The negotiation room that Fury had allocated was as sterile as everything else in S.H.I.E.L.D. There were soft, sound-absorbing panels on the walls. There were comfortable, but heavy, chairs that were bolted to the floor. There was muted lighting. This was a "soft" interrogation room. It was designed to calm people down and to loosen their tongues. Right now, sitting in the center of it all, was Peter.
"Gwen? Is it clean?" I asked first. Her abilities were more reliable than any electronics.
She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, and then she nodded.
"It's clean." For insurance, I launched my spiritual sonar, sweeping my mental vision over a hundred-meter radius. There were no Hydra stormtroopers hiding in any of the neighboring rooms. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were forming a dense, but invisible, ring around us.
"So, it was you." Gwen exclaimed indignantly, recognizing the mental ping. "Back then, in the room."
"Guilty as charged. I peeked. I couldn't resist." I joked before turning to the silent Peter. "But since Fury kept his word, and he's the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., by the way, let's begin."
I took a small NZT tablet from my inventory and held it out to Peter. He looked first at the tablet, and then at me. There was skepticism in his eyes.
"And what's this? Is it another one of your tricks?" Gwen asked.
"It's a cognitive enhancer." I explained. "It'll help Peter process information faster and control his emotional outbursts. Believe me, Pete, you're going to need this today."
He hesitated, but after glancing at Gwen's serious face, he took the tablet and swallowed it. A minute passed while the drug took effect. His gaze sharpened, his pupils dilated barely noticeably, and his tension shifted into an extreme concentration.
"And what's all of this for? I understand everything already, anyway. You're working with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. And you want to place Gwen and me here, too. Right?" he asked.
"We'll discuss S.H.I.E.L.D. later. But for now." I extended my hand. "Gwen, give me your phone. Open the gallery."
Gwen momentarily became embarrassed, understanding what I was going to start with. It was a cruel, surgical opening of his feelings. She pulled herself together, unlocked the phone, and handed it to me. On the screen was a folder that contained the compromising material on Morris Bench. I turned the display toward Peter and I slowly scrolled through it.
"Morris Bench. He's a meta-villain." I said in a lecturing tone while the shots of Bench flashed on the screen. Peter listened without interrupting. I reached the first photo of Bench with a red-haired girl. It was a relatively harmless shot. Peter's expression distorted. He recognized her.
"She... was sick. Well, that's what she told me..." he muttered. His mind, under the influence of the NZT, tried to find another explanation, but it couldn't find one. Waves of betrayal and pain were beating against his self-control.
"It was a lie, Pete." I answered, softly but inexorably. "And as you can see, lying was the least of her transgressions."
"Peter, you deserve better than that." Gwen added, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"This was suspicious to me from the very start. She was hanging all over his neck on the very same day that her ex, Harry, flew out of the country. But we weren't connected by so many secrets back then, so I kept my suspicions to myself."
"This... No... I mean, yes..." Peter finally spoke. His gaze was riveted to the dark screen, but he wasn't seeing it. Under the NZT, his brain was assembling an ugly picture. "Now it's clear where her new jewelry came from, and why she became so cold. But why? Why didn't she just break up with me?"
"Harry." I named it. "She didn't do this for herself. She did this for him."
Peter raised his eyes, and a bitter understanding flashed in them.
"Her fling with Bench isn't as painful for Harry as a public relationship with his friend, or at the very least, with a good acquaintance of his, would be. She chose you as the most effective weapon that she could use to cause him pain."
"But Harry's in a closed educational institution. He wouldn't even know about it."
"That doesn't prevent her from sending him messages, or emails, or letters, all with your joint photos in them. What matters to her is the ritual itself."
"I... I'm just a way to spite Harry." Peter said quietly. There was no anger in his voice now. There was only devastation.
"And a source of some resources." I added with a crooked smirk. "Besides, you're not accounting for the physical danger that she's bringing into your home."
"What do you mean?"
"Bench is a metahuman. Just imagine what would happen when he learns that his, as he thinks, girlfriend has another guy."
"Don't even think about that." Gwen shook her head. "Men can be too impulsive about things like that."
"Idiots. They're impulsive idiots." I corrected. "But, Peter, I want to believe that you're not one of those."
"I... I am an idiot." Peter admitted with a sigh. There was no anger in him now. There was only a cold, scorched emptiness and a determination. "But at least I'm not impulsive. It's over with MJ. Consider her to be no longer a part of my life."
Victory. The main thing was that this wasn't just a self-deception. He seemed to be serious.
"Excellent." I smiled. "Now that we've removed that tumor, we can discuss the important things."
"Yes. The danger." He picked up on it. "Tell me, what happened several days ago? And what guarantees are there that it won't happen again?"
"And how did everything look from your side?" I asked. "Did you see anyone specific? The house had no signs of a struggle, and I'm sorry about the broken window, by the way."
"That's another mystery solved." Peter nodded. "It was sleeping gas. We fell asleep at home, and we woke up in the hospital. The doctors told us that we were found at an abandoned warehouse at the docks, and that if it hadn't been for an anonymous call, which I'm assuming was from you, we would have only come to closer to nighttime."
I nodded, and then I told him my version of the events. I told him about Kraven, who had been hired to kidnap me. I told him about S.H.I.E.L.D. and about the moles in their organization that had led to the failures. I kept silent about Hydra. I told him about the bureaucratic agreements, which included a round-the-clock, invisible protection for him and his family. To my surprise, Peter was interested in something different.
"John..." he began, and he nervously clasped his fingers together. "Part of the technologies that we used were, formally speaking, invented by me."
I felt awkward. He was thinking like a scientist. He was being practical. I wasn't offended. I appreciated his practicality.
"Pete, that's a fair question." I said. "You're thinking about patents. I'm thinking about a body count. I don't care about the money or the patents on the tech that I consider to be passed. The question is, who is going to become the media face of our company? Who is going to paint a big, fat, red target onto their own back? Who is going to deal with the problems when they show up at our doorstep? I have a plan for that. Can you say the same?"
"Is it a plan to become the new Tony Stark?"
"That, too." I nodded. "But I also have a plan for you. It involves six-figure salaries, a high position in R&D, Nobel Prizes, and a recognition in scientific circles. You'll have all of this, Pete. Just stay a part of the team. Bring some benefit to it. And stay away from redheads."
"It's over with her. You don't need to remind me." Peter ruffled his hair, the tension in him decreasing. "As for the plan, that's fair. But there's going to be a target on me, too, and on Gwen. I'm tired of being weak. I'm tired of feeling helpless when the people that I love are threatened."
"A way for you to become stronger does exist." I saw a hope spark in his eyes. "For now, it's just a theory, but it's a grounded one. The problem is that, in the coming days, I'm going to be bound hand and foot. Pulling something like that off here, in S.H.I.E.L.D., isn't an option."
"Are they your tricks again?" Gwen asked.
"Something like that." I admitted. "I'm going to provide security for you and for your family. You're going to continue living just as you did before, without having any contacts with me. After some time has passed, I'll pull all of the attention onto myself, and then they'll forget about you."
"Live as before?" He smiled, bitterly. "With the knowledge that's in my head, that's impossible. I could create stimulants that could turn me into a weak super-soldier. I held back because nobody was touching us. But now, they have. I decided that I was going to wait for an explanation from you before I did anything. I can't live as before."
"With great power comes great responsibility." I said, thoughtfully.
"How do you know that?" Peter and Gwen both blurted out at the same time, staring at me in shock.
"And you two." They turned to each other with the same amazement.
A silence filled the room.
"What?" I decided to defuse the situation. "It's just a phrase. And even though I'm not a hero, I agree with it, to some extent. Peter, the main thing here is that you don't engage in any amateur activity. No superhero tights, and no serums. I need your body to be in a clean, baseline condition."
"That sounded a little ambiguous." Gwen smiled.
"Yours, too." I smirked.
"So, what kind of enhancement are we talking about?" Peter was burning with impatience.
My theory about turning him into Spider-Man flashed through my mind, but not yet. My Essence Smith skill was still at a basic level. It gave me a foundation. Technomancy, which I would soon unlock, might give me the necessary tools. For now, I didn't want to give him any false hopes.
"As soon as I get the full use of a personal laboratory, I'll explain everything to you in detail. That should happen sometime next week."
It was Friday now. I was hoping that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't observe weekends.
"And now, Peter, on your agenda is the mission with Doctor Connors. I understand that, due to the recent events, you haven't been thinking about it." I said.
"Yes." And then I turned to Gwen. "And Gwen, your agenda is to rest and to walk around in your new suit. Show yourself to the public." Peter cast an envious glance at her. "You both need to prepare yourselves. Starting next week, it's going to be nothing but intensive work days."
"And what about the University lab?" Peter asked.
"Objectively speaking, you've outgrown it. At least, you have, Peter." I looked at Gwen. "No offense. You'll have to decide for yourselves. It's going to be strange to try and combine them, and scheduling problems may arise."
"Whatever. Blondes don't get offended." Gwen joked. "I've been thinking about quitting there, anyway. This is the perfect occasion for it. This new spot looks a lot more promising."
"You're serious?" Peter stared at her. "But what about your thesis? It's tied to Connors' research."
"It's only formally connected to him." Gwen shrugged. "Pushing a similar kind of research in our new corporation's lab won't be difficult."
"It won't be." I confirmed. "This will untie our hands."
"I'll think about it for now." Peter said. "But, preliminarily, I'm for working in your lab. This is all just happening too fast."
"It's funny how all of the good things happen quickly." I chuckled.
"And the bad ones, too." Peter sighed.
"In this room, there sat two people, and they were looking at a glass that was half." Gwen began.
"Actually, an optimist and a pessimist walk into a bar, and the bartender is like, 'Forget it. There are no glasses here.'" I blurted out. Gwen snorted with laughter. Peter was confused for a second, and then he pulled himself together.
"I'm a realist." he objected.
"In jokes, the realist usually shows up right after the first two." I nodded. "Your 'rather agreement' thing makes me happy. In our time, you need to be more categorical."
"You'll become one whether you like it or not." Peter grumbled.
"You already made a categorical decision about Mary Jane. That was the first and most important step."
We talked for a couple more minutes, and we decided that we would handle the rest of it later. I attached a spy dragonfly to them. Then, I returned to the laboratory.
//==============//
"Chapters on Patreon progress: Currently at;
1. Harry Potter: Satan? Nah, Just My Family Crest = CHAPTER 176
2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = CHAPTER 103
3.Harry Potter: Beyond Good and Evil in the Wizarding World = CHAPTER 154
support me on Patreon for instant access to the 60+ advance chapters: patreon.com/redofic"