Chapter 401: Nick Fury ArrivesPeter knew absolutely nothing about what was going down in Rome. He didn't know who Nick Fury had deployed, only that Fury had definitely sent someone.
For now, Spider-Man's primary mission in Madrid consisted of snapping tourist photos. Surprisingly, the city was quiet. The local police handled what little crime popped up with boring efficiency. If they needed heavy hitters, they hired out the Wild Pack. No supervillains crashing through bank vaults, no megalomaniacs trying to level the city grid. That kind of chaos seemed exclusively reserved for New York.
"This is completely rigged," Harry muttered. He shifted a massive stack of shopping bags, shooting a glare at Peter. "Explain to me why you get to stroll around playing photographer while I'm acting as a human pack mule?"
"Simple economics, Lyman," Flash said.
Flash dropped a heavy shoulder into Harry, nearly knocking him off balance. "Parker's on camera duty because he's built like a twig. I carry the heavy artillery." Flash hoisted a canvas bag easily twice the size of Harry's, jutting his chin out in challenge.
Peter just shrugged, lifting the camera by its strap. He wasn't about to argue. This dynamic meant he didn't have to worry about looking over his shoulder for once.
A few yards away, MJ leaned in close to Gwen, watching Peter. "So... you two have gone on dates, but it's not official yet? What's the hold-up?" She narrowed her eyes. "Other girls? I feel like his baggage goes deeper than that."
Gwen exhaled, her shoulders dropping slightly. "Maybe. I just don't want to push him. What if... what if it just makes him pull away?"
"Then you go on the offensive," MJ said smoothly. "Give me names. Who's the competition?"
Gwen shot a glance toward Peter, who was currently tapping away on his phone, entirely oblivious. She shook her head. She didn't want to add to his stress. Peter downplayed the things he faced, brushing off last night's battle like a minor inconvenience, but Gwen knew better. He was carrying the weight of the city, and she wasn't going to pile on.
Across the plaza, Peter paused. He glanced over at Gwen, held up his phone, and raised an eyebrow. Gwen felt her phone buzz. She dug it out, reading the text. A slow smirk pulled at her mouth.
MJ leaned over her shoulder, reading the screen. "Lunch? Just the two of you?" MJ sighed loudly. "I suppose you'd mind if I crashed?"
"Without a doubt," Gwen shot back, pocketing her phone. "I definitely mind."
MJ threw her hands up. "Perfect. Liz and Harry are a thing, Betty and Thompson are a thing, and now you two. This band is going to implode in under a month."
"If one date destroys the band, we need to have a serious talk about our lead singer's resilience," Gwen countered. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder. "Besides, you have Bugle articles to write. Didn't Jameson put you on a deadline?"
"Cruel and unusual," MJ groaned, rolling her eyes with a lazy smile. She offered a brief wave and spun on her heel, disappearing into the crowd.
Gwen jogged over to Peter. He blinked, looking at her empty hands. "You didn't buy anything?"
"Do you honestly think my dad getting a promotion means I get a bigger allowance?" Gwen laughed. "Not a chance."
"Can't relate," Peter grinned, tapping his camera. "I'm pulling down two internship stipends from the Baxter Building and Osborn Industries. Though, to be fair, I haven't actually done any real work for them yet."
Gwen rolled her eyes, bumping her shoulder against his. "So, what brought on the sudden lunch invite?"
Peter rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers catching on the camera strap. "I just... nothing else is going on. I wanted to say thank you."
For Earth-65, he thought. On Earth-65, Gwen had risked her neck to find him, throwing herself into the fire to help that universe's Spider-Gwen. Peter couldn't interfere with the Web of Fate, but Gwen hadn't hesitated to use her own abilities.
"Not a bad excuse," Gwen said, letting the silence stretch for two seconds. "Where are we eating?"
"There's a Spanish paella joint down the street," Peter said, pointing. "Madrid is inland, so I can't guarantee the seafood. Paella is a Valencia thing. But we're heading to Valencia next to catch the boat to Naples, so we can always do a taste test later."
Gwen fell into step beside him. "I promise you, I won't be able to taste the difference."
"Same. Let's go."
Peter steered them toward a small, unassuming spot on the corner. He avoided high-end restaurants. Partly because he'd never really been to one, and partly because he figured you were just paying for the privilege of leaving hungry. If Peter Parker had a dining philosophy, it was strictly hole-in-the-wall joints where the locals actually ate.
They grabbed a table and ordered the seafood paella. While they waited, Peter stood up. "Need to wash my hands. Be right back."
He checked with the owner, got a thumb pointed toward the back hallway, and pushed open the restroom door.
The second the door clicked shut, Peter froze. His spine locked. The air didn't smell right. For a semi-public bathroom in a bustling restaurant, it was entirely too sterile. No bleach, no dampness. Just cold, filtered air.
He spun on his heel to leave, but the lock engaged with a heavy, metallic thunk.
The tiled walls flickered. The holographic projection dissolved into thin air, revealing the cold steel bulkheads of a mobile command center.
Nick Fury sat in a swivel chair, boots propped up on a metal table, methodically rotating a Rubik's Cube in his single hand.
"How's the European vacation treating you, Spider-Man?" Fury asked, his voice a low rumble.
Peter let out a long, slow breath. "Actually, I just really needed to use the bathroom. And this is clearly a closet."
Fury stopped twisting the cube. He stared at Peter for three agonizingly long seconds. He let out a deep, tired sigh. "The bathroom is next door. Go handle your business. And don't even think about climbing out a window."
"I just hope you aren't planning to eat up my whole afternoon, Fury," Peter said, shifting his weight. If he vanished for an hour, Gwen would instantly know something was wrong.
"Gwendolyn knows who you are," Fury said smoothly, not looking up from the cube. "She knows your disappearing acts involve tights. Relax. I'm not here to ruin your date. I just need to brief you on the Elementals.
Chapter 402: Information about HydraPeter stepped back out of the adjacent restroom, drying his hands on his jeans. He dropped into the chair across from Fury, finally voicing the question that had been gnawing at the back of his skull. "So, I've got to ask. Did you just rent this place out for the afternoon, or is this actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost? Because it just looks like a very ordinary, very boring restaurant."
Fury didn't look up. He kept twisting the Rubik's Cube in his hand. Click, clack, click."Unfortunately for the local real estate market, this is a legitimate S.H.I.E.L.D. base. We own barbershops, corner diners, bookstores. You're just lucky you wandered into this one, otherwise I would've had to drag you across town."
"I honestly didn't think you'd show up in person," Peter said, leaning back. "Figured S.H.I.E.L.D. had you bogged down in paperwork."
"Life Model Decoys. LMDs. You should be familiar with the concept," Fury said, setting the scrambled cube onto the metal table. "Some of our top-tier agents use them to replace themselves or their family members for security. If you want, I can requisition a set for your house in Queens. Your real family can lay low off-grid, exactly like Agent Silk setup."
Peter blinked, his brain grinding gears. It was the first update he'd heard about Cindy family in months after the attack. Cindy was an active S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and her family had been attacked. So now her real parents were hidden away, and her house was filled with androids? Was Cindy eating breakfast with robots?
Before Peter could spiral into the existential dread of android roommates, Fury cut him off. "Let's pivot to the Elementals. We've got highly trained field agents embedded near their operational zones, gathering intel. We finally have a name for the man pulling their strings. Arnim Zola. Does that ring a bell?"
Peter's head snapped up. His eyes immediately darted toward the closed door, then up to the air vents.
Fury watched his panic and sighed. "Relax, Parker. The entire room is a Faraday cage. Sealed tight. All electronic signals are jammed. If someone wanted to eavesdrop, they'd have to be standing right next to us. And if they were, I have a Spider-Man."
Peter exhaled, his shoulders dropping a fraction. But then his brain caught up to the mechanics of the room. Wait. No electronic devices can function here.
If electronics were dead in this room, then the Nick Fury sitting in front of him wasn't a robot. But that meant the Nick Fury back in New York were absolutely LMDs.
"Zola," Peter said, forcing his mind back on track. "The Hydra scientist? The guy who got imported through Project Paperclip to dodge a war crimes tribunal? You're telling me he's still running Hydra?"
"Without a doubt," Fury said, his single eye hardening. "Project Paperclip was a catastrophic miscalculation. The U.S. wanted to secure a technological edge in the post-war scramble. They used Soviet paranoia and cushy amnesty deals to lure in the Third Reich's brightest minds. A massive chunk of them were Hydra. They never repented. They just changed their uniforms and became part of us."
Fury finally pulled his boots off the table and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Or maybe the U.S. just wasn't playing the 'good guy' to begin with, and the two sides realized they had a lot in common. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s predecessor, the Strategic Scientific Reserve, was built specifically to dismantle Hydra. They skimmed the cream of the Allied forces. We didn't sweat the low-level lab coats."
"I'm guessing Zola wasn't a low-level lab coat," Peter muttered.
"Bingo." Fury tapped the metal table. "Zola had two things going for him. First, the Allies bagged him early, and he sang like a canary. Handed over Hydra's tech schematics and military intelligence, building trust fast. Second, he was a certified genius. He spearheaded most of Hydra's tech, including the Tesseract research. That's why S.H.I.E.L.D. brought him in as a 'rehabilitated' asset. Nobody figured he was a lifer."
"It's the classic 'cut off one head' routine," Peter said, drumming his fingers against his knee.
"Worse," Fury grunted. "I'm starting to think the Third Reich was just a host body. Hydra is a parasite. When they encounter a stronger predator, they don't fight to the death. They surrender. They embed themselves in the victor's ranks, siphon their resources, and grow stronger. They did it to the Nazis, they did it to the Soviets, and they did it to us. Hydra might be older—and much more terrifying—than anyone realizes."
Peter thought about the heavy hitters they'd faced. The Chitauri invasion during the Battle of New York. The Kree. Even Thor's people up in Asgard. Hydra didn't have their raw, world-ending firepower.
But a fleet of alien warships couldn't hollow out a country from the inside. Hydra was rotting S.H.I.E.L.D. from the marrow out. The terrifying part wasn't the monsters in the dark; it was the monsters wearing familiar faces.
Fury had found out Zola was alive. Somehow, in the 1970s, Hydra had found a way to preserve Zola's consciousness right under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose. Fury was already scrutinizing his own superior, Alexander Pierce, wondering if the World Security Council was compromised. If Pierce was Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. was basically a dead man walking.
Peter swallowed hard, the reality of it settling like a brick in his stomach. "So. What do you need me to do?"
"Your usual routine," Fury said flatly. "Draw fire. I'm entirely sure Zola is currently calculating how to take you off the board. The Elementals are going to target you next. Keep your guard up. They swapped out Molten Man for Jim Hammond, meaning they still have a four-man roster."
Wait. Jim Hammond? The original WWII-era synthetic Human Torch who went AWOL after the Madripoor harbor battle? Peter's brow furrowed.
"Why target me?" Peter asked, genuinely confused. "I'm just a kid from Queens taking photos. Shouldn't I be the one hunting them down with the Wild Pack?"
Fury didn't answer immediately. The silence in the Faraday-sealed room felt suffocating.
"Because you are Richard Parker's son," Fury finally said, his voice dropping an octave. "I don't know exactly what your father uncovered in Europe before he died. But whatever it was, it terrified Hydra."
Chapter 403: Next Stop, TarantoPeter slid back into the booth, doing his absolute best to look relaxed. He grabbed his fork, aiming for the paella, but before the tines even touched the rice, Gwen leaned across the table.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice dropping.
Peter blinked, feigning innocence. "What do you mean? The bathroom was exceptionally clean. Five stars."
Gwen didn't blink. She just stared at him, her eyes tracking the slight tension in his jaw. "You're wearing your 'I'm fine, please don't worry about me' face. It's a dead giveaway. Talk."
Peter sighed, dropping the fork. He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers catching on the collar of his shirt. "Okay. Someone contacted me in there. It was Cindy's boss."
Gwen processed that for a fraction of a second before her eyebrows shot up. She knew exactly who Cindy's boss was. S.H.I.E.L.D.
It was a running joke among the few people in the know. S.H.I.E.L.D. was technically a public agency. They had a sleek official website, a listed corporate mission statement, and even published a heavily redacted annual budget report. But because they didn't hold press conferences or leak to the Daily Bugle, the general public completely ignored them. They were the ultimate mystery organization—not because they hid in the shadows, but because they stood perfectly still in broad daylight in a grey suit, boring everyone into looking the other way.
"Did he... assign you a task?" Gwen asked, glancing around the restaurant to make sure no one was eavesdropping.
"Theoretically, the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. operate independently," Peter deflected, tracing the rim of his water glass. "But considering the scale of what he's dealing with, we should probably help out if we can."
It was a half-truth. He wasn't thinking about the Elementals. He was thinking about Richard Parker.
His father had been a gene-editing expert. He didn't have many concrete memories of his parents, just fleeting flashes of them hurriedly dropping him off at Uncle Ben and Aunt May's house before vanishing again. They had always kept him entirely in the dark.
Gwen waved a hand directly in front of his face, snapping him out of his spiral.
Peter jumped slightly. "What?"
"You just stared at a clam for two solid minutes without taking a breath," Gwen said, gesturing to his plate. "Eat."
"Right. Sorry." Peter finally scooped up a bite of rice. "Blame Nick Fury."
The Madrid leg of their trip was winding down, and Peter had genuinely enjoyed remembering what it felt like to be a normal teenager. He didn't have to suit up once. The most action he saw was subtly flicking a web to trip a pickpocket in a crowded plaza, walking away before anyone even noticed the guy had fallen.
But behind closed doors, he hadn't been idle.
On the first night after his ambush-briefing with Fury, Peter had locked his hotel room door, tapped into his sorcerer abilities, and open a portal straight back to the basement in Queens. He had retrieved the old, worn notebook his father had left behind.
Now, lying on his back on the hotel bed, Peter flipped through the yellowed pages.
He knew this notebook inside and out. It contained the original synthetic formulas for his web fluid. It was, for all intents and purposes, a survival guide on how to be Spider-Man, written from a purely scientific perspective. It mapped out web-wing glide ratios, tensile strength stress tests, and chemical degradation rates.
If I had to summarize it, Peter thought, tracing a faded diagram of a web-shooter nozzle, it's a manual on how to survive what the spider did to me.
He was looking for a code. A hidden message. He knew it was a long shot—Richard Parker couldn't have predicted the future before his final mission to Europe—but Peter checked anyway. He scoured the margins. Nothing.
He flipped to the section detailing the genetic subject itself.
Richard Parker had selected the Taranto spider as the baseline template. The notes detailed the reasoning: the Taranto tarantulas—often referred to generally as bird-eating spiders—were massive.
Peter read his father's cramped handwriting: A sufficiently large body mass is required to survive the extensive genetic modification payload. The baseline venom is relatively weak; through CRISPR-cas9 modification, the venom delivery system can be rewritten to act as a viral vector for DNA transcription.
Peter stopped reading. He frowned, staring at the ceiling.
He re-read the passage. Large body mass.
Bird-eating tarantulas were huge. They could grow up to twenty centimeters across. But Peter remembered the day at the Osborn Tech Expo perfectly. When Carl Culkin had snatched the escaped spider and dropped it down Peter's collar, it hadn't felt like a dinner plate crawling down his spine. It had felt small. Palm-sized, at best. When Cindy crushed the last surviving spider clone during the Carl King fight, it had been tiny.
Something wasn't adding up.
Peter sat up, closed the notebook, and open another portal.
He stepped out of the portal and into the sterile, humming environment of the Savage Force research lab at Osborn Technologies. Dr. Jonathan Drew didn't even flinch at the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure. He just adjusted his glasses and looked up from his microscope.
"Ah, Peter," Dr. Drew said mildly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
Peter walked over to the reinforced glass terrariums lining the far wall, watching a massive, hairy arachnid slowly climb a piece of driftwood. "Dr. Drew, quick question. Are all the spiders you breed here Taranto spiders?"
"Strictly speaking, 'Taranto tarantula' is a broad colloquialism used for the Theraphosidae family," Dr. Drew explained, his academic tone locking into place. "They're massive, docile, and highly resilient. Which makes them the ideal canvas for genetic modification."
Peter leaned against the counter. "Okay, but what about the specific spider my dad engineered? The one that was exhibited at the science expo?"
Dr. Drew paused, wiping a glass slide with a microfiber cloth. "Ah. No. That wasn't a standard tarantula. That was a true Taranto."
"What's the difference?"
"A real Taranto tarantula—the Lycosa tarantula—is actually a European wolf spider," Dr. Drew said. "Unlike the giant bird-eaters, they are much smaller, only about ten centimeters across. They aren't highly venomous, and they don't spin webs to catch prey. They are aggressive ambush predators. They chase their food down."
Dr. Drew shook his head, a look of professional bewilderment crossing his features. "I still don't fully understand why your father went through the trouble. Because they are so small, getting them to survive the gene-editing process required a monumental amount of foundational engineering. Just forcing their venom glands to act as a transcription vector was a nightmare."
Peter's pulse kicked up a notch. "Where did he buy the original biological samples?"
"He didn't," Dr. Drew replied, carefully setting the slide into a rack. "He insisted on capturing the baseline stock himself. He made a specialized field trip to southern Italy to collect them from their native habitat."
"Where in southern Italy?" Peter asked, though he already knew the answer.
Dr. Drew looked up. "Taranto."
Peter exhaled slowly. Madrid, then Valencia, then a boat across the Mediterranean. Next stop, Taranto.
PS: Marvel Fun Fact If you want to get technical about your arachnids, the Lycosa tarantula (the European wolf spider) is the species that originally gave us the word "tarantula"! The spider is named after the city of Taranto in Italy. In the Middle Ages, locals believed that if you were bitten by one, the only cure was to engage in a frenzied, manic dance to sweat out the venom. This dance became known as the Tarantella. Looks like Richard Parker took his research straight to the source!
Chapter 404: Leaving the Team MidwayThe bus ride to Valencia was a sun-bleached, air-conditioned crawl. Peter slumped into the window seat, letting the vibration of the tires rattle through his skull. He leaned his head against the glass, glancing out at the passing Spanish countryside before shifting his eyes toward Cindy.
He kept his voice barely above the hum of the engine. "Can you get a line to Fury?"
Cindy blinked, turning her head. S.H.I.E.L.D. training kicked in instantly; her posture remained entirely relaxed, betraying nothing to the classmates sitting around them. "...Okay. Did something happen?"
"No. Not exactly," Peter muttered, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. "But I need some answers. Fast."
Peter's brain had been running on a loop for the past three hours. Logically, he knew there couldn't be a direct connection between the Taranto spider research and the Winter Soldier assassinating his parents. If Hydra had controlled the Taranto operation, they never would have let Richard Parker walk out of Italy with a crate of genetically modified spiders.
Furthermore, Richard had hidden his research notebook in Uncle Ben's basement before he left for his final mission. Dad couldn't have predicted the future. He couldn't have known what he was walking into. Unless Richard Parker was secretly Kang the Conqueror, the timeline just didn't add up.
Cindy watched his fingers shred the loose denim thread. She gave a single, tight nod. "I'll make the call."
"Tell him we're boarding a boat to Naples this afternoon," Peter added, keeping his gaze fixed on the seat in front of him. "Ask if he can meet me before we cast off."
"You're tapping your foot," Cindy pointed out smoothly. "You're agitated. Sure you're okay?"
Peter forced his heel flat against the rubber floor mat. "Yeah. Just doing math."
As it turned out, Nick Fury didn't need to wait for Naples.
The moment the Midtown High group spilled out of the convoy in Valencia, Cindy bumped her shoulder against Peter's. She slipped a folded receipt into his palm. A nearby address.
Peter broke away from the group while Harrington was distracted counting heads. He ducked through two alleys and pushed open the heavy wooden door of a closed tapas bar.
Nick Fury sat alone at a corner table in the shadows. He looked thoroughly bored, swirling a glass of lukewarm water.
Peter pulled out the chair across from him. The metal legs scraped loudly against the tile. "Where did my parents' plane go down?"
"A plane crash," Fury said, his single eye locking onto Peter. "You know this. It was a cover, but the crash itself was real."
"Before that," Peter pressed, leaning over the table. "Where did they take off from?"
"Budapest," Fury replied, taking a slow sip of water. "Just like Walter Hardy. Anyone poking around European super-soldier programs invariably ended up in Budapest. It's a chokepoint." Fury set the glass down, a distinct sharpness entering his gaze. "Did you find something, Spider-Man?"
Peter sat back, exhaling a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Taranto, Italy. My dad went there early on for Project Savage Force. He was sourcing the original spiders."
"I know," Fury said flatly. "He claimed he had 'personal business' to attend to. He had friends on the ground in Italy who helped him isolate the specimens. Unfortunately, we never found out who those friends were."
Peter's jaw went slack. He stared at the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. "You didn't know?"
"Policy," Fury grunted, leaning back and crossing his arms. "Savage Force was a Military-contracted project. S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't legally intercept Military intelligence unless it overlapped with active terrorist cells. Do you honestly think I sent your parents to Europe because I was bored? I sent them because splinter groups were deploying super-soldier knockoffs, and my agents needed technical support to trace the biotech."
If hostile forces hadn't started deploying augmented soldiers, Fury never would have contacted the Parkers. Because the Military outsourced Savage Force to Osborn Technologies, Fury had found a loophole to bring Richard Parker in.
"So... the Military told you to back off, and you just rolled over?" Peter asked, his voice dripping with skepticism.
"Obviously not," Fury said, his expression completely devoid of humor. "We investigated. But whoever helped your father in Taranto was a ghost. Our agents swept the city. No records, no names, zero clues."
Peter gripped the edge of the table. "Could his contact have been Hydra?"
"Think it through, Parker," Fury countered. "If Hydra already had the capacity to engineer those spiders, why bother infiltrating us? If the contact was Hydra, they would have just exposed him, killed him early, and replaced him inside S.H.I.E.L.D. with their own expert. But they didn't. Richard lived, and Hydra stayed in the shadows."
They stared at each other across the small table. Two completely different puzzles, overlapping with no clear edge.
"So, the Taranto spiders have nothing to do with what killed them?" Peter asked.
"Maybe. Maybe not," Fury said. He planted his hands on his knees and stood up. "But we hit a dead end. Perhaps you should go take a look for yourself. That's why you called me, isn't it?"
Peter didn't answer.
"I can requisition another LMD to cover for Peter Parker on the school trip," Fury offered, adjusting his leather coat. "Meanwhile, Spider-Man takes a detour to Taranto."
"What about the Elementals?" Peter argued, standing up with him. "They're going to adjust their tactics. What if they go after my classmates?"
"I'll handle the Elementals," Fury said. He offered a grim, confident smile. "You chase the spiders. Leave the heavy lifting to Nick Fury."
Peter watched the man walk toward the back exit. Leave it to Nick Fury, Peter thought.
Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Given how deeply Hydra had embedded themselves in the agency, Peter wasn't sure who he could actually trust anymore.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Valencia, Silver Sable stood in the center of a heavily fortified warehouse, her arms crossed tight against her chest.
She had just received the latest combat analysis on the Elementals. They weren't tech. They were spiritual entities. Magic. Bullets and explosives were entirely useless. Sable didn't waste time fighting wars she couldn't win. She had immediately contracted the problem out. The Wild Pack was stepping back; a different roster was stepping up.
The heavy steel doors rolled open.
"Hello, Miss Sable. I am Captain Britain. You may also refer to me as Captain Avalon."
A towering man stepped into the warehouse. He wore a skin-tight combat suit emblazoned with the Union Jack, radiating an absurd amount of confidence. Brian Braddock. He was the leader of the British superhero team Excalibur, his immense power drawn directly from the Amulet of Right—the ancient magical artifact forged by the sorcerer Merlin.
He wasn't alone.
Three figures flanked him. The first was Psylocke, the telepathic ninja whose eyes tracked every exit in the room. The second was the Black Knight, a descendant of Arthurian legend, the cursed Ebony Blade strapped across his back.
The third was Meggan Puceanu. The elemental empath.
Meggan could commune directly with the forces of water, fire, wind, and earth. She could shapeshift into werewolves, vampires, and dragons, or effortlessly mimic human forms. Her codename in certain circles was the Goblin Princess. And despite her mythical powers, her abilities stemmed entirely from the X-gene. She was a mutant.
It was a tactical strike team built from Arthurian myth and mutant genetics. If America had Avenger, Britain had Excalibur.
And against magical Elementals, they were exactly who needed to be on the front lines.
PS: Marvel Fun Fact!
Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) and Excalibur are deep cuts from Marvel's UK lore! Created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe in 1976, Brian gained his powers when Merlin and his daughter Roma offered him a choice between the Amulet of Right and the Sword of Might. He chose the amulet, becoming Britain's magical protector. Meggan, his eventual wife, is indeed an elemental shapeshifter and mutant.
Chapter 405: Arrival in TarantoWhile the rest of the Midtown High group boarded the cargo ferry from Valencia to Naples, Peter, Cindy, and Felicia slipped away. They weren't taking a boat. They were currently strapped into the jump seats of a heavily armored Wild Pack transport plane, cutting straight across the Mediterranean toward Taranto, Italy.
Taranto was an unassuming coastal city. The southern Italian economy had left its streets looking a bit faded and weathered compared to the glamorous northern hubs. Aside from a massive British Navy raid back in 1940, the port town didn't get much global attention.
"Hey," Peter said, raising his voice over the drone of the plane's engines. "Do you think the person who helped my dad could have been Madame Web?"
Cindy tilted her head, her brow furrowing. She had heard the name passed around S.H.I.E.L.D. briefings, but she had never actually met the precognitive messenger. She offered Peter a helpless shrug.
Across the aisle, Felicia Hardy sat with her arms tightly crossed, glaring daggers at Silver Sable. Felicia didn't understand why this covert operation required a strike team of heavily armed mercenaries. A massive transport plane wasn't exactly stealthy. She leveled a deeply unfriendly stare at Sable, looking every bit like an angry stray cat ready to hiss.
Sable didn't even blink. She completely ignored Felicia's hostility, a faint, amused smirk playing at the corner of her mouth as she checked the action on her rifle.
Peter didn't actually mind Sable tagging along. He knew exactly what Nick Fury was doing. Fury wanted Hydra to know Richard Parker's son was digging into the past. Peter was bait. As long as he poked around looking for his father's old contacts, Hydra would snap to attention. Who Fury actually sent to watch from the shadows didn't really matter to him.
The transport hit the tarmac on the outskirts of Taranto, the landing gear screeching against the runway. Sable stood up, grabbing the overhead railing.
"We're here," Sable said, her voice crisp. "I don't know exactly what you're hunting for, Parker, and I won't get in your way. But Fury's paying me to keep you breathing. I'll be around. Call if you need heavy fire."
She tossed a small, encrypted communicator across the aisle. Peter snatched it out of the air. He led Cindy and Felicia down the descending ramp.
As their boots hit the dirt, Peter glanced back at the plane. "Ten bucks says she's going to track us through a sniper scope the entire time."
"Yeah," Felicia muttered, adjusting her jacket. "Just like the rest of Fury's lackeys."
Nobody really liked Nick Fury.
The transport plane didn't linger. The engines roared, and the massive jet banked back into the sky. Felicia watched it go, then turned to Peter, her shoulders dropping slightly.
"Do you think your parents died for the same reason my dad did?" she asked quietly. "My dad died because he found out a terrifying secret. He found out Hydra was still alive."
Peter stopped walking. He didn't say anything, but he gave a slow, deliberate nod. He reached into his backpack, pulled out Richard Parker's weathered notebook, and flipped to the address Fury had given him.
The hotel wasn't anything special. It sat on a narrow, sun-baked street in the middle of town, boasting faded stucco walls and a rusted sign. Peter pushed the glass door open. A small bell chimed.
An elderly Italian woman stood behind the front desk, peering at them over a pair of thick reading glasses.
"How many rooms?" she asked in heavily accented English, eyeing the three teenagers.
"Actually, ma'am, I was hoping to ask you a question," Peter said, stepping up to the counter. "Do you remember a couple named Parker? They stayed here a few years ago. They were scientists... looking for the local Taranto spiders."
The old woman stopped sorting her keys. She squinted, her wrinkles deepening. "Oh. Yes. I remember them. A lovely couple. I warned them to be careful of the spider's bite. I told them about the old dancing sickness, the tarantism. They just laughed and told me it was a myth."
She leaned forward, her eyes darting over Peter's face. "You're their boy, aren't you? Didn't they tell you anything about this place?"
"They passed away a few years ago," Peter said softly. "I'm trying to find one of their friends. Someone local who helped them locate the right spiders. Do you have any idea who that might be?"
The old woman frowned, muttering something in rapid Italian under her breath. She shook her head. She remembered the Parkers, but they hadn't brought any local friends back to the lobby.
Peter stifled a sigh. "Okay. Thank you. Can we get three rooms, please?"
He handed over his card. Logically, the next step was to recreate his parents' path—hunt for the Taranto spider, ask the locals, and hope the mysterious contact revealed themselves. But S.H.I.E.L.D. had already tried the standard detective work. They had found nothing. Hydra had probably scorched the earth here, too. This wasn't going to be easy.
Two heavy motorcycles tore across a winding mountain road in southern Italy, the engines echoing off the cliff sides.
Steve Rogers leaned into a sharp curve, his beloved Harley-Davidson gripping the asphalt. He glanced over at the rider pulling up alongside him.
"Any of this look familiar to you?" Steve shouted over the rushing wind.
Logan squinted against the sun, his knuckles white around the handlebars. If Steve hadn't explicitly told him his full name was James Logan Howlett. he never would have known. He didn't have his memories. But when Steve talked about the trenches in World War II, about the mud and the blood and the Howling Commandos, Logan felt it in his bones. He knew Steve wasn't just telling stories. They had lived it together.
"Where exactly are we heading?" Logan grunted, his voice gravelly. "We ever deploy to this town? Taranto?"
"No," Steve called back, accelerating on the straightaway. "Hydra didn't build bases down here. We fought our way straight north toward Normandy."
Steve tapped the side of his helmet as a secure frequency crackled to life in his earpiece. He listened for three seconds, his jaw tightening.
"Change of pace, Logan," Steve said, keeping his eyes on the road. "Fury just checked in. Spider-Man is in Taranto. Orders are to stay completely off the radar. Do not let the enemy know we're here."