Issue 13
New York City, NY --- Thompson Memorial Hospital
Using the suit was like riding a bicycle, Peter had pre-programmed every little move to control his speed into his muscles. Every twist of his shoulders to bring the weblines around and launch him deeper into the concrete jungle, the angle of his wrist as a new web stuck fast to nearby skyscrapers. It probably helped that the route was familiar -- out of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel like a rocket, hooking around the Empire State and driving down the same streets and over the same rooftops until it loomed in the distance. The Thompson Memorial Hospital.
As far as Peter could put together, it was owned by one L. Thompson Lincoln, a millionaire noted for his… skin condition. Speculation was that it was a little like what The Thing had, a slow degeneration into rock. Mister Lincoln was one of the few that managed to power through it and survive to adulthood. His daughter wasn’t so lucky. This Hospital was
supposed to act as a research facility to help find a cure. Or at least something to lessen her suffering.
And instead Tombstone is using it as a Crimes R Us.Spider-Man landed a rooftop away, hitting it at a roll and springing up to his feet. He perched on the roof’s ledge and stared across the gutter between buildings, surveying the Hospital’s roof. He couldn’t make out any Enforcers lying in wait, but then he hadn’t seen them the first time.
Not to mention that Speed Demon could just zip outside and cream my corn whenever he felt like it.He needed another way in. If he had learned anything from Ben’s stay there, its that with Hospitals, there was always another way in. Different doors, wings, emergency exits, loading docks… But most importantly, most every room had a window.
Spider-Man stepped off the roof and into a swing, slipping above the mid-morning traffic without a whisper. He released in the air and dropped, heaving his momentum to the side and sticking fast to the Hospital’s walls. Long curving panes of glass and panels of stone passed as he wormed between windows, peeking a webbed head in to each occupant as he passed.
He passed a woman and her child, cooing and patting the newborn. He crawled on, past the maternity ward, and came to pediatrics, windows of children hacking their lungs out beside pictures of colorful cartoon animals. He passed on room where a Doctor cleaned a gaping wound on a boy’s neck. That would’ve been right where the MLF’s bugs had attached.
Peter shuddered and moved past, pushing up another few floors against the backdrop of stark white walls. He passed another room, a young woman holding an old man’s hand. Peter lingered, there, the black spot of his head and eye lenses sitting just above the windowsill. He watched the heart monitor tick through the glass. Bit by bit.
The next room he passed was the one he needed, empty, with torn paper laying off the end of the examination table. Probably wouldn’t be used again until the cleaning crew got sent in -- perfect. Peter’s fingers stuck to the window and the suit completed a seal, pressing down and sticking fast to the surface. He pulled and the lock came open with a
pop.
Peter sluiced inside and sealed the door at the handle with a glob of webbing, before closing his eyes and settling into focus. He thought about the curvatures of his costume, how each individual fabric wound into every other. He thought about them stretching, elongating, the mask curling down from his face and weaving itself down into the fabric of a long white coat. He thought about the click of dress shoes against linoleum, and how the fluorescent lights seemed to bounce off the shoulders of each doctor that passed.
When Peter opened his eyes his Spider costume was gone, replaced with pale scrubs and a stark white labcoat overtop, where its inside was coated with the familiar inky darkness of the suit lined its inside. Peter moved to the door.
I’d like to see the Enforcers pick Spider-Man out of a lineup now… Peter twisted the handle.
If security doesn’t make me for having no ID first…Peter emerged into the bustle of the Thompson Memorial, flutters of labcoats sweeping by with eyes glued to medical diagnostics on clipboards, while techs wheeled in carts of equipment with practiced precision. Peter stepped into the throng and pushed past groups of med students and doddering patients being dragged by their IV stands.
The hospital seemed almost randomly arranged, linoleum tile giving way to carpet and back to blue and yellow tile at free random. Assortments of chairs lined each wall, half filled with medical techs trying to find a moment to enjoy their lunches. The most consistent element was the boilerplate, slate grey signage denoting each functionally identical office from the last. Peter looped through the hallway, backward and forwards, giving every janitor that passed the side-eye. Waiting for the moment one would have ‘CARRADINE, DENNIS’ printed on his lapel.
And then what, Parker? Bust him right there on the tile? Call down the goober Hospital guards and seven kinds of Enforcers on my head? If he’s even on staff today…Peter massaged his temples and guided himself into one of the felt-backed chairs adjacent to an EKG lab. He could sweep every floor every day of the week and never run into what he was looking for. Hell, half of the staff
did, and nobody seemed to be blowing any whistles. He needed to get closer to Tombstone’s operation.
How do you run organized crime out of a hospital? Not by operating openly on the main floor, that was for sure. Spider-Sense flared at the back of Peter’s mind like a dull headache. He stiffened.
“Hey, you one of the kids here on Certification Training?” A tech appeared out of the crowds in muted green scrubs. The steam from his coffee rose into half lidded eyes, like he expected the heat to knock him awake. Tattoos curled past his wrist and down his arm, into the folded mass of his scrubs. “Program Director went that way about five minutes ago, and you look… Lost.”
So much for a useful disguise, Parker… Maybe I can salvage this. The feeling of Spider-Sense remained, a weight behind Peter’s eyes, a lilt on the edge of his senses. He leaned into the feeling and scanned either side, then locked eyes with the tech.
“I’m actually here on the special assignment…” Peter raised his eyebrows,
“for the boss.”I’m boned.The tech tilted his head, and a grin crept across his face. “
You? Really? Aren’t you a little… young to be a Doctor?”
Not boned! Not boned!Peter rolled his eyes.
“Please! Tony Stark built a reactor at fifteen. Victor VonDoom --” The tech cut Peter off.
“Alright, alright. I’ll take you where you need to go, Doctor.” The tech waved him forward. Peter hopped up from his chair and fell into step with the tech, winding between gaggles of nurses and families clutching sick children.
They made the elevator. The doors parted to reveal it was empty, nothing but old metal and decrepit carpet, faintly echoing with royalty free music. The tech thumbed the ‘Close Doors’ button before anyone could join them, and began clicking each floor button in sequence, doubling back and skipping forward as he desired.
The elevator panel is a keypad? Did I stumble into a James Bond flick?The music clicked off as the tech finished his entry, and he resigned to the back of the elevator. Gears hummed and metal shook as the elevator began its descent, trundling down and past each floor of the Hospital.
Peter’s Spider-Sense grumbled, the weight of it sweeping from the back of his eyes to his whole head. The hammer of a gun clicked behind him. Peter saw the tech’s handgun in the polished metal of the elevator’s walls, and raised his hands.
Well… I could’ve seen this coming.“Boy detective beat is not working out for you, kid.” The tech kept the gun trained on Peter’s body, and used his other hand to pick at his teeth.
“You think? I did get this far.” Peter looked back at him over his shoulder, sizing the distance between them. The tech shrugged.
“I could make you from a mile away. You don’t even know who you’re supposed to be impersonating. That lab coat hardly fits you.” He gestured with his gun as he spoke, waving it in the air. Overconfident. Peter let himself dip lower, gathering his strength in his legs.
“Oh? Well, let me slip into something more comfortable.” Peter flipped backwards in the air and his costume started to change, labcoat melting against his body. The tech’s words choked in his throat and he jerked the gun up to meet Peter’s trajectory, but it was too late. A ball of webbing knocked the weapon from his hands and Peter was on top of him, costume already twisting up his torso and shoulders.
Peter slammed his palm into the man’s temple and he collapsed, pitching forward to the ground. Spider-Man caught him with a webline and hoisted the man into his arms. Peter heaved and pushed him up and out of the elevator’s hatch, leaving him in a heap on the roof, beside whirling gears and rotating hoist ropes.
Peter compressed his body against the roof of the elevator, pressing his legs out and swallowing all of the elevator’s light, drenching it in darkness as it continued its descent. Peter’s lenses stayed locked on the door as the elevator ticked down through each floor, a yellow light filtering down through the number-shaped cutouts. Five. Four.
Peter’s eyes closed and he reached out with his senses, tuning each fibrous strand of his costume to the thrum of the elevator’s gears and workings, sensing out to the Hospital beyond. Every squeak of sneakers and dress shoes across linoleum rippled across the placid surface of his mind, sending goosebumps up and down his arms. Peter sucked his breath in through his teeth and squeezed himself back against the elevator until he felt the cold metal pressing against his skin.
Deeper.
There was something else, something below hacking coughs and clicking pens. Ungreased cart wheels whined through open hallways, echoing off of unfinished walls. The hard clack of magazines into gunmetal, and the groan of shifting crates. Dozens of heartbeats reverberating through the elevator shaft. The elevator dinged as it passed below the first floor. A sub-basement. Peter sensed two presences outside of the doors, steady heartbeats and the scratch of bored fingers against a rifle.
Peter’s eyes slid open in sync with the elevator’s doors. The sub-basement stretched forth a dozen meters before curving off into two paths, with raw cut concrete walls that ended in a crudely arched ceiling. Both elevator guards turned in unison to the opening doors, and both were met with sprays of webbing to the face, sealing to their skin, pulling them inside. They screamed impotently as Peter worked, spinning them into webbed cocoons and depositing them the same place he’d left the first man. They’d be fine… Probably.
Peter stepped past the threshold of the elevator and the doors sealed behind him, winding back up to the reaches of the Hospital. Industrial lights whirred in the background, casting the rough concrete in gaunt shadows and hard casts of bright. Peter stepped between the beams, superhuman fingers suturing themselves to the walls as he began his crawl along the ceiling.
How long has this been here?] Peter crawled forward, winding down the echo chamber he found himself in. Each corner he took brought him to another labyrinth, multitudes of tunnels spinning out to every direction. Like Tombstone’s personal sewer system.
How long until they install a map? He was coming to something now, something beyond the raw architecture of the winding tunnels. This was something finished, with walls reflecting the glare of more permanent lights, and the ringing blare of a reversing truck.
A loading dock? Peter emerged from the tunnels, concrete merged haphazardly with white facade walls. The new room swept out from him, and a menagerie of weapon-toting men patrolled the floor in patterns. Two unmarked eighteen wheelers laden with boxes sat at entryways, blocking what sunlight spilled in.
Peter stole through the opening and launched himself up the wall, weaving through supports and beyond the range of the security cameras on the far wall. He hid in the corner, beneath the fire suppression nozzles dotting the high ceiling. Men with dollies wheeled crates from truck to truck and to red steel shelving units lining the dock, brimming with crates and boxes.
What are they moving? Guns? Rare amiibos? Peter stuck fast to the ceiling, moving his vantage point, when the far pair of double doors flew open. Three men entered, one after the other, the first two sealed in black combat gear, with a third hulking member at their rear sporting a black tee stretched across his frame. Spider-Sense ripped across Peter’s mind like hundreds of insectoid legs, running.
Enforcers.
Megawatt headed up the pack, yellow belt still sealed around his waist and seemingly sautered into the rest of his gear. Speed Demon was in step behind him, fidgeting with the goggles over his eyes. Just as quickly he wasn’t, instead zipping across the room on feet Peter couldn’t track, inspecting each thug’s progress. Kangaroo hung back, each of his plodding footsteps reverberating through the room like church bells.
“Mister Leydon.” Peter picked the voice out from the noise, one man breaking formation and stepping before Megawatt, bowing his head. “Doctor Harrow’s contact came through, sir. The formula, as promised. This is from a full shipment’s worth.” The man offered a vial, murky green and dotted with translucent spots clean through. Peter’s muscles squeezed. He’d
seen those vials. Where?
Megawatt considered it in his hands, against the black fabric of his costume.
“Tell Mister Morbius he’s done well.”Megawatt’s lips kept moving but Peter couldn’t hear it over the thumping in his ears.
Mister Morbius. The words echoed in his head. Michael at the lab after hours, his fights with the Doctor… The formula.
Doc’s formula.
“... and tell him that Tombstone expects more next week.” Megawatt finished, dropping the vial back into the thug’s waiting hands. Peter dropped like a weight from the ceiling, slamming like a load of bricks onto one of the eighteen wheelers, crumpling its shipping container on impact.
“Guess again, super goons.” Two weblines trailed from Peter’s hands to the far reaches of the ceiling. His costume swelled, pulling his muscles with it, guiding him into place.
“There won’t be a next week for you.”“Spider-Man!” Speed Demon was moving before the rest had a chance to react, a red blur firing himself over crates and debris and bowling over every lackey in his path, but it was too late. Peter
pulled and the fire nozzles above were wrenched free, sprawing gouts of water to the floor below. Speed Demon screamed as he lost his footing on the water-slick ground and hydroplaned, careening into a score of thugs.
“You.” Megawatt was next, gathering a ball of lightning in his hand, lines of power coalescing into one form. At once, they arced free, conducting from each water droplet to its neighbors.
“Slow your roll, Megawatt,” Peter leaped into the air, firing a webline,
“or else all your boys are in for a shock.”“Oliver! Take him!” Megawatt turned on his heel as the electricity died in his palm. Kangaroo stepped forward and Megawatt darted past. Making for the Fire Suppression Control, doubtlessly.
“Already squashed you once, Spydah.” Kangaroo crouched, legs as thick around as Peter’s chest coiling for a leap. Peter dropped from his line at the last second of Kangaroo’s spring. The other man rocketed forward and above Peter, kicking at the empty air, before the missile of his body collided with the steel storage structures. Weakened metal folded around Kangaroo’s body, crumpled, and collapsed, sending out sprays of barrels and cracked crates.
“Where’s the formula!?” Peter had tagged a goon with a strand of his web before the thought had crossed his mind, costumed glove snapping to the back of his target and reeling him in. The thugs were in disarray, running among the debris, dragging their fellows out from beneath the ruined mass of the shelving unit. It felt
good.
“I don’t -- I don’t know! Please!” The goon kicked, whiteknuckled around the webline that dragged him up by his chest.
“You don’t?” Peter’s hand opened before he could think, willing the fabric of his costume to wrench his fingers apart. The webline dropped and the man screamed, plummeting below. Peter sucked in a breath and tapped his wrist again, grabbing the man out of the air.
“Please!” He groveled, twisting in the open air. “Crushed! Under the boxes! Please!”
Peter shook his head.
Why did I…? Then, another sound, over the din of rushing water over concrete.
Speed Demon.
“Put him down before I put you down, asshole!” Speed Demon visibly vibrated on the spot. The water collecting at his feet shook as one, like Speed Demon was a wave machine. His legs cracked and he was off, one leg pushing him off the ground and into the sky. Each kick ripped through the air as fast as lightning, each strong enough to bound from one group of water droplets to the next. Running on rain.
No formula. Peter stuck the man’s webline to the ceiling and pivoted. He slung a web, swinging off at an angle, and fired back at Speed Demon but the man cut his globules of webbing from the air, destroying them with vibrating fists.
No Carradine. Peter swung up to the ceiling, muscles guided by his costume, inseparable from his skin. Peter’s fists came up in balls, carving stone hunks out of the ceiling and heaving them at Speed Demon. The speedster sidestepped them, pinging through the air like a pinball.
But I do have Michael Morbius. Peter could feel the costume around his neck and his wrists, every inch of fiber beating with the thumps of his heart. Kangaroo was roused by now, stumbling from the ruins, shirt in tatters. Speed Demon still launched through the air like a drunken tiger, making awkward lunges in step with each gout of water.
And any minute Megawatt will make it three on one again. Peter needed his exit. He swung and released. Fabric across his chest shifted and pulled, adjusting the angle of his chest and avoiding the edge of Speed Demon’s fist as he bounced past. Kangaroo was ready for another jump but Peter hit the trucks first, rolling across the caved in shipping container and leaping past it into the light that spilled in beyond.
The city air hit him all at once, choking garbage and smog mixed with a breeze carried in from Central Park. He heard the booms of Kangaroo’s kicks behind him, echoing through the structure and out into the road. Peter had emerged from an office building, cluttered into the same plaza as the Hospital. He swung out and up, dragging himself into the sky. He spared a glace backwards as Speed Demon rushed out, soaked to the bone, eyes darting all over for Spider-Man, but Peter was beyond their reach now, already a block away.
Peter’s mind raced, and his costume guided his hand, sending him running over buildings and flinging himself between rooftops. So much of Connors research,
stolen. Brought to
Tombstone. Connors’ work. Gwen’s work. Peter’s work.
Enforcers can wait. His costume pushed him harder with every footstep, sending him exploding ahead.
I'm coming for you, Morbius. I’m coming.
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