At the moment he started to fall he shot a web and began swinging toward Harlem. "I have to get there before the military closes off the area. Specifically before Ross."
As he approached Harlem, the signs of destruction were visible from a considerable distance.
Looking down, he could see people running through the streets in all directions. He stopped on the face of a building and assessed the situation.
'Abomination is causing chaos specifically to draw Hulk's attention,' he thought. 'Which appears to be working.'
"Cortana."
"Yes."
"I want to disappear from every recording device in the area. No footage of me, no photographs. I want to be invisible to their systems. Use the police network for access."
"Understood. Good luck."
"Thank you."
He arrived in Harlem and landed on a building while surveying the destroyed cars, collapsed shopfronts, and the quantity of rubble covering the streets.
Then he heard voices he recognized. He looked toward them and saw Yuri, John, Trish, George, and the useless officer, all together near a patrol vehicle. He swung down.
Thud.
"I did not expect to see all of you here," he said.
"Spider-Man!"
"Murderer!"
"It is good to see you here," Yuri started. "Could you help-...."
"I am sorry," Spider-Man said. "I cannot help with what you are doing. I have more important priorities right now."
"Yeah, like what?" Dan said. "Go kill a gang? Massacre a mafia?" The sarcasm was thick enough to step on.
"I do not have time to talk to idiots. Listen, George." He looked at the Captain directly. "I will save as many trapped people as I can, but my primary objective is to slow Abomination down. Or rather, to buy time for someone else to arrive."
"Time?" George said. "For whom? What are you talking about?"
'This is the perfect moment to give Ross a little something to think about.'
"Listen carefully, because I am not repeating myself and time is limited. The creature calling itself Abomination is actually Emil Blonsky, a soldier used in an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier project.
The formula they used was a replicated variant of the original serum, and then he was injected with a blood sample from someone else. Secondly...." He paused for the effect. "I am waiting for someone who is like him. But not like him. This person has considerably greater control over his transformation."
Yuri opened her mouth. He continued.
"This person is Dr. Bruce Banner. The blood used to create Abomination was Banner's."
The officers stared at him.
"That is all I have to say. I am going to keep Blonsky occupied and away from your position. I recommend you take the seriously injured to FEAST. They have sufficient equipment to treat the wounded."
He jumped off the nearest surface and began swinging before anyone could respond.
George watched him go and then activated his radio.
"You heard Spider-Man.
Take all seriously injured to FEAST. Mark a four-by-four perimeter. If you encounter a green creature with external bones, you have permission to shoot, but only the one with bones."
He looked at his officers, who had not moved. "Let us go! What are you waiting for? Chinese New Year?!"
They moved. He looked back in the direction Spider-Man had gone. "Good luck, kid."
What George did not know was that Spider-Man had not actually gone far. He was watching from a building above them.
'He is a good officer,' Spider-Man thought. 'He did not order them to shoot at Banner.'
He jumped and began swinging toward Grayburn College.
"Cortana.... Find Samuel Sterns' laboratory, also listed under the alias Mr. Blue, at Grayburn College. Give me the address."
"Mapping now."
At the college, he ran along the walls, staying in the shadows wherever possible.
He reached the room where Blonsky's transformation had occurred, ignored the broken wall, and went through the door.
Sterns was on the floor. One punch put him fully out.
"Okay. I need to work fast before the Army seals the perimeter and before SHIELD sends their people in to take everything, only for Hydra to take it from them without anyone noticing."
He looked around the laboratory. "I will see if I can salvage something useful here as well."
'I wonder what meeting Black Widow ahead of schedule would produce,' he thought briefly, then set it aside as a stupid impulse and focused.
He moved through the connecting corridor and reached Sterns' primary laboratory where the gamma blood was stored.
Two soldiers came through the double doors at the far end, weapons immediately raised.
He turned around and assessed the chemical components on the shelf behind him.
"I hope the Lizard formula does not drive me crazy," he said quietly.
He located two specific chemical components, and as the soldiers began shouting orders for him to drop everything and get on the ground, voices that carried a detectable note of fear in them, he turned, waited until they were close enough to have committed to their positions, and threw the components.
Boom.
Not lethal.
Sufficient to produce unconsciousness. Both soldiers were down without further incident.
He moved to the storage unit containing the blood. Before touching anything, he found adhesive tape and disposable gloves.
He taped the entire jar completely while wearing the gloves.
Once every surface was covered he placed it carefully into his web-bag along with all the documentation relating to Banner's blood and its applications.
He also collected blood bags in three strength categories: four low-strength, four medium-strength, three high-strength.
With everything secured, he built a compact improvised detonator from what remained in the laboratory, moved Sterns and the two soldiers to positions outside the lab's blast radius, and left. Behind him, an explosion. The laboratory caught fire. Everything about Banner's blood burned with it.
He found a safe building a few streets away and hid the collected materials behind some boxes, then swung toward Abomination's position.
En route, an explosion below caught his attention differently than the one he had caused. A helicopter. The rear rotors and tail had taken damage and it was coming down.
He accelerated through buildings, using their walls as slingshot points, aimed himself at the falling aircraft, released, shot a web before the momentum ran out, and propelled himself to it.
He reached the helicopter and moved along the outside toward the cockpit window.
"Everything will be alright! Do not worry!" His words were swallowed by the screaming inside.
"Damn it." He moved to the front and analyzed the space between the two buildings they were dropping through, registered the geometry, and understood what he was going to do.
"I suppose this is the plan," he said, shot two webs at the buildings on either side, attached them to the helicopter's frame, and pulled.
The descent slowed.
Not enough.
The tail caught the ground and detached from the impact.
"Damn it!" He watched the separated tail section begin to drift toward a cluster of people below, shot a web, caught it, used everything he had to pull it back, and webbed it to the building wall.
The main helicopter body began spinning.
The attached webs accelerated its descent rather than preventing it.
He jumped clear and threw web grenades at the building walls in rapid succession, building a net of webbing between them.
The helicopter settled into the middle of it. He shot a new web before he hit the ground and swung back toward Abomination's position.
"Damn," he said. "That was next level."
Arriving where Abomination should have been, he found the creature had already thrown Hulk against a wall and was working on keeping him there with repeated strikes.
A second helicopter, this one intact enough to land, discharged soldiers and a civilian woman.
Betty Ross.
He saw the fuel leaking from the landed helicopter. Sparks were developing in proximity to it.
'I have to stop it before it blows and takes out civilians.'
He landed near the helicopter. Several soldiers turned weapons on him immediately.
"Get out of there, it is going to explode!" Betty warned.
"No, it will not," he said, threw a web grenade at the fuel tank, and covered it completely. The leaking fuel that had already reached the ground he absorbed with targeted webs before it could reach the sparks.
He turned and scanned for trapped civilians. A person in a car. He ran, reached the window, tore it off, extracted the person, and carried them on one shoulder to the nearest police position.
"Are you alright?" He helped the person into the officers' care carefully. "Be careful. This area is extremely dangerous."
He assessed the surrounding area for trapped soldiers.
He ran and jumped through the debris field, pulling people out of overturned cars and from under rubble.
He covered the worst wounds with webbing to slow blood loss while they waited for paramedics.
Several civilians had stayed to help and he moved alongside them. Betty ran toward him as he pulled the last man free.
"You have to help him!" She pointed toward Hulk, who had just arrived from a different direction.
Abomination grabbed a taxi with people inside and lifted it to use as a weapon.
Before he could swing it, Spider-Man shot a web and yanked it sideways. The taxi came toward him. He caught it, lowered it carefully, and ripped the door off so everyone inside could run.
Twip.
Abomination turned, confused, and a sheet of webbing covered his eyes.
Spider-Man was already running.
He grabbed a car from the street, built momentum, and swung it into Abomination with enough force to send the creature airborne for several meters.
He let go of the car and looked at the soldiers around him who had stopped moving to watch.
"What are you waiting for?! Run!"
They listened.
They grabbed the wounded and moved.
One wished him luck on the way out, and when he heard it he felt something tighten in his chest that he did not have time to examine.