vigilante leaves the state. The moment you cross the city limits, all the monsters and freaks are going to crawl out of the woodwork thinking it's open season."
Peter tilted his head, the lenses of his mask narrowing in concern. "That sounds incredibly specific. Do you already have a target in mind for this little solo investigation?"
"Of course I do," Felicia smirked, walking into the edge of his flashlight beam. "Why else would I drag you down into a moldy train tunnel? I need your muscle to help me clear the board before you catch your flight."
Peter let out a heavy sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you seriously telling me you went digging through mob ledgers in Manhattan right in the middle of a literal alien symbiote invasion?"
Felicia merely flashed him a sharp, feline grin and tapped a finger to her lips. She didn't offer a defense. She didn't need to. A low, rumbling vibration echoed down the subway tunnel.
The guest of honor had arrived.
Peter immediately tapped his belt. The flashlight clicked off, plunging the station into pitch blackness. A split-second later, his bio-camouflage engaged. The sleek black material of his symbiote suit shifted, blending seamlessly into the ambient shadows until he completely vanished from the visible spectrum. Felicia darted up a concrete pillar, melting into the darkness of the rafters.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed across the platform tiles.
Lonnie Lincoln stepped into the dim glow of a broken emergency light. Better known to the NYPD and the criminal underworld as Tombstone, the mob boss was a towering wall of muscle. He was an albino Black man, his skin a stark, chalky white, his teeth filed into sharp, predatory points. He wore an immaculately tailored suit that strained across his broad shoulders.
Years ago, an accident involving an experimental chemical preservative had altered Lincoln's cellular structure. It hardened his skin to the consistency of industrial diamonds. He was entirely impervious to blades, bullets, and extreme temperatures. He possessed enough raw, kinetic strength to rip a bank vault door off its hinges. For most street-level heroes, crossing paths with Tombstone was a guaranteed trip to the intensive care unit.
Peter didn't take him lightly.
"Have you figured out how to deal with the walking slab of granite?" Felicia whispered. She spoke through the encrypted comms channel, her voice completely silent to the men below.
Peter clung to the ceiling directly above the mob boss. "If you had asked me that a few months ago, I probably would have panicked," he whispered back. "But things are a little different now. Lonnie is tough, but we can handle him."
Tombstone wasn't alone. A dozen heavily armed henchmen fanned out across the platform, carrying high-grade automatic rifles. They swept the area with tactical mounted flashlights.
Peter dropped from the ceiling on a silent web-line. He landed directly behind a thug at the rear of the formation. A quick chop to the carotid artery dropped the man instantly. Peter caught the unconscious body before it hit the floor, webbing him quietly to a pillar.
Across the tracks, Felicia went to work. She dropped behind two goons, sweeping their legs out and cracking their heads together with a dull thud.
They moved like ghosts. One by one, the armed escort simply vanished into the shadows. The only sounds were the faint rustle of fabric and the soft firing mechanism of Peter's web-shooters.
Tombstone stopped walking. He slowly turned his massive head. He swept his gaze across the empty platform. The silence was deafening.
"Someone is playing a very dangerous game with us," Tombstone rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. "Stay frosty."
He turned back toward the tracks, waiting for his buyer to arrive.
THWIP. A thick cocoon of white webbing shot out from the tunnel. It slammed onto the concrete directly at Tombstone's polished shoes. The buyer—an older mob associate—was completely incapacitated inside the webbing, his eyes wide with muffled terror.
Tombstone stared at the cocoon. His filed teeth bared in a snarl. "Spider-Man!"
"Even a spider can sneak silently in the dark," Peter intoned. He pitched his voice down into a gravelly, dramatic register, doing his absolute best Batman impression.
Peter materialized from the camouflage directly in front of the mob boss. He threw a massive, piston-driven right hook. His knuckles slammed into Tombstone's jaw. The impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a solid block of cement.
The sheer kinetic force lifted Tombstone entirely off his feet. The giant flew backward, crashing through a rusted ticket turnstile and slamming into the tiled wall. The concrete cracked under his weight.
Tombstone slumped forward. He blinked, visibly stunned. Then, a low, terrifying chuckle rumbled in his chest. He wiped a tiny drop of blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. He cracked his neck and charged directly at Peter like a runaway freight train.
Peter wasn't done with the theatrics.
"But even a spider can bring the light!" Peter shouted, dropping the gravelly voice entirely.
He planted his feet. He channeled the bio-electricity humming in his nervous system down to his palms. Brilliant, blinding white lightning erupted from his hands. He stepped into Tombstone's charge and slammed both hands directly into the man's chalk-white face.
The electrical discharge illuminated the entire subway station in a blinding strobe effect. Tombstone threw his head back and screamed. The high-voltage current bypassed his indestructible skin, locking his muscles in absolute agony.
Up in the rafters, Felicia drove a brutal spinning back-kick into the chest of the last remaining thug.
"Thanks for the light show, Spider!" Felicia complained over the comms. "Now every remaining goon in a three-mile radius knows exactly where I am!"
"You're welcome!" Peter yelled back over the crackle of ozone.
The electricity faded. Tombstone was smoking, his suit singed at the lapels, but he was still standing. He lunged forward. His massive hand closed around Peter's wrist like a steel vice. He twisted violently, intending to shatter the bones in the teenager's arm.
Peter didn't budge an inch. He locked his joints, meeting the superhuman strength head-on.
"In the darkness, the hidden evil has nowhere to run!" Peter yelled.
Beneath the suit, Venom reacted to the physical threat. Thick, violently thrashing black tentacles erupted from Peter's back. They lashed forward like vipers. The tendrils wrapped securely around Tombstone's torso and limbs. With a sharp mental command, Peter hoisted the three-hundred-pound mob boss entirely off the ground and slammed him brutally against the vaulted ceiling of the tunnel.
Dust and debris rained down. Tombstone grunted, pinned helplessly against the rotting concrete.
Peter stared up at the struggling man. A sudden, chilling thought pierced his mind.
His skin is impenetrable. But his internal organs are soft. The thought wasn't entirely his own. It carried a dark, vicious resonance. Force the symbiote down his throat. Expand the biomass in his lungs. Tear him apart from the inside out.
Peter's breath caught in his throat. He stared at the thrashing tendrils. If he executed that maneuver, Lonnie Lincoln would die in agonizing pain. He was a drug dealer. A killer. A monster who destroyed entire neighborhoods for profit.
Does he deserve it?
"Hey, Cat," Peter called out, his voice suddenly very quiet. "Do you think he deserves to die?"
Felicia vaulted over the edge of the platform and landed softly beside him. She looked at the pinned mob boss, then glanced sideways at Peter. Her posture stiffened. She picked up on the sudden, terrifying shift in his tone.
"He deserves it, Spider," Felicia said slowly, measuring her words. "But..."
"But I shouldn't be the one to do it?" Peter asked.
"Don't give the city a reason to be terrified of you," Felicia said softly. She stepped closer, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder. "People fear power they cannot control or understand. It doesn't matter if it's a supervillain or a superhero."
Peter looked away from Tombstone, meeting her gaze through his white lenses.
"You've bled for this city," Felicia continued. "You've made them trust you. You made them stop being afraid of the mask. Do not throw all of that away over a piece of garbage like Lonnie Lincoln."
Peter closed his eyes under the mask. He took a slow, deep breath, forcing his heart rate down.
"You're right," Peter whispered.
He gave a mental command. The black tentacles retracted violently, snapping back into the suit. Tombstone plummeted to the floor, hitting the concrete with a heavy crash. Before the mob boss could even attempt to stand, Peter unleashed a massive barrage of high-density webbing, pinning Lincoln entirely to the ground in a suffocating cocoon.
"Call the NYPD," Peter said, turning his back on the struggling criminal.
Ten minutes later, the cold November wind howled across a nearby high-rise rooftop.
Peter crouched on the stone ledge, his knees pulled tight to his chest. He stared out at the blinking lights of the police cruisers gathering around the subway entrance below.
Felicia walked up behind him. Her boots made no sound on the gravel roof. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Peter lied. He didn't turn around. "If you're really not coming to Puerto Rico with us... please watch your back, Felicia."
She nodded once, a silent promise, before firing her grappling hook and swinging away into the New York skyline.
Peter remained on the ledge. He pressed a hand against his forehead. The violent intrusion in his mind had faded, but the echo remained. It was Knull. The dark god of the symbiotes was whispering through the hive mind, bleeding aggressive, murderous intent directly into Peter's subconscious.
He couldn't ignore this anymore. Before he packed a single bag, he had a stop to make.
He needed to go to the Baxter Building.
PS: Fun Fact! Tombstone's impenetrable skin isn't just a physical shield; it makes him highly resistant to extreme temperatures and electrical shocks. Spider-Man using his calibrated bio-electric blast to bypass the dermal layer and shock the nervous system directly is one of the few ways to physically stagger the mob boss without dropping a building on him!
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