Mercy Liddle is mine, everyone else is Marvel's. Check out our facebook page More Mayhem in the Marvel Mayhem Library.
This story continues from Mercy Liddle Interlude and has links to Bullseye #11 "Ker-Boom!" and also Deadly Foes of Spiderman #4 (of 4)
Mercy awoke with the sunrise, as she always did. it didn't matter that after two weeks she had finally caught a day off. Even sleep deprived, Mercy wasn't one for sleeping in. She loved watching the sun come up while sipping a mug of black coffee. It was always put her in good spirits, seeing a day born so full of promise. She gave her orange cat Booster a scratch behind the ears and poured him some over priced cat food. She then decided to boot up her computer and work on her book for a couple of hours.
* * *
Some hours later, and elsewhere in the city another person was thinking about their second career as well. His apartment was messy, but not filthy. His uniform hung on a hook inside his closet. The mask's lower half was open to allow freer speech. he didn't understand how Spider-Man could fight bad guys while trying to breath through that mask of his. "Probably better fabric" The figure mused aloud.
Lately things hadn't been going so well for him. He was in danger of losing his crap job, his girlfriend only stayed with him because she had a cape fetish, and he had never really broken into the hero business. Maybe it was the name. Then again, Spider-Man seemed to do well enough, and spiders themselves were generally viewed as creepy. His dusty old police scanner suddenly crackled to life.
"All units all units, we have a Code Blue situation at the George Washington Bridge. Use of excessive force has been approved."
"Code Blue?" The man said to himself. "Meta-human scoundrels are afoot! Innocent civilians are in danger!" He quickly slipped into his hand made costume. As he stepped out onto the fire escape he remembered how much he hated heights. Taking a deep breath, he leaped off the fire escape, and flew with haste to the George Washington Bridge.
* * *
Mercy decided it was time for a late breakfast. She had made good progress and had earned a small break. She decided to check her email before she left the apartment. There was a live update from the local news station, and she clicked on it. Then immediately wished she hadn't.
"Oh my god." Mercy whispered, horrified at the damage one psycho had caused.
"The terrorist responsible has been apprehended by Thor, but this story is far from over. One unnamed hero was ruthlessly gunned down by Bullseye. A member of Code Blue is in critical condition, and-- Wait, Thor just collapsed to the ground. He looks hurt bad. Rescue teams and various members of the hero community are working to get the survivors out of the water..."
Mercy closed her laptop, as if that would shut out the horror. As if all those lives wouldn't be lost if she didn't listen to the story. "Looks like my day off got cancelled." She told her cat grimly. She grabbed her purse and left the sanity of her cozy apartment. Her phone buzzed a moment later.
"Whats going on at the Bugle? Did Bullseye hit there too?" She hurried down the stairs and hailed the first cab she saw, hoping it wasn't a sarcastic duck man again, because this just wasn't the day for that. "George Washington Bridge." she told the driver who appeared human.
"I hear their closing the streets that lead to it." The driver replied. "Something about Thor destroying the bridge. Doesn't surprise me, after what he did to the Wrecking Crew." Like a lot of people in tragic situations, the driver clearly wanted to blame someone. And sadly enough it was often the heroes that got crucified in the media for their failures.
* * *
Howard awoke from his nap, having slept through all the excitement and picked up the evening edition of the Daily News, a smaller news paper that basically ran the stories the Bugle didn't want. Plus it was a cheap read.
Howard looked over at the stack of Bugle papers, and saw an interesting contrast between the two papers. "Bugle is proven right!Spider-Man revealed to be Menace" its headline crowed. The picture showed Spider-Man walking towards a broken window in the Bugle office. Under the picture it said, "Masked menace to society hangs up his webs."
"Oh boy." Howard groaned. he had that bad feeling again. Like all this was just the pre-show and the main event was yet to come.
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