....
Just as Cortana had said, it was raining.
George, Dan, Yuri, and the rest of the team stood at John Thomas Blake's graveside as the priest concluded and departed.
Yuri stared at the stone with the specific blankness of someone who has not yet reached the stage of grief where staring at something produces a useful response.
Trish and several other officers were crying openly and supporting each other. George felt his heart add weight it was not expecting.
Then he heard a familiar sound.
Twip.
Twip.
A soft landing on the muddy cemetery path.
"Spider-Man" was wearing an all-black suit.
Not the red and black. All black. His mask showed no expression, but the particular way he stood in the rain communicated something clearly enough that nobody present needed the mask to be transparent.
He was carrying white lilies.
He walked to the grave, stood in front of it, and opened his mouth.
Nothing came out. He closed it.
He crouched down and placed the flowers against the stone with a gentleness that the mask could not conceal or contradict.
"I.... I am sorry," he said, touching the stone once. "Please rest well. We will miss you."
He stood, and Yuri's arms came around him from behind.
She pressed her face into his back and he felt her trembling as she sobbed silently against him.
"Spider-Man," George said, stepping forward.
"Noir, Captain. Each of my suits has a name. And I am not in the mood for lectures today."
"Neither am I, Noir," George said, which made him turn his head. "Relax. I am not here to make enemies. I just want to talk."
Yuri stepped back to give them space.
"I am quitting."
"What?"
....
"What have you done, Osborn!" Alexander Pierce, who looked like Robert Redford and carried his authority the way men who have had it for a long time carry it, stood in front of a large screen showing a destroyed laboratory.
Broken equipment was distributed across the floor, most of it on top of Hydra agents who were no longer operational. In the center of the room, a large green figure was working on the last one.
"HaHaHa!" The Green Goblin lifted the final Hydra agent above his head and broke his spine across his knee with the specific satisfaction of a man who has been looking forward to this.
"You should have killed me when you had the chance, Alexander! HAHAHAHA! Now I am coming for your head!"
"This will not go unpunished, Osborn! You will pay for this betrayal!"
"I am Green Goblin! HaHaHa!" He tossed the body aside as Pierce severed the communication with visible irritation.
"But before that...." He turned to a smaller screen displaying Spider-Man's file with the designation Spider-Hero attached to it. "I have a bug to squash."
....
"You are not serious," Spider-Man said, crossing his arms.
He and George were on the roof of an abandoned building near the cemetery, out of the rain's line of sight.
George had sent everyone else back to the station except for Yuri, who had requested leave. She needed rest. Everyone understood this.
"I am leaving," George said, watching the sun beginning to push through the clouds at the edges.
"Times are changing drastically. I always knew there was more to this world than what we could see or confirm. It was always small and peripheral, but now it is coming to the surface. As you predicted it would. These old bones are not what they were. The best thing I can do is stop being an obstacle for those who can actually keep up with what is coming."
"You do not look that old."
"I am fifty-four years old."
"Wow," Spider-Man said. "You are old."
George produced a small smile.
"I just wish you could save people without having to kill them."
"And I wish you could see things from my perspective." He moved toward George.
"I will never be the hero you or the world want. When I kill, I eliminate threats. I always give them a chance, even if that is not visible from the outside. I am fair when it comes to these decisions. I check, I consider. When they are eliminated they stay eliminated. I know it is not morally clean, but it is effective."
"Yes. A permanent solution."
"In most cases," he said, with a shrug.
"What do you mean?"
"There is a great deal of strange material out in the world, George.
Entities capable of reviving the dead. The man with the claws you have probably seen footage of, that man is effectively immortal. I have seen what he can do firsthand.
Based on the information I have, he fought alongside Captain America in the war. He is approximately a hundred and eighty years old, give or take."
"Holy sh...." George rubbed his temples. "I do not want to hear any more. The less I know the better."
"Ignorance is bliss, my friend."
"Yes. Sometimes it genuinely is."
Spider-Man was quiet for a moment.
"I apologize," he said. George turned with a confused expression. "You are a police officer. I cannot imagine how hard and contradictory it is to know and live alongside what I just described. Immortal people.
Things that can bring back the dead. A man in red and black taking justice into his own hands."
"You do not know the half of it," George said, and laughed, a tired and genuine sound. "I know you are not a hero. Not a traditional one, at least. You are the furthest thing from one. You are more like an antihero, or a superhero psychopath."
"Ouch." He touched his chest. "That hurt."
"I am joking." George paused. "Actually. No. I am counting on it."
Spider-Man went still.
"You," he said carefully, "a police captain, are counting on me, a superhero psychopath, to protect this city?"
"I know it is crazy," George admitted. "I know you have no morals. And if I am honest, you look like a rabid dog most of the time."
"Excuse me!"
"But I also know that you are probably what this city needs. Someone willing to take care of it and get their hands dirty so that others do not have to. Someone who will bring peace to the people who need it."
"....You are crazy," Spider-Man said, and laughed, unable to help it. "And that is coming from someone like me."
"Perhaps you are infecting me."
"Please no. The world could not handle another Spider-Man."
"Hahaha. Finally something we can both agree on."
They laughed, and something lifted from both of them that had been sitting there through the whole morning.
....
Parker Residence.
"You seem to be in a good mood," May said, removing the stitches carefully and cleaning the wound.
"I am. I had a man-to-man conversation with George."
"Oh!" She looked up. "How did it go?"
"He said he is resigning because his body cannot keep up with the changes that are coming. He also asked me to protect New York. I think he did it because he did not have a better option available."
"Haha." May's expression moved between something sad and something warm. "It makes me sad and happy at the same time. He is a good man and deserves the rest."
"I think exactly the same."
"So he knows everything?"
"Almost everything... And surprisingly, he did not lose his mind. He just called me a lucky bastard for being with two women simultaneously who both accept the arrangement. He said he would not question my sanity anymore since his own is hanging by a thread."
"I agree with him," May said, with a mischievous quality to it, standing and moving behind him to trace a finger along the almost-healed wounds on his back.
"Of course you would," he said, standing and turning toward her. "In the end he wiped away some very manly tears and mentioned he was living every man's dream."
"And what do you think about that?"
Peter looked at her for a moment.
"I agree with him," he said, and pulled her into a kiss that was entirely unambiguous about its intentions.
....
It was safe to say that neither of them got much sleep that night.