After that statement, Black Cat and I begin to fight with those criminals with such perfect harmony that even when I fought with Johnny and the other members of the Fantastic 4 I didn't feel the same way as I do now, like Black Cat and I have been fighting together for a long time.

Neither of us is ever out of place and, as if we were telepathic, we can coordinate during the fight without saying a single word to each other.

I deal mainly with Oliver and Liam while Black Cat takes care of the others, however sometimes we both intervene in the clash that the other is having, to help or defend from some danger.

At one point I immobilize Oliver with my webs, and, seeing this, Black Cat decides to throw two black balls in his direction, the same ones she had used to try to immobilize me that night in the alley where we first met.

While she makes sure those balls hit the man, I move behind her to defend her from an attack by the criminals she was fighting, then, after she kicked Liam to the ground, she makes me lower so that she can use me as a support to jump and throw a punch in the face to Oliver, who seems to be trying to shoot another energy blast.

Fortunately, Oliver takes more and more time to prepare one of those attacks after he previously shot them without any kind of caution, so it is now easier to prevent him from using that power.

Since we are managing to stand up to that group, all the other criminals that are scattered around the building start coming here, trying to help their colleagues, however I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

While it is very good that everyone is gathering where we are, instead of wandering around and risking them finding the painting or the hostages, this still implies an increase in the number of people we have to fight with.

For a while I have been noticing the first signs of Black Cat fatigue, which she is not used to fighting for so long and with so many people at once and I am certainly not in my best condition at the moment. 

As I begin to assess how to proceed, we all hear a scream that, if we did not see the source that produced it, anyone would have thought it was not of human origin.

When I turn to Liam, the architect of that monstrous scream, we see him wriggling on the ground with all his strength and I see that his whole body, especially his torso, is gradually enlarging, so much so that he manages to free himself from the obstructions that Cat and I applied to him.

As he gets up, his head is close to the ceiling and his size now looks similar to that of the Hulk, however his legs have remained as before. On the contrary, they seem even more fragile since the weight they have to bear has increased even more.

The skin of his body is now full of red spots that seems to be acne conglobata, and his eyes are completely white, in them there are neither their pupils, nor their irirs.

After yelling again, the man points his eyes at me and, like an angry bull that saw his target, he starts running in my direction, wiping out anyone who was in his way even if they are his companions.

'He clearly went berserk. Did he enter this state because of the serum?'

Without wasting time, I wrap an arm around Black Cat's hip to make sure she is near me, and with the other hand I shoot a web to the ceiling and then, while I hold Black Cat close to me, I swing to the corridor from where Black Cat came out, to escape from the clutches of Liam who is running in our direction.

Once we get our feet on the ground, I shoot several webs so that we can momentarily block the passage from where we passed, thus interrupting Liam's pursuit of us.

When the man collides with the wall of cobwebs that I have created, he screams again and, shortly after, he tries to get rid of them in anger.

I already knew that wouldn't be enough to stop him, plus there are still Oliver and his other colleagues, who will try to exploit to their advantage this new state of Liam in order to carry out their task, even though Liam can no longer recognize his allies

As soon as I am going to tell Black Cat what to do, she suddenly takes my hand and she starts running away, dragging me with her.

Before we can get out of that hallway where we are, there's already a bunch of those criminals blocking our way, and before we can fight them, I feel my spider-sense activate.

Instinctively I turn around and, before two left fists of Liam could hit Black Cat, I position myself in front of her and I manage to parry the punch that would hit my face with my forearms, while the other manages to hit me belly

Despite the fact that I did everything I could to be able to withstand that double blow as best I could, the force put into them is still quite a lot. So much so that when those two punches touch me, I can't stay firmly in the spot I'm in but I jolt away and I end up colliding against that group of thugs who are standing in our way, knocking them all down like bowling pins.

I don't even have time to recover that, with that little breath that remained in my lungs, I am forced to warn Black Cat to dodge another attack of Liam against her, since she is distracted.

Instead of worrying about that angry man with four arms next to her, she's looking at me for some reason.

As soon as she hears my words, Black Cat ducks down and then she does a front walkover to dodge Liam's punches, which they collide against the wall that Black Cat had earlier to her right.

Before Liam could resume attacking her after destroying part of the wall he hit, I get back up, albeit with difficulty, and I yell at Black Cat to be careful and to aim for Liam's legs, in the meantime that I disarm and immobilize those thugs I clashed with.

Afterwards, Black Cat, who has regained her concentration, manages to dodge Liam's hands that he has stretched forward in order to catch her with a split, then she puts her hands on the ground for support and finally she proceeds to kick him in the left knee area.

Although she does not have the same strength as I do, that kick of hers brings Liam to his knees but before she can get away from him, he manages to grab her by the neck with his upper left hand as he is clearly pervaded by a feeling of terrible pain after Black Cat's kick.

As soon as he realizes he has managed to get her, the pain Liam is feeling seems to disappear completely, and he immediately begins to clamp his hand around her neck, but after a few seconds, before he could break the girl's neck, I throw myself at him.

The moment I get to him, I punch him in the face to stun him, then I wrap myself around his upper left arm and I begin to squeeze it. I especially concentrate the force of that grip of mine on his wrist, to do something similar to what I did to Typhoid.

Of course, when he recovers from that punch, he immediately tries to drive me away with his right arms, hitting me with punches that are less powerful than the ones he hit me with a short time ago.

The position in which I am now makes it difficult for him to hit me as hard as he did before; moreover, the pain he feels from my grip on his arm prevents him from calibrating the force to be used to hit me, because he is more focused on making sure that I get away from his arm as quickly as possible.

To make him even more impatient and unfocused, I begin to exponentially increase the force in my grip, being careful not to overdo it, until he finally loses his resolve to maintain his grip on Black Cat's neck.

"Hadn't you ever heard the story of David versus Goliath? Even though you are now a giant full of muscles, you are not invincible, how about you calm down now and we talk about this anger management problem of yours over a warm chamomile tea?" I say while still clinging to his arm.

Now that Liam no longer has to think about having to hold Black Cat's neck, Liam's fury focuses on me, and before he could slam the arm I'm clinging to against the wall, I leap away and position myself in front of Black Cat, who is on all fours while she catches her breath.

"Okay, it seems like you don't have much to share with me, but your spider-psychologist recommends a good dose of tranquilizer punches to relax." I say.

Following my words, I jump into the air as he tries to get up and, after I have prevented him from taking me with his four arms while I am in midair, I punch him in the face so hard that it makes him stagger.

In that instant when I strike him in the face, I place my feet on his chest and subsequently I push them against it to make him fall on the ground. 

Once he's on the ground, I shoot two webs on the floor, I jump back into the air and then pull those webs to speed up my way back to him and finally I hit Liam's chest with the soles of my feet.

That move finally puts an end to the fight, since Liam finally passes out as a result of it, and after I make sure he's not a problem anymore, I go to Black Cat to check on her.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, it's okay, I guess. That's why I just rob rich criminals, I don't understand why the hell you insist on fighting people like that every day to help strangers. If you're a masochist there are other ways to satisfy your fetish do you know?" She says as she clings to me to get up.

"Ahah, you're not the first person who thinks I'm a masochist, but that's not why I do it. It's my responsibility to do things like this, to do the right thing."

"After tonight's experience, I much prefer to think only of myself and my kittens than do what you do. What do we do now? The others will be here soon and I honestly don't think I can continue fighting like you. Do you have any plans to wrap this up quickly?"

"Let's say I have something in mind, where are the remaining hostages now?"

"I left them in a room near the stairs leading upstairs, it's in the hallway opposite to the one we're in now. "

"Okay, you go get the painting and try to run away without me seeing you, and I'll take care of the rest."

"It's idiotic! You can't face all of them alone in your current condition. I won't abandon you." she says annoyed.

"I'm not as hurt as you think, I've done more dangerous things in a worse state in the past. I just need to stay focused."

"Tell me the truth. You want to do this just to buy time for me and the hostages to escape, don't you? You want to risk your life for something like that and you want me to be okay with it?!"

"Didn't you say you didn't like heroin? Yet it seems that the cynical Black Cat is worried about another person who is not yourself or one of your kittens..." I say in an ironic tone to point out how evident it is that she is not as insensitive as she would like to be, then I keep talking, "I can do it myself, more than anything else you have to be careful, because as soon as they notice your absence they will come looking for you."

"How do you know that I didn't lie to you and once I run away with the painting, I don't let you find me anymore? Don't you think about that?!"

"You trusted me when I asked you to stay, it's only fair that I trust you too. I promised you that you'd leave with the painting, didn't I? I always keep my promises. When you're sure you're safe, find a way to get in touch with me. If you truly betray my trust in you, I will do anything to find you and to take you to prison but I doubt you will anyway."

"Don't think you know me. You're an idiot for trusting people so easily, that's why heroes like you always end up dead after a while."

"Although I'm not a hero like you say, I admit I'm an idiot, it's true. Even though I know this, I will trust you because I think I understand a little what kind of person you are. I'm sure there are reasons that led you to be who you are now, and I wouldn't mind getting to know you and your story better. But now we can't waste time chatting because they're coming, so you go get the painting and then you leave. We'll see each other soon, won't we?" I say.

After that I push Black Cat to my right, where there is the entrance to another corridor, when I see Oliver and other criminals coming our way, so that they do not see her.

In response to that action, Balck Cat utters a verse that expresses how irritated she is by my behavior and my stubbornness, then she whispers me a phrase with a tone of voice that only I can hear while it remains unheard by the ears of Oliver and his companions as they approach me.

"Make sure you survive, or I promise you I will become the most fearsome evil the world has ever seen, and if I hurt anyone, it will be your fault, since you let me escape. I will be so cruel that you will regret making me like this even after you die..." She says and then she leaves.

'This girl...'

"Spider-Man's friend is gone, you must find her. We'll stay in case the painting's still here and keep Spider-Man busy in the meantime." The man holding Oliver says while holding the transceiver in front of his mouth.

"Keep me busy? The only people who could bother me a little bit between you are either unconscious or no longer able to stand up because they didn't follow my advice about not abusing the powers given by that serum."

"I'll kill you... Spider-Man..." Oliver says with a strained voice.

"Better not, otherwise it looks like you're going to unleash an evil that even the Avengers won't be able to control." I say without realizing that I said those words with a smile.

When I finish talking, I shoot a web at Oliver and then I pull him towards me without finding any resistance from his comrades, who were taken by surprise by the speed of my actions.

After laying Oliver on the ground, I cover him with several cobwebs, forming a kind of cocoon that is attached to the floor, so that he does not move from there and, even if he uses his power to free himself, he will still take some time to do so.

"Well, now that he's settled, it's your turn." I say then I run to that group of people in front of me.

It's not long before they're out of the picture too, and, as I hear Oliver's hate-filled screams for me, I walk to the room where Black Cat left the remaining hostages.

Since there's a chance that the building could collapse because of these criminals, according to what Black Cat told me, I immobilized each of them, so that the chances of someone blowing up the building decrease as they're still inside.

Although they are few now, they are still not zero, so my priority now is to take those people away.

The moment I get to the door, in addition to finding a bag with another painting from the Fisk collection inside, I finally hear the sirens coming from outside the building.

When I open the door to the room, I see Liz and her parents, Alonzo Lincoln, a middle-aged man and an elderly lady inside. 

At first it seems that almost everyone is worried when they see the door open, maybe even Alonzo Lincoln is worried but from his expression of stone is difficult to understand, but as soon as they see that I am the one who opened it, the climate in the room changes to a more serene one.

With the bag worn like a backpack, I escort them to the nearest exit, however, just when we're near our destination, my spider-sense triggers. Impulsively, I push those people who were following me, so that they go against the wall to our right.

As soon as I do this, I feel a blast of energy pass behind me and when we see the point where it collides, we can see the outside of the building from that gap that it created. The gap is as wide as two corridors and so high that it reaches the middle of the second floor of the building that it has created.

Whatever was in that place has completely disappeared and what is left in the vicinity has remnants of that energy that is still corroding them.

The author of this is obviously Oliver and when I turn in his direction to see him, I see that Oliver is shaking and he has his torso stretched forward, as if he is going to fall at any moment.

His entire body is enveloped in that green energy, which is gradually corroding the skin of his body, to the point that in some places you can see the bones of his body, and his eyes, like Liam's eyes, are now devoid of pupils and irirs.

'Did he also go berserk?!'

"Spider-Man... Kill... Spider-Man..." Oliver whispers as the energy that envelops him amplifies more and more.

"Get out through that hole, quick!" I scream as I run in the direction of Oliver, who is raising his hands in my direction while walking like a zombie.

With the help of a web that I shoot towards the ceiling, I swing in his direction and I tackle him, despite the fact that I am forced to make contact with the energy that is around his body in order to push him to the ground.

Meanwhile I fall along with Oliver, he releases the energy he has accumulated and he shoots a blast of a diameter similar to that of a yoga ball.

As if it were a knife sinking into a cake, that ray generated by Oliver cuts from what's left of the ceiling near the hole that he created earlier, up to the ceiling above our heads, creating a gap that also passes through the upper floors and the roof of the building.

After that blast, Oliver passes out, but I can't spend any time there, because the debris coming from the upper floors are falling, and some of them are going in the direction of the civilians who are not yet outside the building.

When I get up, I move Oliver's body to a safer place, then I run towards the people in front of me while dodging what falls from above, and as soon as I try to shoot a spider web, nothing comes out of each of my two web shooters.

'Why do cobwebs always end when I need them most?! I even changed the formula recently to make a cartridge more durable!'

"Aaargh!" 

Liz, who was near the exit, suddenly stumbles and a boulder falls on her ankle, which prevents her from getting up.

The moment she utters that cry of pain, the vault of both her parents, who have just managed to get out of the building along with the other remaining people, has an expression of pure terror and despair when they see the situation.

Before one of the parents has the idea to go back there to help her, I yell at them to stay where they are and it's just when I finish talking that I see a piece of ceiling, twice the size of Liz, falling where she is.

Drawing on all the forces that remain in my body, I take off the bag with the painting and then I run in her direction to position myself above her, so that that boulder falls on my shoulders instead of crushing her.

Normally I would not have problems to support such a weight, however because of all that has happened so far and the wound that I have to the left arm, when the boulder falls on me, the weight of it forces me to put a knee on the ground.

"It's okay, nothing happened. I know you're scared but now I need you to be clear-headed for your own sake and for your parents' sake. Can you get your foot out of there?" I say to Liz in a tone that tries to be reassuring as I see her crying in fear.

"I don't know! I don't know! I can't move my foot at all!"

"It's all right-"

"SPIDER-MAN!" Liz's parents scream in unison and, along with their scream, my spider-sense activates.

I don't have time to react to those signals that warn me of a danger but I can guess what they mean, so I get ready and suddenly I feel another piece of the building fall on me and, consequently, increase the load I'm carrying on my shoulders.

"Oh my god, I can't die now..." Liz whispers in terror.

"You're not gonna die, I promise you. Listen to me, try to roll that rock with your hands enough to move your foot, okay? I'll make sure nothing hurts you." I say while I try to hide how hard it is for me to bear that weight on my shoulders.

Liz nods with her head, though still afraid that she may die, then with trembling hands she reaches the boulder above her ankle and with all the strength she has in her body she slowly manages to move it a few inches to the right.

As soon as she is halfway through, two police officers who have just arrived and Liz's parents warn me again about another boulder falling in our direction. This time, in addition to the fact that it overlaps with the debris I'm holding, a part of it cracks and that piece hits me on the head.

For a moment I feel like I'm going to pass out, in fact my body was going to stop doing everything it was doing and lie on the ground, however, before I could put the other knee on the ground, I immediately manage to recover but this does not take away the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to support that weight in my current condition. 

'I would ask Liz to hurry, however it is counterproductive, I would make her panic more'

When I am about to reassure her again, I feel that the weight that I am carrying on my shoulders slightly decreases and when I try to understand what is happening, I see Typhoid with a hand stretched out in the direction of the rubble that I carry on my shoulders, she's probably using her telekinesis to lift them up a bit.

I instinctively try to move in such a way that she can only hurt me and not Liz, however, contrary to my expectations that she can use this situation to hurt me or Liz, I notice that she kneels next to me to help me support those rubble.

"Can you help her now? I wanted to remove that boulder but I don't have the strength to do it. I swear I won't do anything to her, I just want to help you."

Although I'm not understanding what's going on now and why Typhoid has become so submissive and meek, I kick the boulder over Liz's ankle before Typhoid can do anything and finally I free her from it.

Afterwards, since it seems that no more rubble is falling, Typhoid asks me to coordinate with her so that we can drop the boulders we are holding without hurting Liz and then, after a short countdown, we get up and finally we get rid of those pieces of building.

After doing this, I lift Liz and I take her to her parents, where she is greeted by their embrace and their liberating tears, however, as beautiful as it is to see that scene of family love, my attention returns to Typhoid.

When I get back to her, it seems that she is the exact opposite of the person who wanted to kill me, so much so that I might think that she might be a different person than the Thyphoid I fought with.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, whatever happened, I swear it wasn't my intention. " she says as she looks down.

"What do you mean it wasn't your intention? Earlier I heard that guy say you had to retrieve the painting because there is a person in danger. Are they blackmailing you?" I say as I approach her.

"I don't even remember how I got here, usually I can at least know what happened..." She says in visibly distressed by something.

"Hey, I can help you, but you have to explain to me clearly what's going on and what your relationship is with those guys, otherwise the police will treat you like one of them because you helped them." I say, then I put my hands on her shoulders, trying to calm that tremor that is pervading her body.

"I- I can't get arrested again by the police, I had managed to learn to live with them, what happened now? Why can't I even communicate with them now? You have to help me, I beg you, that man must have done something to me instead of curing me."

When I'm about to ask her more information about it, I see that Typhoid suddenly returns calm and the right half of her face gradually becomes pale.

Following this change by Typhoid, my spider-sense activates but unfortunately even if I back off when I feel that itch, she manages to hurt me with her knife, albeit superficially.

Seeing this, the two policemen who were nearby join me immediately and, while they point their guns at Typhoid, they order her to surrender but, after pointing her right hand at them, Typhoid manages to make the magazine of the guns that are pointed at her and the bullet that they had already loaded into them fall to the ground.

While the two retrieve the magazines, I try to reach her to prevent her from leaving but, unexpectedly, a wall of flame rises in front of me. Beyond it I see Typhoid collecting Oliver's body and, after she glances at me, she runs away in the opposite direction to where we are.

Once Typhoid disappears from my view, I take the bag that I put down to help Liz and I escort the two policemen out of the building since it is not safe to stay there.

In the meantime we get out of there, I see two fire trucks and other police patrols arrive here and as soon as we are outside, I feel someone's hand getting on my shoulder to prevent me from continuing to follow those two policemen, which are still embarrassed by the way Typhoid has neutralized them.

When I turn to see who stopped me, I realize that it was Liz's father, who is holding Liz together with his wife, and both of them thank me for helping them, but especially for saving their child.

From the way Liz looks at me, she clearly wants to thank me as well as her parents did but she is obviously exhausted by what she has been through, so she doesn't have the strength to do it. Besides that, the school's queen bee, who always knows what to say, seems like she doesn't know what to tell me now.

"I just did my job, you don't have to thank me. If you are really grateful, try to be kinder to other people, especially those who need help. That would be the biggest thank you I could get." I tell them, then I join the group of cops in front of me to explain what happened while they take Liz to the doctors who just arrived.

Towards the end of my report, the subject of the painting that those criminals were looking for pops up, and before I can say anything, Alonzo Lincoln, who has just finished seeing the doctors who are now treating Liz, intervenes in the speech.

After expressing his disappointment at the delay in the police intervention, he complains that my friend and I have endangered the lives of all the hostages in order not to give that picture to those criminals.

When the policeman asks me where the painting is now, I don't have time to answer because Alonzo Lincoln does it for me. At that question, the man points to the bag that I have behind me and he says that the painting is inside it.

At the sergeant's request, I hand the bag over to one of the cops, who seems oddly happy about it, and when one of them asks where my friend is now, to get her testimony and to make sure that the rest of the city can know that she helped me avert this crisis, I just say that I don't know where she is now.

"Although she helped me, I don't know all the people who wear a costume and do good deeds. I am just a friendly spider."

After saying this while reloading reload my web-shooters, I pretend to move away but eventually I go back inside that building without being seen by anyone to retrieve my backpack with my clothes and my camera while the cops arrest the criminals who remained inside the building. 

Before returning home, I stop on the roof of a nearby building and while I look at the photos that the camera managed to take, I think about the reason that prevented the cops from coming to help here as soon as they knew what was happening.

At some point, I realize something.

'When we met at the beginning of the auction, Liz randomly said that I have a pretty face... Now that I think about it, she's the second person this evening who called me cute... Wait, why am I thinking about things like that? I'm exhausted, That's why. It's better that I go home now, so I treat my wounds and then I get some rest. Tomorrow I'll look for more information about the lizard monster the cops told me about...'

??? P.O.V.

Once I get out of the car, I throw away the mask I wore all night and then I follow those four men who brought me here inside the warehouse in front of us.

It's not the first time I've been in that place, and I already know who's waiting for me to find out everything that happened during this evening.

"Welcome, Mr Garcia, please have a seat." 

The person who welcomes me is Tombstone's right-hand man, and right now he is sitting behind a table, which is under the only light bulb that is lit in the building.

In the meantime, as I sit at the other end of the table, where the other chair is, the men who escorted me here position themselves two behind him and two behind me.

"I'm sorry if my men brought you here now, but you know, after what happened tonight, we were afraid we'd never have the pleasure of seeing you again because of a possible desire to run away." He says after he puts his phone on the table.

"I would never have run away, sir, I know it's useless."

"I'm glad, otherwise you would have forced us to pay a visit to your family to ask about your whereabouts." He says, then he snap his fingers.

After the snap of that man's fingers, the two men behind him approach him, one hands him a cigarette while the other pulls a lighter out of his jacket pocket. Once their boss has put the cigarette in his mouth, the man with the lighter lights the cigarette.

"So, Mr Garcia, you convinced me to give you a chance to prove your worth, but from what I've heard, you failed to complete your task, correct?" he asks me while he smokes his cigarette.

"It's true sir, I couldn't steal the painting as I promised, but this failure is not entirely due to my own and my men's actions."

"Tell me what happened, after listening to you I'll decide what to do. I don't have to tell you what happens if I find out you're lying, right?"

"Of course, I would never lie to you, sir. I admit that I made mistakes, mistakes due to the fact that I felt confident that I could do it because I had your support, but you have to believe me when I tell you that tonight's failure is not my fault. That group of women you asked me to take with me, they didn't accept that I was in charge. On several occasions their leader did not respond to my commands as you assured me, and she even tried to kill me. For some reason even with the remote you gave me, she didn't follow my orders."

"I understand she tried to kill you, but I don't give a shit, honestly. Nobody in the organization cares if you die or not, the only thing that mattered was taking that painting and you didn't. Are you telling me that you and your men couldn't get that fucking painting for that reason?"

"No, not just for this. The main reason is that someone else knew about our interest in stealing that painting. The damn spider was there, and he knew we wanted that painting! Instead of going to deal with the distraction that you had prepared for him, he and a girl were there at the auction to get the painting."

"So there was Spider-Man there... But I had given you something to use in case of unexpected events like that, didn't I?"

"Yes, sir. I had two of my most trusted men use the serum, but Spider-Man still managed to beat them. He did it easily because after a while it seems that my two men started suffering side effects for some reason. We managed to prevent them from being arrested, but now they're both unconscious, and they need help-" 

Before I can ask him to help my two friends, one hand grabs the back of my neck and then it slams my face against the table. After a few seconds of him pressing my face against the table, he pulls me back, so that I can look back at the man on the other side of the table as I feel blood coming out of my nose, which is probably broken.

"I thought I already said I don't give a shit whether you or one of your men die or not, didn't I? I'm not someone who likes to repeat myself, I hope you keep that in mind now because I'd hate it if you forgot it again. Back to the painting, where is it now?"

"I don't know for sure, because Spider-Man and his friend both had a bag with a painting in it. Spider-Man gave his to the police, while the girl fled with her own. My men tried to catch her, but after a while, they lost her..."  

When I finish speaking, aware that those words will not please the man, I see him take the phone and, after he approaches it to his ear, he asks with extreme courtesy if the person who apparently was on the call heard our conversation clearly.

Although I can't hear the voice of the person he's talking to, I know who he's talking to now.

'Tombstone...'

Their conversation goes on for a while, and since the man in front of me answers in monosyllables, it's hard for me to understand what's going on but it's clear that my fate depends on the outcome of that conversation.

At the end of that call, the man puts his phone in the right pocket of his jacket and then he looks at me.

"I guess you know who I was talking to, so there's no point in telling you. Tombstone wanted to know your side of the story, hoping that you would give us some useful information enough to get something good out of this failure, but he already knew most of the things you said."

"Did he already know everything?" I ask in disbelief.

"Tombstone has eyes and ears everywhere, in this case they were much closer than you could even imagine and, although he knows you told the truth, he also knows that you omitted a detail. You didn't tell me that after Spider-Man saved you from Typhoid, you left to coordinate the operation remotely because you were scared. Tombstone did not like this thing at all, after all, when the ship sinks, the captain must be the last to abandon it..." The man says as he gets up to approach me.

Sensing that I am about to end badly, I can only invoke his mercy, even if it will be futile this is the only thing I can do, along with promising to remedy my failure.

"Please give me another chance! I promise I will fix everything! Please, Mr Hammerhead-" I say, however, when I notice the way I called him when I was in fear, I shut up immediately because I realize the huge mistake I made.

"How did you call me?" The man tells me in a tone so cold that makes my blood freeze and with a look that does not hide his desire to kill me.

"Forgive me sir, please forget what an idiot like me said-"

Unfortunately I can't complete my apology since the man I disrespected slams my face against the table again.

"In the past, no one would have had the courage to look into the eyes of the head of one of the Maggia families, let alone talk. Now, because of Spider-Man, who ridicule the criminal world with his little jokes and nicknames he gives us, like the one you just said, normal people like you have gradually stopped being as afraid of us as you once were. 

What Spider-Man doesn't understand is that the fear you felt was the only thing keeping you from disrespecting people like us, like you just did with me

Do you know what Maggia members did to people who disrespected them? I'll show you right away." He says as he lifts my face up to make me look him in the eye.

After those words, the two men behind me begin to hold me in the chair while Joseph Martello forcibly opens my mouth to pull out my tongue while he holds the tip of it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand.

"We usually would have cut out the tongue but unfortunately I need you to speak again, so I'll have to do things another way..." He says as he removes the cigarette from his mouth with his left hand.

Once he has the cigarette in his hand, he presses hard the part of it that is burning on my tongue, then he forces me to swallow the cigarette while he keeps punching me in the mouth.

Once I swallowed it, he asks the two men behind him to light another cigarette, and he repeats those actions for several more times despite my screams of despair.

Hammerhead P.O.V.

Once that idiot loses consciousness, I walk away from him and Jacob hands me a handkerchief to wipe my blood-stained hands while the other three start cleaning up, to avoid leaving evidence of what happened here.

"What do we do now, sir?" Jacob asks.

"Keep him alive for now. Where are the two guys who used the serum now? We can't let anyone find them."

"Now they are transporting them to the main lab. Along with those two, there is also Typhoid but she is alone. The whereabouts of her underlings are currently unknown." Jacob responds after taking a look at her phone.

"I understand. The scientist said that the new serum formula would lead to consequences like this, so we expected such a result.

Now that there has been a field test, which has shown improvements compared to the last version of the serum according to Tombstone, and the presence of those two bodies to study, the scientist will be able to speed up his research to arrive at a more stable formula.

The other project also gave some promising signals.

All in all, even if that idiot couldn't get the painting, we had several very useful results. But that's not enough. If we want the serum to reach the desired result we need to recover the painting and take what it holds.  The painting that Spider-Man gave to the police is not what we are looking for, so the girl should be the only person who can lead us to it." I explain while we get out of the shed.

"As soon as we finish with Mr Garcia, we will immediately start looking for that girl and any news about that painting. Sir, what do we do about Dr Connors?" Jacob asks.

"Although Dr Connors failed to do what we wanted, he did a good job distracting the police, and soon, as he completes his role in carrying out our research and helping our scientist unknowingly, he will follow Typhoid's footsteps. For now just keep monitoring him as you have done so far and tell me everything you think is important." I answer while Jacob opens the car door for me.

"What about Spider-Man?"

"Spider-Man... that brat always keeps butting in to make things difficult. At the moment we cannot deal with him, we must continue to keep a low profile since the time is not yet ripe for us to come out.

Let's make sure he focuses on the Dr Connors, okay?"

"All right, sir." Jacob replies, then he closes the car door.