Chapter Text
Chapter 9
Dex POV
Stumbling back into his apartment, Special Agent Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter closed his door behind himself and let out a deep breath as he ran a hand through his neat hair, internally warring back and forth with himself over what had just happened. He wasn't ashamed. He wasn't regretful. In fact, he didn't really feel anything right now, but that was exactly what had him worried.
Ben knew that his mind worked differently than other people. He was aware that he was far from what society would typically call acceptable, that he would never be fully trusted by people, but it would be a lie to suggest that he really knew or cared about why that was. It wasn't as though he reallytriedto hurt people, but nor did he understand why he shouldn't. After all, he had the ability. He had the mentality, the skill, the strength. So why shouldn't he do it? Because some people he didn't really care about wanted him to conform to their standards?
That was the difficult part for Dex. He wasn't out to please anyone… but nor did he want to be alone, shunned and abandoned. He was desperate for the approval that his parents had never properly given him. And what he'd done to his old baseball coach for pulling him from a game despite his perfect pitching? If anyone asked, Dex would say that he still had nightmares about it, though he couldn't deny to himself that they were actually pleasant dreams.
His therapist had been the first one to ever really accept Dex for who he was, maybe the first person he'd ever managed to learn to care about. In fact, he'd cared about her so much that when he found out she was dying, he threatened to kill her for trying to leave him. In the end, he'd managed to rein in his anger and restrain himself, but after she died, he'd needed to quickly find someone else to guide his actions and ensure that he was being a "good" person.
Fortunately, he soon found one in a young woman named Julie Barnes, his supervisor at his first job, working for the suicide support hotline. There, he'd realized how good a person she was and started discreetly following her around in her daily life, outside the office. He took her same jogging route every morning along FDR Drive, running a short distance behind her, and watched as she always gave money to the homeless along the side of the path whenever she stopped. He followed her after work and watched where she liked to eat every day, learning her schedule and how she greeted the people at each restaurant.
Dex tried to imitate her behavior with all of these people as he watched Julie be such a kind, generous soul, though he never felt anything from it. It was all about appearances. If anyone had noticed this behavior from him, they might have considered it stalking, but Dex felt that that was a derogatory term for this situation. After all, he knew where to draw the line, never intruding on Julie's private life. He didn't want her to see him or speak to him, he just wanted to be like her.
However, about three years ago, his luck had run out. Julie had been receiving a good hand in her life after some hard times. She'd left her suicide hotline job after working there for three years to pursue her dream of dancing, but had ended up needing to leave her ballet dreams behind after she tore her ACL a second time (all facts that Dex had just picked up from being in her vicinity, it wasn't like he wastryingto overhear these things).
Fortunately for her, she'd soon after been reached out to about a new job over the phone, though Dex hadn't heard exactly what it was, and it seemed to go well for several months. However, Dex became frustrated as he continually tried and failed to determine exactly what Julie's new jobwas, as he never saw her go into any office or fill out any paperwork or anything, and apparently his desire to figure this mystery out made him sloppy, because three years ago, Julie had finally ended up approaching him. She caught him off guard one day during their morning jog and asked him his name in a friendly way, so friendly that Dex had been forced to answer her honestly despite his feeling of being cornered.
From there… one thing led to another and now they were married. Honestly, Dex still wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. Despite the obsession he'd had for Julie for years, Dex had never possessed feelings of romantic attraction to her. In fact, he wasn't even sure if he was physically capable of feeling such a specific emotion, but he was sure that he certainly cared about her, and so when she'd proposed to him after only a year of dating, he had accepted her with hardly any hesitation.
In his eyes, all it would really do is get him closer to the person he looked up to above all others. And it had certainly done that. These days, Dex asked Julie about almost all of his moral decisions without fear, and Julie encouraged him to. She advised Dex on how to do the right thing when he didn't know what the right thingwas. Other than those conversations, however, their marriage was unlike most others. They both worked a lot and didn't spend much time together at home. In fact, two years later, Dex still didn't even know who Julie worked for. Still, Dex knew that he could always trust Julie to have the answers he needed for the difficult choices in his life, and that was why he was here now.
Earlier this evening, back before the sun had set, he'd done something… out of the norm. It had felt good, just as Fisk had promised him it would, but it was still strange and Dex thought that it was the kind of thing he should ask Julie about, especially with theotherrequest Fisk had made after the mayoral debate had been canceled.
Once he'd collected himself, Dex opened his eyes and looked around the apartment before calling out, "Julie? Are you here?"
A second later, Dex's beautiful wife walked out of their bedroom and into the kitchen with Dex to ask, "Dex? What are you doing home?"
"I needed to speak with you," Dex answered in an urgent tone, reaching out to take Julie's hands in his own.
Looking concerned, Julie nodded at him and asked, "All right. What is it?"
Pulling her over to the kitchen table and sitting both of them down on plastic seats, Dex looked down at the ground and questioned, "Did you hear about the debate earlier this afternoon? How one of the candidates was killed?"
Leaning forward and placing one hand on her husband's cheek, Julie said comfortingly, "Yes, I did. And you were there? That must've been so hard for you."
Shaking his head, Dex looked Julie in the eyes and responded, "No, I'm fine.Betterthan fine, actually. I wasn't near the guy who got hit... But Iwasthe guy who hit him."
There was a short silence following this statement, and then Julie asked, "You-Youkilled Candidate Bush?"
Nodding again, Dex continued, "Mr. Fisk asked me to. He said it would make me feel better."
Julie was silent for a moment, then asked, "And did it?"
Answering honestly, Dex said, "Yeah. Yeah, it did."
"Then whatever is the matter?" Julie asked him with an amused smile.
Smiling back at her and carefully taking her hand, relieved that he hadn't done anything wrong in Julie's eyes, Dex answered, "Nothing. Everything's fine. Except… Well…"
"What is it?" Julie prompted him.
Sighing, Dex looked back at his wife's face and explained, "Well, Fisk has asked me if I want to do a bitmore."
"And why are you hesitating?" Julie asked, giving him an amused little smirk. "It seems to me that Mr. Fisk is trying to do a good thing, both for the city and foryou. Clearly, Mr. Fisk has noticed that you're stressed out, overworked. So if he's giving you an opportunity to stretch your legs and get back to your best, you should take it. You've earned it, honey."
Smiling to himself and nodding in agreement, Dex responded, "You always know just what to say to make my day better."
"That's what I'm here for," Julie told him with a wink.
Taking her hand again and giving it a squeeze, Dex told Julie, "He said if I was in, I needed to send him my measurements so he can get me a new work suit. Do you know where the measuring tape is?"
"There's one in the bedroom, in one of the drawers, I think," Julie at once answered.
Nodding in acceptance, Dex gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek before standing up and walking into the bedroom to take his measurements, a wide smile on his face, now confident in his choice.
Third Person POV
Once Dex was gone, however, Julie watched him close the door behind himself before she quickly pulled out her phone and called her boss at work. Her phone rang just a couple times before someone picked up and a deep voice asked, "Hello?"
"He's in, Mr. Fisk," Julie assured the man on the other end of the line.
"Ah, perfect,"the man responded, sounding pleased. "Then you've done your job well. Expect a bonus on your next paycheck."
Trying to hold back the tears in her eyes and holding a hand over her mouth, Julie barely dared to hope as she asked, "Wait! Instead… Can I see my sister? Just… see her?"
There was a brief silence, then the man responded, "That's not my decision to make, Mrs. Poindexter. But my associates keep their word, just as I do. Just keep doing as you're told, and you will see your sister by this time next month. Do not, and… Well, my associates aren't nearly as patient as I am."
Gulping in worry, Julie nodded her head and quietly responded, "I understand."
"Good. Now, wipe your tears before your husband comes back. If you doanythingto upset him and risk damaging my product, that would be… unfortunate."
At that, the man hung up the phone and Julie immediately wiped the tears from her face just as Dex walked back into the room and held up one of his shirts for her as he chuckled, "Yeah, I don't even know how to measure all this. Maybe I should just tell them I'm an 'adult slim' size." He then looked up at Julie and seemed to recognize her distress, as he then asked in concern, "Hey, are you okay?"
Giving him a fake smile, Julie lied, "Everything is fine."
Line Break
At that same moment, a group of a dozen men, all dressed similarly in dark clothing and matching leather jackets, were walking out of a bar in the Bowery, all of them laughing at a joke they'd just shared together. However, their laughter was cut short quite abruptly when they suddenly heard a voice above them ask accusingly, "You boys having a party? And you didn't invite me?"
Their grins falling from their faces, the men all looked up towards the source of the voice and saw the silhouette of a hooded figure crouched down on the railing of the above fire escape, staring down at them through a mask with barely-discernible, dark and empty eyes.
Quickly recognizing her despite the new look, the men all began to take steps backwards, grasping at one another's arms in warning, but unable to say anything out loud in their fear. Finally, they broke free of their stupor as they all turned around at once to run towards their vehicles, three identical black SUVs, and hopped into the cars to drive away with hopes of escaping the famous heroine.
In the lead car, the man in the passenger seat turned to look behind them, his head hanging out his window as he tried to determine if Spider-Woman was following them, and heard one of his friends exclaim, "How did she find us? We've been laying low!"
Thankfully not seeing Spider-Woman coming after them, the criminal with his head out the window yelled back, "Hey, calm down, will ya? It's just Spider-Woman. It's nothim.Herwe can outrun. In fact, I think she's already gone."
Unfortunately, he had spoken just barely too soon, as magenta-colored glowing feet suddenly appeared on top of the car with barely a sound, though the roof of the vehicle slightly fell inwards under the weight of the man who'd just landed on top of it, and the next thing the man knew, his head was grabbed by a large, metal-coated hand that pulled him sideways so that he hit her head on the frame of the car and instantly fell unconscious.
The other three men who were still conscious looked at their friend in shock, but didn't have much time to process what had hit him before another clawed and gauntleted hand suddenly punched through the ceiling above their heads and swiftly grabbed one of the two criminals in the back seats and pulled him straight out of the car with a scream of terror.
Having a good idea of who they were now being attacked by, the driver began to sweat as he focused his eyes on the road and cursed, "Of course. The only personworsethan Spider-Woman. Get him off of us!"
Hearing that order, the last remaining non-occupied man in the vehicle reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol before aiming it straight upwards and firing four shots through the roof of the car, trying to hit the person on top of them.
However, he quickly discovered that the figure had already moved from the roof, as the car lurched as a pair of hands grabbed onto the side of the rooftop hard enough to crush the metal, then the figure above them used that new leverage to swing down off the roof and blast his way in through the side of the car, a blast of energy from his feet causing the window to explode inwards ahead of him.
When the glass blew in towards him, the man with the gun tried to cover his face with his hands to protect it, but it wasn't enough to stop the feet that next crashed into his chest and knocked him backwards so that he hit his head and fell unconscious, and then the Prowler landed in a crouch on top of his seat and narrowed the white slits that posed as his eyes as he looked at the driver of the vehicle last.
Looking back and seeing him, the driver let out a yell of panic and tried to reach for his own gun, not caring that he was getting distracted from the road, but before he could draw the weapon, his wrist was grabbed by one super-strong hand to stop him, and as he struggled against his grip helplessly, the Prowler's other hand came up to strike the driver in the face, which both knocked him out and also knocked the driver's door off its hinges and caused them both to fall out of the vehicle.
Before they could hit the ground, the Prowler twisted himself around in midair and launched a net made of magenta light to stick the driver to the wall of a building as they passed it, then fired a burst of energy that launched him back towards the car, which he then hurriedly pushed off to the side of the street to stop it, not caring that it was stopped only because it crashed into a metal post off the side of the road.
As the car he was holding onto crashed to a halt, Prowler didn't even freeze for a second, instead just fluidly continuing his movement by planting his feet against the side of the first car and launching himself backwards so that he flew through the window of the second car as it was passing, getting himself to his next target within a second after eliminating the first.
He landed lying on his back on the legs of the two criminals sitting in the backseat of this second car, which naturally could be expected to have scared them out of their wits even if it had been someone other than the Prowler coming into the vehicle unannounced. As it was, the criminals were immensely surprised, and the Prowler used that moment of shock to his advantage as he punched one of them in the face before he even sat up, knocking his head back into his headrest as his nose began to bleed from the impact.
With the available space being much too little for the use of guns, the other criminals in the vehicle attempted to fight Prowler hand-to-hand, but they were severely outclassed. As the other man in the back of the car with him tried to grab Prowler, the feared vigilante sat up first and grabbed the man by the throat, pushing him forcefully backwards in his seat as he struggled to breathe.
Next, the man in the passenger seat tried to turn around and help his comrades, but Prowler quickly thrust out one of his feet and kicked the man's seat from behind so hard that its locking mechanism that held it in place broke, causing the chair to fly forward and make the man fall forward and hit his head on the console so hard that he started to bleed from the head and immediately fell unconscious.
Finally, the driver seemed to realize that he was the last man standing and had no chance in a direct fight with the Prowler, as he tried to jerk the wheel hard in one direction, apparently more willing to let the car crash than go down without a fight.
Prowler responded to this action quickly, however, and released the man whose throat he was holding before using his shoes to launch himself backwards and out of the window in the vehicle's trunk lid while also reaching down and firing a spike-ended line from the underside of his wrist, which flew all the way through the car and pierced through the windshield before impaling itself into the road in front of them. Then, as Prowler tugged hard on the grappling line, it tightened powerfully so that when the SUV crashed into it, it lurched to a very abrupt complete stop, one that would've sent all of the criminals inside flying out the windshield at sixty miles per hour if they hadn't been wearing their seatbelts.
Finally, Prowler released his grappling line from his gauntlet as he landed on the hood of the third and final car, and with this one, he wasted no time on trivialities. Without hesitation, Prowler thrust his hand straight through the windshield of the vehicle as he climbed up it, grabbing the steering wheel and forcefully tearing it straight out of the vehicle, ripping it from the hands of the vehicle's driver, then used his claws to cling to the now out-of-control vehicle as he climbed over it, then dropped down by one of the back wheels and used his claws to shred one of the tires, causing the car to swerve and then flip over onto its side, dragging itself loudly to a stop with friction on the road in a shower of sparks.
When the car finally stopped and fell onto its top, there was silence for a moment, and then the driver of the car finally managed to pull himself free from the wreck and started to crawl away from the vehicle, gasping and coughing after his ordeal. He managed to crawl about twenty feet away without getting stopped by the Prowler, then looked back behind himself and saw why. Looking beneath the car through the windows, the driver could see movement. It seemed like the Prowler was trying to free the rest of the vehicle's passengers who were still trapped.
However, suddenly seeing the car's fuel cap right in front of him, the driver had the idea to put an end to this all right now and avenge his fallen friends. And so, not caring about his friends who were still in the car with the Prowler, the driver coughed as he pulled himself into a sitting position and pulled out his pistol, then took careful aim and fired a single bullet at the car's fuel line. He must've done exactly as intended and struck the tank, because the entire car instantly exploded in a burst of flames that lit up the entire street, and the driver laid his head back and smiled to himself as he let out a sigh of satisfaction. Finally, he had killed the Prowler.
Unfortunately, his moment of pride wouldn't last very long, as a moment later, the burning wreckage of the car began to shift, making the driver look down at it questioningly, but then his eyes widened at what he saw. Stepping fearlessly straight out of the fire, the arms of his jacket covered in flames and his magenta eyes burning even brighter than all of it, the Prowler walked right towards the driver with the unconscious but seemingly still alive forms of his three friends draped over each of his shoulders and held by one of his hands.
His expression full of both terror and outrage, the driver yelled out, "No! It isn't fair! How can you possibly be alive? That explosion should've killed you!"
"Trust me, in my experience, I'm really hard to kill,"the Prowler responded as he walked forward and dropped the man's friends to the ground before kneeling down by the man and hitting him in the face so that he fell unconscious.
Miles POV
After dealing with all the criminals present here, Miles stood back up and pressed a button on his wrist, and a couple seconds later, a large bird-shaped UAV drone came hovering down from above and began to shoot a jet of fire-extinguishing foam at the flaming car behind him. Meanwhile, he heard Gwen jump down from above to land behind him before complimenting, "Always a pleasure watching you work. You've been training?"
Honestly, Miles didn't remember the last time he hadn't been either training or working, especially putting himself in near-death situations, but he didn't want to talk about that now. And so, ignoring Gwen's question, Miles turned to look at her over his shoulder and said, "The man we're after will be the only one still conscious after this attack. Find him."
"On it," Gwen responded, then turned and leapt away to go find who they were after.
When she was gone, Miles activated his communicator and told Phin, "She didn't even ask me to say 'please', Mason. Tell me you've found something."
Sighing back at him, Phin responded, "No, Miles, I have not found evidence that your girlfriend is sick just because she isn't telling jokes."
Staring after Gwen, Miles said, "What about brain tumors? IknewI should've given her a full-body internal scan when she came to Seraph. Prepare the nanite gas chamber for when we get back, and also the electron scanner. In fact, maybe we should do a full open surgery, just to be-"
"Miles, Miles,"Phin abruptly cut him off in a calming tone, then took a deep breath and asked, "Are you sure she's not just… trying to be more like you? Maybe with the black costume and working with you again, she's trying to… I don't know, impress you or something?"
"No,"Miles assured her confidently. "I know Gwen. She would never be something she didn't want to be just to please someone else."
"Not even when she has nothing else to lose?"Phin questioned.
Having no answer for that, it was fortunate for Miles that Gwen chose that moment to return from her task, holding one of the men they'd taken down by the back of his jacket as she swung through the air back towards Miles. When she touched down on the ground, dropping the man in her hands unceremoniously to his knees in front of Miles, Miles quickly reached down and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt before lifting him up into the air and off his feet, then asked, "Did you miss me?"
There was a brief silence, and then the tension between them broke as the man Miles was holding grinned and started to laugh. Also smiling beneath his mask, Miles set the man down on his feet and reached out to shake his hand as he said, "Been a long time, Danny."
The man known as "Danny" accepted his hand and firmly shook it before noting, "Your grip feels stronger than it did eight months ago, my friend."
"And you haven't even felt the full strength of this gauntlet yet,"Miles shot back good-naturedly.
"And yet I'll always be the stronger one," Danny retorted.
"We'll see,"Miles said, accepting the challenge. Then, looking past Danny and seeing Gwen looking back and forth between him and his friend with a clear expression of confusion, he remembered that he had to introduce them and said, "Ah, Spider-Woman? This is Daniel Rand, my friend I was talking about who knows a few things about magic. Danny, this is-"
"Spider-Woman, I'm guessing?" Danny said, giving Gwen a smirk that still managed to be charming despite the blood on his face and extending a hand to take her own and raise it to his lips to give it a kiss, then told her, "Pleasure to meet you."
Looking into Danny's face as this was happening, Gwen asked him, "Rand? As in the Rand Corporation?"
"I'm the heir to the company," Danny told her proudly.
Not liking how Danny was talking himself up to Gwen, Miles added, "I found out that his company was funding criminal endeavors a few months back and went to Danny's office to confront him. Turns out his CFO was behind it without Danny being aware. When we found out, Danny offered his help in dealing with the rogue elements in his company."
Her eyes widening in surprise, Gwen asked, "Youneeded help?"
Scowling beneath his mask, Miles corrected, "I didn'tneedit. He insisted."
"And you let him bully you into agreeing?" Gwen teased while Danny just grinned at Miles, clearly enjoying this.
Just then noticing that Danny still hadn't released Gwen's hand, Miles instinctively pushed Danny back away from her, forcing them to separate and glaring at Danny for not backing him up as he explained, "He didn't help me from a business standpoint. Like us, Danny's more than he appears. That's the only reason we're here in the first place. So, Danny. I have questions, and you have the answers."
His expression quickly becoming more serious, Danny reached up and pulled off the beanie that covered the top of his head, letting his blond hair fall free as he complained, "Even if I do, I'm not sure why I should tell you. You haven't exactly done me a favor here tonight. Do you know how long it took me to climb up the ranks of the Concrete Dragons gang?"
"I thought dealing with dragons was your specialty,"Miles teased. "But sorry, I don't really care about these low-level, out-of-work criminals. I don't have time for them right now, or your undercover work with them. As you know, I go to the root of the problem, take out the big players, and I'm looking for someone. A woman, wears red and a devil mask. Main weapons are sais. And might have some kind of mystical powers. She blew both me and Spider-Woman back with a blast of force from her mouth, but never made a sound."
His eyes growing wide in an obvious sign of recognition, Danny said, "Oh. If that was who I'm thinking it was, you both are lucky to be alive."
"We nearly weren't," Gwen said, leaning in on the conversation in interest. "Who was it?"
"Her name is Elektra Natchios, and she's the most deadly known assassin on the planet," Danny informed them. "She used to be part of a sect of ninjas known as the Hand, an organization that branched from my own teachers. That attack she used on you sounds like what we call a Silent Scream, a chi-based attack with which one can sometimes cause instant deafness or even death."
"Chi?" Gwen asked.
Holding up his hand in demonstration, Danny clenched it into a fist and focused for a second before his hand started to glow, wreathed in bright yellow flames.
"Yes, chi," Danny repeated as Gwen looked at his hand in astonishment. Having already seen this trick himself, Miles wasn't quite so impressed, and even a bit annoyed that Danny was wasting time with showing his stupid glow-hand to Gwen. "It is a source of energy that can be found within people, and yes, in some ways it is similar to magic. I learned the ancient ways of chi several years ago myself, and became a living weapon. Elektra Natchios and several others, including myself, are trained in the Silent Scream. But while the Scream is dangerous, I am the only one to holdthis, the most dangerous power and the greatest responsibility granted by chi, the Iron Fist. With it, each of my bare hands carry power behind them that is at least ten times greater than Miles' gauntlets."
"I don't know abouttentimes-"Miles began to say, but then Danny cut him off as he looked at him and firmly said, "Ido.At leastten times." He then pulled off his shirt, showing them both his cut torso and the large black tattoo of a dragon across his chest as he continued, "The Iron Fist grants me the power of the mighty Shou-Lao, the Great Dragon, after I killed him with my bare hands and then thrust those same hands into his molten heart. Surely you remember, Miles, that it was this gift that allowed me to defeat you the first time we met?"
"You didn't beat me,"Miles argued, annoyed at Danny for getting them this far off topic and at himself for going along with it anyway. "You used your Fist thing to throw a chair at me and push me out your office window, but it didn't even knock me out."
"I could've done it much harder if I'd wanted to," Danny informed him seriously. "I could've killed you, body armor and all."
Miles scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest in disbelief, though he said nothing further as he already knew that Danny would just continue to disagree with him. Gwen stepped forward and reached out to touch Danny's bare chest, tracing her finger along his dragon tattoo in intrigue as she asked him, "Did you say you fought a dragon? Like… a real dragon, or one of those fake ones? I hate the fake ones."
Once again giving Gwen his charming billionaire's smile, Danny told her, "A real dragon. I could tell you some more about him sometime, if you want. Are you free next weekend?"
Before Gwen could answer, Miles spoke over her and responded, "She'll be busy. You know, saving the city and whatnot, as usual. And you'll probably be… down here with some low-level unemployed thugs, also as usual. Now, we're not done here. First things first. Gwen, stop touching Danny's chest. Danny, put your shirt back on."
Miles waited for the both of them to obey his orders, despite their intractable expressions as they both did so. This was exactly why Miles hadn't wanted to bring Gwen along for his visit to Danny. He led a very different life than they did, dealing mostly with street-level crime while Miles and Gwen extended their reach across the entire city if not the world, but he liked to talk about his own experiences as if he was on the same level as them. Not that Miles couldn't recognize Danny's abilities and knowledge as being potentially useful (case in point), but he tended to get distracted talking about his own problems, which Miles considered beneath him, yet Gwen was the kind of person to just go along with it.
Yet Phin had insisted that Miles should bring Gwen along, which was how he now found himself sitting helplessly on the sidelines as Danny tried to embarrass him. But despite his best efforts, Miles refused to allow him to succeed.
Once Gwen and Danny had finally once again composed themselves, Miles asked, "Okay, Danny. You said that Ms. Natchios was part of a group of ninjas called the Hand. Last time we encountered her, she was working with several ninjas. I captured some yesterday morning, but they've been uncooperative in questioning so far. Do you know where this group might have a base of operations in New York?"
Looking confused as he heard that, Danny answered, "No, that's not possible. You see, my masters in K'un-Lun have been around for centuries and watched the Hand since their formation. But over a decade ago, they fell silent. Investigation told us that the Hand had been completely wiped out. Elektra is the only survivor we've ever confirmed from their extermination."
Appalled to hear this and wondering what could've possibly wiped out an entire clan of people trained like Daredevil, Miles narrowed his eyes at the news while Gwen tilted her head in interest and asked, "Any idea who did it? Known enemies?"
"We suspected their rival group, the Chaste, at first, but when we went to confront them, we found that they too were all dead," Danny responded, his expression hard as stone. "My masters suspect to this day that both groups were wiped out by the same third party, but haven't been able to figure out who that third party was."
"From what we've seen, Daredevil seems like she was the strongest of them. Maybe she did it herself," Gwen suggested.
Frowning at the unfamiliar term, Danny asked, "'Daredevil'?"
"It's the stupid nickname she came up with for Ms. Natchios,"Miles explained, then ignored the way that Gwen glared at him as he then asked, "Danny, your masters knew about Elektra? Do they have any idea where she is right now?"
"They don't even yet know that she came to New York," Danny told him. "I'll have to share that information with them myself after we part ways here. But Spider-Woman's right, she's better than any other known ninja in history. She knows how to be a ghost."
His hopes falling as he heard that, Miles nevertheless tried to curb his disappointment as he said, "... I see. Well, we should be going, but give me a call if you hear anything else. Come on, Spider-Woman."
With that, Miles turned to leave without any further words of farewell, blasting up into the air and hearing Gwen follow after him a few seconds later on her web lines, the two of them fading into the distance as they left Danny behind.
Line Break
Gwen POV
Gwen and Miles got back to Seraph Tech HQ just in time, as the sun was starting to rise in on the horizon on the other side of the building when they came in through Miles' window entrance in his office. Miles had insisted that Gwen would only be able to join him on nighttime missions if she wanted to join him at all, as he absolutely refused to let them be seen together. And yes, that was exactly how he had phrased it when telling Gwen as much, which hadn't exactly been encouraging for Gwen's hopes that they might be getting closer once again.
Of course, Gwen understood that he must be getting even more controlling (if such a thing was even possible) after what he'd told her had happened last night at the mayoral debate and how the Prowler had once again been framed for a public attack while trying to help defuse it, but she was still becoming frustrated at her lack of progress.
After all, despite her hopes from yesterday at the prison, Miles had not shown any particular signs of increased pride or affection towards Gwen after she told him what she'd learned about the guy who was apparentlynotMatt Murdock. (In fact, he had barely even seemed to care, telling her that they had bigger problems to deal with at the moment than a blind man possibly being out of the prison they'd thought he had spent the last three years in.) Even tonight, while reminding Gwen of when she and Miles had used to go out and do missions most nights, had not seemed to have the same nostalgic effect on Miles.
Because of that, she'd been forced to try taking a more… active role in making Miles want her back, with a little help from the one part of yesterday that Gwen still had not bothered to tell Miles about.I mean, what would be the point?Gwen asked herself. Miles didn't need to know about her symbiote getting in her head and talking to her subconsciously. Even if shedidtell him, Gwen doubted he would really care anyway. He didn't seem to care about pretty much anything that really mattered to Gwen anymore.
And that was another reason for Gwen withholding the information, that she was a bit angry at Miles at the moment. After all, he'd confessed to her yesterday about injecting some weird science thingy into her nervous system and using it to watch her (without her knowledge or permission) for months. And sure, when Gwen had originally heard it, she'd managed to feel more flattered than angry, happy to hear that Miles had been secretly watching out for her despite the borderline-creepy way he'd gone about doing it, but now Gwen was using it as a mental justifier for keeping Venom a secret, at least for the time being. And perhaps it was better that way, because Venom was incredibly helpful to Gwen, not just in combat situations, but also in figuring out ways to get Miles' attention, and Gwen didn't know how her ex-boyfriend would feel knowing that he was being ganged up on.
As an example of Venom's helpfulness, just earlier tonight when Miles had slapped her hand away from Danny's, Venom had informed Gwen that it was because he was jealous. Whether that was true or not, Gwen didn't know, but a minute later when Danny removed his shirt, Venom urged her,Touch it.Hesitant though she was as she was usually more reserved, Gwen had nevertheless needed no further prompting. After all, she was certainly not blind to Danny's appealing features. Between his charisma and his body structure, Danny Rand was easily one of the most alluring people Gwen had ever met, and Venom apparently thought that it would be a good idea for them to let Miles know it.
It remained to be seen if it had worked, but as Gwen followed Miles into his office, she was surprised when Miles walked up to his desk after their arrival and leaned against it with his head bowed, then abruptly reached over and swept everything off of the desk with a yell of anger that nearly made Gwen step back in worry, but Venom stopped her with a mental reminder that they were still safe.
Phin, on the other hand, seemed to have expected a reaction like this from Miles, as she barely looked up from her computer when she heard all of Miles' things hit the floor and simply said, "Computer, bag."
Immediately, a panel opened in the ceiling above them and released a punching bag on a chain into the room, which settled into place a couple feet behind Miles. Gwen assumed that the punching bag was meant to be some sort of stress reliever for Miles, but from the way he acted towards it, Gwen felt that he must have quite a bit of pent-up stress, as Miles spun around the instant that the bag lowered to its correct height and punched the bag straight-on with one of his gauntlets, hitting it so hard that the chain holding it shattered and the bag split at every seam, kicking up a large cloud of sand as it hit the floor.
Once again, Gwen was shocked by this behavior whereas Phin just sighed in exasperation and said, "Miles, we've talked about you using your powers on the training equipment."
Miles' mask unfolded from his face to show him huffing and glaring at the destroyed punching bag with an almost unhinged expression on his face. Fortunately, a look over at Gwen then caused Miles' eyes to fall in embarrassment before he turned away and began to take off his jacket and gauntlets as he told her, "Go home, Spider-Woman. Tonight was a bust. I'll call you when I have something."
"Wedohave something," Gwen reminded him. "We got Daredevil's name! Can't we use that to look for her?"
Sighing as he pulled off the vambraces that turned into his gauntlets, Miles said, "Mason, have Guardian run a quick scan of the city for 'Elektra Natchios'."
Phin immediately turned to put the name into her computer, but reported a moment later, "Uh… Sorry, Miles. I can't find that name in my system."
"You see?" Miles asked Gwen. "These people are professionals. If they weren't, don't you think I would've already caught them? I have eyes in every hidden corner of this city. If they can't find a woman in a devil suit, what good will her name be? She knows I'm watching, and she knows how to hide."
Apparently deciding that the matter was now settled, Miles then turned away from Gwen and walked into the middle of the office and spoke to the room, "Computer, salmon ladder." Immediately, sections of the floor in front of Miles folded away and a large metal frame with several rungs but only one loose bar rose up from beneath the floor, a system Gwen noted was very similar to the moving panels in the Village, though these seemed to require manual command.
Once the salmon ladder had risen to fill the open space in the ground, Gwen watched Miles with great interest as he pulled off his shirt, revealing his lean torso that appeared quite similar to Danny's, and jumped up onto the first bar of the salmon ladder and began doing explosive pull-ups while raising the bar from one rung to the next on the metal frame, climbing up it. Once he reached the top, he then began to work his way back down, then back up again.
As Gwen watched Miles repeat this cycle again and again, unable to take her eyes off him for several minutes, she couldn't help but wonder if that was his intention, if he was deliberately or even subconsciously trying to get Gwen to admire his physique, especially after the stunt she had pulled with Danny earlier tonight, making her compare the two of them.It's working, Gwen was forced to admit in her mind, and she heard Venom hum in agreement back at her, clearly having heard her thoughts and not being able to disagree with her.
Honestly, Gwen wasn't entirely sure how she should feel about her sentient outfit having a similar appreciation for Miles as she did. Disregarding the fact that Gwen usually thought of Venom as a "him", she struggled to see exactly how and why Venom even seemed to care about them being with Miles. Could sentient sludge have feelings of its own, or did Venom simply reflect what he felt in Gwen's mind and body? And even more complicated, if Venomdidfeel his own attraction towards Miles, was Gwen supposed to feel jealous or possessive?
No, Venom's voice suddenly spoke up, nearly making Gwen jump again in surprise. Somehow she'd forgotten for a moment that Venom would be able to hear her internal debate.We are connected. One and the same. If one of us has Miles, we both do. It's not a competition. If it were, I think we both know who Miles would choose.
Gwen was silent for a moment, then muttered quietly to herself, "We're both thinking of me, right?"
No. I am clearly the better option, Venom disagreed.
Seeing as Venom didn't even have a form of his own without her, Gwen assumed that he was joking and snorted to herself in amusem*nt, but her expression quickly fell once again as Miles seemed to hear her and stopped climbing the salmon ladder for a moment to glare back at her over his shoulder and ask, "Something funny?"
Holding up her hands innocently, Gwen excused herself, "I didn't say anything!"
Miles continued to glare at her for a few more seconds, clearly not believing her claim, then shook his head and silently returned to his workout.
However, without thinking about it, Gwen then added in a contemplative tone, "Except that you've got a pretty cute butt there."
Hearing that, Miles once again stopped his workout and looked back at Gwen in confusion. Phin, who'd been watching both of them for the last couple minutes while her computer continued scanning the city, turned in her chair to also look at Gwen, raising an eyebrow at her. As for Gwen herself, she was shocked by the words that had just come out of her mouth as well, wondering where she'd gotten the courage to say something like that to Miles before she suddenly heard Venom's voice say in her mind,Confidence. Confidence is key.
Alarmed to come to the conclusion that Venom had somehow momentarily removed her impulse control, Gwen quickly thought back on the past few days to ensure that she hadn't done anything else quite so embarrassing.Oh, no.At work the other day, she had-
No. Nothing. Gwen hadn't done anything embarrassing, not even now. She was just more confident, that was all.
Relieved to know that she hadn't lost her mind and started dancing down the street or something, Gwen relaxed and simply smirked up at Miles before shamelessly turning around and walking back to grab Miles' desk chair and drag it over by Phin before sitting herself down in it, kicking up her feet on the desk, and continuing to watch the show Miles was putting on with her head turned sideways.
After this happened, Miles gave Phin a look of confusion as though silently asking for an explanation, but Phin just shrugged at him and Miles once again shook his head helplessly as he returned to his exercise.
Gwen watched him for another minute before she asked Phin, "How often does he do this?"
Tilting her head to look at Gwen, Phin responded, "The exercising? Every day. But every day, it's something different. Honestly, this is one of the better days. Sometimes, he gets weird with it. Yesterday morning, I came in and found him doing curl-ups on the ceiling with weights tied to his arms. It can be a little ridiculous."
Gwen nodded in understanding and commented, "Ridiculous, maybe, but it does leave him looking pretty hot."
"And hedoeshave a great butt," Phin acknowledged, agreeing with Gwen's earlier statement.
"I know, right?" Gwen returned. "It makes me sad that he added that long coat to his outfit. It ruins the view."
"You know I can hear you both, right?" Miles asked in a voice strained with exertion, not stopping his workout as he spoke.
"We know," both Gwen and Phin said back to him, their blatant lack of concern for the fact causing Miles to immediately stop asking questions.
Satisfied to have silenced Miles, Gwen leaned back in her chair and smiled to herself. She was enjoying this, being here with Miles and Phin. It reminded her of the old days, back when the three of them had been friends all in on the same secrets, the same mission of protecting the city. Of course, after they had separated, Gwen had found a close friend in Louise, but she had still missed these two. These days, Louise and May were pretty much all Gwen had left, and great as they were, Miles and Phin had once been like Gwen's family. The memories she'd shared with the two of them would always be among the best moments in her life.
But now you haveme, Venom's voice suddenly spoke up, once again startling Gwen. She would really have to get used to his interruptions.We're going to make all-new memories together that will make the other ones pale in comparison.
"That doesn't mean I'm going to forget the past," Gwen muttered to herself.
Venom was silent for a moment, then replied,No. Apparently not. Not yet, anyway.
Having apparently heard Gwen speaking to herself under her breath, Phin looked over and asked, "What was that?"
Quickly thinking up an excuse, Gwen said, "Uh, I… was just wondering how often Miles does this. I mean, he used to exercise quite a lot a year ago, but only once a day or so. What's his daily schedule like?"
Phin leaned back in her chair and sighed as she seemed to think about it, then replied, "He likes consistency, so it's usually about the same every day. He's exercising every morning when I come in, but I don't know when he starts. Then we do some work for the company together for a few hours, and he usually works out again after lunch. Then we run through a systems check for the rest of the day. You know, reading reports from all of our research and development departments and the Village, reviewing contracts, making calls, that sort of thing. Then, he'll exercise one more time for an hour or so before going out on patrol."
Gwen thought about this information for a moment before noting, "It sounds like he doesn't set aside much time for relaxing."
Phin scoffed and threw up her hand in exasperation as she said, "That'sexactlywhat I keep telling him. Sometimes I'll manage to convince him to use the CALLM Room, but that's about as good as it gets. He's gotta be, like, twenty-five percent caffeine at this point."
Ignoring Phin's joke, Gwen just frowned over at Miles as she processed that information. She remembered what she'd observed that day over a year ago, when she'd thought that Miles had looked tired. At the time, she'd just thought that it was exhaustion from keeping the city safe in her absence. Yet now, he looked fine, though he seemed to be regularly sleeping even less than back then. It made her wonder how long he'd been doing this, pushing himself so hard, and why.
However, she wouldn't get the chance to figure out those answers just yet, it seemed, as Phin's computer suddenly began beeping in warning, and Phin spun around in her chair to look at the alert before announcing, "Miles! Guardians don't have a visual on the perpetrator yet, but an event just started in Midtown South. Already half a dozen confirmed killed or injured."
Hearing that, Miles immediately leapt off of his pull-up bar, using his shoes to launch himself backwards through the room, and did a full backflip in the air before landing on his feet next to his desk, then began to quickly don the rest of his costume as he said, "That's got to be a supervillain."
"Which one? Octavius or Daredevil?" Gwen wondered aloud.
His mask forming over his face as the window opened behind him and he put on his gauntlets, clenching them into fists, Miles answered, "Doesn't matter. Whoever it is, they're putting lives at risk, and for that, I'm taking them down."
"You meanweare," Gwen corrected him, her own mask also rising up over her face. Miles looked at her for a second with a calculating gaze that Gwen didn't fully understand, then nodded and told her, "Follow my lead."
Gwen nodded back to him in response, then waited for Miles to jump out the open window behind himself before she followed after him. As they fell down towards the ground, however, Miles raised his arm and used his opposite hand to press a button on the back of his vambrace, and a moment later, the side of the building below them opened and out flew a small, birdlike jet that Gwen recognized as a Seraph Tech drone, which Miles then landed on top of in a three-point crouch before it could fully take off.
Falling from this height, Gwen had to shoot a web upwards to slow herself down before she landed on top of the drone as well, joining him, and then Miles warned her, "Hold on."
There wasn't much to hold onto, but Gwen understood him just the same and reflexively stuck her hand and feet to the surface of the jet as it rose up over the surrounding buildings and suddenly lurched forward as the thrusters kicked in, carrying them towards their target faster than either of them could travel normally.
Miles POV
Within a minute, Miles and Gwen were flying over Manhattan, and Gwen waited patiently until Miles told her, "We're over the target. Disengage,"before they both released their sticking powers, Gwen's biological mutations and Miles' anti-gravity shoes, to let themselves fall off the drone, then tucked their bodies into a downward-facing arrow shape to speed them on their way to the ground.
As they fell, Miles looked down and could see crowds of people on the street running from a man in some kind of dark blue costume with white detailing and a mask that covered the top of his head and all of his face except for his mouth.
Using his mask's zoom-in feature, Miles examined the man with a closer view and determined that he was heavily armed, but mostly with unconventional weapons that would pose no threat to him or Gwen.
The man was holding a pistol in his left hand as he stood over at least a dozen fallen bodies, all of which were dead, as Miles could see with his heat scanner. The man had an empty gun holster on his left thigh, which was clearly where the weapon he currently held had come from, and another holster was strapped diagonally across his chest so he could grab another gun with his right hand. He also had a number of small pouches around his waist, presumably for extra ammo, as well as one more gun, an Uzi, strapped onto his back.
However, the strange thing about him was that the man also carried a large number of throwing knives. Miles counted six of them sheathed around each of his wrists, another ten around his right thigh, one on the outside of each of his legs just above the ankles, and twelve more spaced between the pouches of his belt for a total of thirty-four knives.
Also seeing the man on the ground and not recognizing him, Gwen angled her descent over by Miles and yelled at him over the wind, "Well, it's not Daredevil, but it doesn't really look like Octavius either!"
"Maybe it's a new costume!"Miles responded with a clear tone of annoyance in his voice as he said it, not really believing what he'd said and rather being disappointed that they had come all the way out here for an unknown person. Still, he recognized that he had a job to do here, stopping a killer, and no time to waste in doing it.
And so, without further ado, Miles stretched out one of his gauntlets in the man's direction and pressed a button on the back that caused a compartment to pop open on the side of the gauntlet and release a small, purple dart, which then flew down directly towards the unknown man. However, the man somehow managed to notice the dart before it could hit him and looked up to see the incoming threat before he jumped backwards and allowed the dart to hit the ground and harmlessly bounce off the asphalt. Then, glaring up at them, the man lowered his gun to his side and instead pulled one of his throwing knives from his thigh.
Seeing that, Gwen laughed in derision at the man and sarcastically warned Miles, "Oh, no! Look out, Prowler! He has a small knife! Our only weakness!"
Similarly not impressed or intimidated, especially while they were still so far away from the man, far out of range even if Miles hadn't been wearing an earthquake-proof suit while Gwen had a self-healing one, Miles nevertheless simply told Gwen, "Yeah, yeah. Let's just wrap this up and get-"
However, Miles didn't manage to finish his sentence as he instead let out a yell of shock as his stomach abruptly exploded in pain, causing him to lose focus along with control of his descent, starting to flail in the air so that he barely remembered that he needed to start slowing himself down before he hit the ground. However, as Miles began trying to reorient himself so that his feet were facing downwards, the pain in his stomach grew even worse so that Miles growled at himself in agony as he tried to push through it, but despite his best efforts, was still unsure if he would manage to right himself before he crashed to the road as it was approaching him so quickly.
Luckily, at the last moment, Miles felt one of Gwen's webs shoot onto his back to help him straighten out, but surprisingly didn't feel them slow down at all, indicating that Gwen hadn't shot another web line to try to catch them both, though he did hear another gunshot ring out, which fortunately didn't seem to hit either him or Gwen as neither of them exclaimed in pain.
Still, as Gwen had chosen not to stop their fall, Miles decided that he would have to be the one to do it and used his new position to fire a burst of energy from his shoes which slowed him down just enough before landing, then quickly looked up and caught Gwen before she could fall on top of him and helped her stay low as he carried them both out of sight of the gunman so Miles could find out what had just injured him.
As they ducked around the corner of the building, Miles asked Gwen, "What good was grabbing me supposed to do? Why didn't you catch us with your webs when we were falling?"
"Idid," Gwen told him irritably. "My web line broke."
"Don't lie to me,"Miles growled at her. "That's impossible. Your webs are stronger than steel. They don't justbreak."
"No, they don't," Gwen agreed, though she did not refute her earlier claim, instead just stubbornly glaring at him, indicating that she didn't know what had happened but still believed it to be true.
Putting the thought aside for the time being, Miles reached down to clutch at his still-stinging stomach and was surprised when his hand grasped something hard there. Confused, Miles looked down to see what it was and his eyes widened in shock as he saw the handle of a knife poking out of his abdomen. The knife had been buried in his gut all the way up to the hilt and he was now leaking blood, which stained his shirt and his hand that had touched it.
Also looking over and noticing the weapon that had been impaled into Miles, Gwen's eyes also widened as she exclaimed, "Whoa, what the- Miles, where did-?"
"I don't know,"Miles answered honestly before Gwen could even finish asking her question. He recognized the knife as one belonging to their unknown gunman, but it couldn't possibly have hit Miles from where he was at the time he received this injury. The distance between them had simply been too far, and though Miles had seen the man draw one of his knives, he hadn't seen it thrown. Between the speed, accuracy, and strength needed for that… it was impossible. And yet…
Deciding to test a theory, Miles drew one of his own knives from within the inner pockets of his long overcoat and swiftly spun around the corner they were hiding behind and threw it at the gunman before ducking behind cover again. Though his aim was completely off as he hadn't been able to see his target before throwing, Miles' throw was instantly accompanied by a loud cracking sound followed by Miles raising a hand to quickly catch something that appeared in the blink of an eye in front of him. Once he'd caught it, Miles looked down into his clenched fist and saw that what he'd caught was a bullet, one which had come dangerously close to hitting either him or Gwen.
Laying his head back against the wall behind himself and cursing under his breath, Miles heard Gwen ask him, "What is it? What just happened?"
Showing Gwen the bullet in his hand, Miles told her, "Our gunman is more than he seems. He nearly shot us just now around the corner."
"How is that even possible?" Gwen asked.
"He ricocheted the bullet off my knife when I threw it,"Miles explained as he understood it, though he hadn't actually been able to see it happen. "He also threw his own knife at me a minute ago and hit me from impossibly far away. And that gunshot we heard right after? I'm guessing he shot your web line. He has some kind of superhuman aim."
"Another supervillain?" Gwen complained. "I thought you made them extinct!"
"Well, that makes two of us,"Miles agreed, then ordered, "Look, just get in close. We'll have to take some fire to do it, but hopefully he's mostly human at close range. If not, then we'll-"
Miles fully expected Gwen to run into danger as he was asking her to do (seeing as she always did), but was surprised when he hadn't even finished speaking before Gwen seemed to grow tired of hiding and leapt out while telling him, "Whatever. We've got this!"
Spider-Woman, wait!"Miles said while trying to reach out and hold her back, but Gwen just shrugged off his hand and began running towards the gunman.
As Miles had expected, Gwen immediately began taking fire from the gunman, and being unsure of the limits of Gwen's protective suit, Miles ran right after her. However, he could quickly tell that he wouldn't be able to reach her in time to protect her if needed and would instead only be getting a close-up look at a field test for Gwen's new costume, which he still had yet to really see in action.
However, he needn't have worried, not even about her suit's healing abilities, as Miles watched as numerous bullets crashed into Gwen and simply flattened against her costume, not even penetrating. Shocked to find himself facing a fully bulletproof opponent, the gunman began backing up nervously as he fired shots at every part of Gwen's costume, trying to find a weak spot to no avail.
Then, as Gwen charged towards the gunman and leapt into the air with one fist reared back for a mighty downwards punch, the gunman finally lowered his gun and instead ejected the magazine from inside it, then pulled one of the bullets from inside the magazine and threw it at Gwen, where it hit her in the head hard enough to knock her back, dazed from the force of the attack that hit her right in the head, and Miles instinctively jumped into the air to catch her before bringing her back to the ground and laying her down, then glared over at the gunman angrily.
In response, the gunman simply grinned at Miles, clearly proud of himself and not at all afraid. However, from this close, Miles could also recognize a detail of the man's costume that he hadn't noticed before; the symbol of a target drawn in white on the forehead of the man's costume.
Still kneeling by Gwen but now pulling out his second knife to prepare to throw it at the man, Miles told him, "Thanks for putting a target on your head. It gives me something to aim at."
Not even flinching, the man just spread his arms and challenged, "Take your best shot. But don't miss. I won't. After all, there's a reason they call me… Bullseye."
Great, another one, Miles thought to himself sarcastically. He was so tired of supervillains and their ridiculous codenames. He'd been so happy to put an end to that trend, and now they were trying to make a comeback? Not on his watch. If it was the last thing he did, Miles was going to permanently put an end to people like this "Bullseye", as well as "Daredevil" and "Spider-Man". And all it would take to start that process right now was for him to throw the knife, right into the center of Bullseye's… bullseye.
Yet for some reason… as his body tensed to throw the knife, Miles hesitated, and in that brief moment of hesitation, Bullseye struck first, swiftly drawing another bullet from the magazine of his gun and flicking it at Miles with his hand in the shape of a finger gun, clearly mocking him.
All this happened much too fast for Miles to even process it, let alone prepare to defend himself from the bullet that flew towards him, but fortunately just then, Gwen's hand shot upwards and the part of her suit covering her hand formed a wide shield to stop the bullet dead before it could hit Miles. Then, as the bullet fell to the ground, Gwen got up on her knees and thrust her other hand out at Bullseye, and the substance that made up her suit expanded and extended into a large battering ram sort of shape that flew at Bullseye and hit him in the chest, sending him flying backwards.
Letting out a deep breath that he didn't notice he'd inhaled, Miles told Gwen in a rare show of gratitude, "Thanks."
"Get off me," Gwen affectionately returned, shoving Miles away from herself as she climbed back to her feet. Reaching up to her head, Gwen rubbed at the place she'd been hit a moment before and commented, "Ow. I don't know how, but him throwing those bullets was way worse than him shooting them from the gun."
"Luckily my suit is a bit better than just bulletproof,"Miles said.
"And mine's even better," Gwen bragged, turning to look at Miles with an expression of superiority.
Rolling his eyes beneath his mask, Miles said, "Yeah, yeah. Now, can we finish dealing with the psycho supervillain before you keep telling me how proud you are of your outfit?"
"Depends on how much longer this is gonna take," Gwen responded as she began walking in the direction she'd thrown Bullseye.
Also getting to his feet to follow after her, Miles scanned the area to find Bullseye now that he'd lost sight of him, but was surprised when he saw that the superhuman marksman had already disappeared from view. Narrowing his eyes cautiously and quickly scanning the surrounding area, Miles soon located the heat signature of who he could easily assume was Bullseye, currently running into an apartment building to their left, seemingly trying to get away.
That thought made Miles angry, the idea that he might get drawn out here to take care of a supervillain who had been putting people in danger and even killing some (which was supposed to be his specialty, after all) and then allow that supervillain to get away. That wouldn't be happening if he had anything to say about it. Maybe Miles hadn't gotten Octavius like he'd wanted, but that didn't mean that Bullseye was going to get a free pass, especially not after disappointing Miles and wasting his valuable time.
Hurrying to get Gwen's attention and let her know that they needed to adjust their course, Miles pointed towards the building where Bullseye had gone and called out, "In there!"
Then, not waiting for Gwen to stop with him, Miles stepped in front of a manhole cover in the middle of the road, then stomped on one side of it with a blast of energy from his shoes, causing the disc of metal to flip upwards, out of the ground and into the air. Then, as it was flipping in front of him, Miles lashed out and snatched the disc out of the air with one of his clawed hands, then spun around and forcefully threw the manhole cover at the side of the building in front of him, sending it crashing through the wall towards the place where the heat signature had gone, though Miles' scanners told him that despite his impressive aim, he hadn't hit Bullseye directly.
Regardless, Miles fully expected Gwen to tell him off for using such aggression to break into the building, causing property damage and potentially putting innocent lives at risk in the process, but was surprised when she said nothing and instead just narrowed her eyes as she led the way into the building through the explosive hole Miles had made in its side.
Following behind her, Miles made sure to keep his guard up as he approached Bullseye's heat signature. He'd already seen that Bullseye had the power to pierce his armor, at least with his knives if not by throwing his bullets, and he wasn't eager for a repeat lesson.
In his mind, Miles was trying to compare Bullseye to some of his past enemies in hopes of figuring out the best way to defeat him, but was having difficulty. Maybe in some ways he was most similar to Kraven or Beetle or similar, villains whose tools and weapons amplified the effectiveness of their powers, but Bullseye wasn't quite the same as any of them. His powers were still largely a mystery, as Miles didn't know of any magic herbs or advanced technology that could enhance one's aim and throwing ability. He was something new, something unknown, somethingdifferent, and that made him dangerous.
Suddenly, as they began to approach Bullseye at a cautious pace, the heat signature they were chasing abruptly broke into a run, climbing the stairs and heading towards the higher levels of the building.
Assuming that he was trying to run, Miles told Gwen, "Está huyendo!"
Then, trying to get them both upstairs as fast as possible, Miles instinctively grabbed Gwen's wrist and pulled her in towards himself, preparing to pick her up and run both of them upstairs with the super-speed his shoes granted him, but was surprised when instead, the fabric of Gwen's outfit stretched out to cover his hand, allowing her wrist to grabhiminstead of him grabbing it, then Gwen swung him around, lifting him off his feet, and threw him into a wall across the room, making him release her.
Then, while Miles was dazed and confused from the hit, Gwen leaned in towards him and practically growled at him, "Youdon'tget to touch us. You gave up that right."
Miles was speechless for a moment, then narrowed his eyes angrily at her but conceded, "Fine. But can we go get Bullseye now before he can prepare for us?"
Waving her hand in a dismissive gesture, Gwen told him, "Be my guest. But if you're so impatient, you can just go without me."
Peeved by how careless Gwen was being about the escaping supervillain, going so far as to waste their time by attackinghim, Miles didn't hesitate to activate his shoes and dodge around Gwen as he ran up the stairs alone, leaving her behind. He didn't have time to talk aboutfeelingswith her right now.
That was what Gwen had never understood about this job. It had nothing to do with their "people problems". When they put on these masks, they set their own lives aside. The only thing that mattered wasthe mission, saving everyone they could through whatever means necessary. Next to that, Miles didn't have time to coddle Gwen and her emotions. When you allowed the person underneath the mask to matter you were putting your mission - and thus, lives - in jeopardy, like how Gwen had just attacked Miles and chosen to remain behind because of her hurt feelings, wasting precious time in the process.
In this job, mistakes got people hurt and even killed. Miles understood that and Gwen clearly did not, which was why, even with his super-speed, Miles now only managed to catch up to Bullseye after the marksman had successfully reached the roof. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have anywhere to go now. Apparently he'd just been running away in a panic after his range advantage stopped helping him so much against Gwen.
Punching his way up through the top floor of the building to dramatically blast up onto the rooftop with Bullseye, Miles landed in a crouch several yards away from the villain, but expectedly got fired upon immediately by his cornered adversary, forcing Miles to begin moving quickly to dodge the first few bullets that were thrown at him at impossible speeds.
Then, when Bullseye finally tried to eject another bullet from his magazine only to find it empty, Miles took his chance and sprinted forward to grab him. However, Bullseye then chose to use his gun rather unconventionally and threw the magazine at Miles, which seemed to fly just as fast as the bullets he'd thrown. Still, Miles didn't stop and instead simply raised his hand to allow the magazine to bounce off the metal plates of his gauntlet, though he felt the metal dent from the impact.
Then, as he lowered his arm again, Miles found that he'd done it too soon as he was surprised by Bullseye also throwing the gun itself at him, hitting him right in the face and bringing him painfully to a stop. Fortunately, it hadn't penetrated Miles' mask, but it had certainly disoriented him.
Deciding that he had grown tired of this nonsense, Miles glared over at Bullseye and resumed approaching him, though now in a much more subdued, slow and menacing walk. His smirk faltering beneath his mask, Bullseye swiftly drew one of his knives and threw it at Miles in hopes of stopping him once again, but Miles' hand simply shot upwards and caught it right in front of his chest, then crushed the knife in his hand and cast it aside in an unimpressed sort of way.
Now genuinely seeming to become nervous, Bullseye quickly pulled out four more knives, one in his left hand and three in the right, then threw the one knife before swiftly following up by throwing the other three. Miles smacked the first knife aside fearlessly, but had to raise his arm in front of himself to stop the other three, feeling then all impale themselves into his arm all the way down it.
Gritting his teeth and growling through the pain, Miles continued to press on and surged forward to finally close the distance between himself and Bullseye and grab him by the throat, then held him up with just the one hand as he shoved Bullseye back so that he was leaning backwards over the empty space below the edge of the building, leading all the way down to the street several stories below, an unsurvivable drop.
Trying to prevent himself from falling, Bullseye tried to keep his feet on the rooftop and used his hands to hold onto Miles' outstretched arm, finally looking at him with fear, and Miles thought to himself thatthiswas how it was supposed to be. He was meant to be terrifying, meant to scare the criminals so that they didn't dare to come out of their holes, especially the super ones. That was the whole point of him. If Miles didn't do that job, massacres like today happened, and it was his fault.
Yet after all Miles had done, as frightening as he'd tried to continue being, supervillains were trying to make a comeback? Having seen proof of such things several times in the past few days, Miles now considered how foolish he'd been to have thought that what happened in Jersey would keep the criminals scared of him permanently.Of coursethey would eventually start to realize that only one person had ever been confirmed killed by the Prowler, and not even the glass statue in the Hudson River could make them keep their heads down forever.
Miles should've known that crime would eventually get brave and begin testing the boundaries. They were thinking that the Prowler had gone soft… Well, Miles needed to correct that belief. He needed to remind them of who he was. The Scourge of Criminals, the Bane of the Earth. Miles needed to do again what he'd done a year ago, publically set an example to make people fear him. And… the perfect tool to do it was literally within his grasp.
Looking down at Bullseye, white slit eyes narrowed as they stared into frightened blue ones. Feeling but never showing the tears that began to build in his eyes and run down his cheeks beneath his mask as he realized hat he had to do, Miles forced himself to think of all the people on the street below who'd been gunned down. He thought of the stinging pain in his arms and stomach where this man in his hands had tried several times to killhimas well.
He thought of people like Daredevil becoming brave enough to release insane, superpowered murderers like Otto Octavius. He thought of a yell of agony like thunder ringing through the sky as Miles watched his hands turn a mountain of living sand to glass. And he thought of the billions of other, innocent people on this planet that people like Bullseye selfishly put in danger, compared the worth of their lives to that of his own…
And he let go.
With an expression of pure shock on his face, Bullseye reached out in a desperate but vain attempt to keep hold of Miles as he felt himself fall backwards into the open air, but Miles just stood there and watched impassively as Bullseye fell over the edge of the building and down towards the unforgiving asphalt below.
However, just then, a helicopter flew by above Miles at full speed, far too low to be allowed in New York airspace, and as Miles turned to look at it against the intense winds its spinning blades were giving off, Bullseye reached down to his belt and pulled out a thin grappling cord which he then threw at the helicopter. Once again, he made an impossible throw that caused his cord to be blown by the wind of the helicopter just right so that the cord wrapped itself around the landing skids of the chopper, then held on tight as it flew upwards again and began to carry him safely away.
His eyes widening as he saw Bullseye getting away, Miles didn't hesitate to quickly jump off the edge of the building with a powerful blast of energy from his feet, but still saw that even with his speed, he wouldn't be able to catch the helicopter when it was flying this fast. Hoping to compensate for that, Miles raised one hand and launched a grappling line of his own at the helicopter, and though he didn't have Bullseye's accuracy, he did have a pneumatic launcher in his gauntlets that allowed his grappling hook to fly straight towards the helicopter, plowing right through its winds.
It would have hit the helicopter dead on, but before it could, Bullseye pulls out his other gun and took aim before shooting Miles' hook right out of the sky, preventing him from following. Defeated, Miles landed on the next rooftop over and simply glared after his opponent, hating both the gunman and himself.
Third Person POV
So distracted was Miles by Bullseye's escape that he didn't notice another man in all black clothing lying on top of another rooftop several buildings over, watching him through a pair of binoculars. Once the action was all clearly over, the man lowered the binoculars from his eyes with a look of curiosity on his face as he said to himself in an intrigued tone, "Huh. Well, how about that?"
