Annual 1 - Stark Invasion, Day Five, Part Four

By John Stevenson

The weariness was finally starting to seep in. I hadn’t slept more than three hours at a time since the war had started five days earlier, and I’m sure that I hadn’t gotten anything more than a combined 10 hours of sleep.

My spider-sense blared again, and I jumped to the left instinctively. My cartwheel took me out of the way of an energy blast and the ensuing handspring sent me careening on to the chest plate of a Stark. This knocked him to the ground. Not holding back any of my enhanced strength, I pummeled the alien repeatedly. The fact that he was dying anyway meant that I was actually saving him some pain. Or at least that’s how I rationalized it. I sprung back to my feet and took in the scene around me.

Central Park looked like a battlefield. The Stark’s extended definition of what constituted worship must have somehow extended to nature-lovers. The attacks had taken their toll to be sure. There were small fires burning in various wooded areas of the park. Some of the buildings that were built on the park’s grounds were also ablaze. Knowing how busy firefighters across the city were, it might be several hours or days before some of them got attended to. At this point, they had to prioritize.

On the up side, if there was one, the techno-virus we had implanted into the Stark’s mainframe seemed to have worked. The aliens packed far less punch than they had. While not out of commission yet, they seemed to have slowed down and were getting progressively worse. Most of the airborne brigade was now grounded. They moved more sluggishly and their strength had decreased. At this point, thanks to their armor, they were only slightly more powerful than the average human.

This seemed to hearten the general populace, as more and more civilians were taking on the righteous cause of defending their homes. The park was littered with downed bodies, most were Stark, but many were not. I cringed at the sight of one young man whose face was still smoking from a short-range blast. The police were also out doing more than their normal duties. It seemed as if in this emergency situation where the military didn’t suffice, although their presence was now abundant, the police were called in to act as reserves. Every officer was now wearing what looked like a SWAT uniform. The instructions of simply detaining had become one of, “take no prisoners.”

As I watched the war unfold around me, I could see that the Stark’s advantage was no longer as great as it had been. Between military, police and civilians, the number of Earth forces in Central Park outnumbered alien forces. A statistic that was not true days ago. But the war was still far from over.

Even as Doorman teleported us off of that wretched ship and back to Wakanda I knew we were far from winning. True, we had succeeded in our mission, but with considerable costs. I set my jaw as I thought of leaving behind the Swordsman for dead and being powerless to stop Magus from continuing on his foolish crusade. Dr. Doom’s cold words when he heard of the events chilled my spine, “This is war. In war there are casualties.” No emotion. As though we were losing meaningless objects. Not people. Not friends.

It was then that I had realized that I was no longer of any use in Wakanda. Even after the reports that the Stark ship was setting a collision course for Earth, I knew this was a job for the Avengers and their heavy hitters. So, leaving my fate, my family’s fate, and the fate of the world in their hands, I set out to find a way back to New York. Doorman was down for the count. He was hurt, and transporting us back to Wakanda had taken what was left of his energy. I was all set to grab one of the Black Panther’s high-speed personal aircrafts, when a SHIELD agent offered me a quicker alternative. Apparently SHIELD had been dabbling, in the guise of its MARBLEHEAD division, in advanced transportation mechanisms. In other words, they were developing teleportation devices. Because this stuff was all work in progress, and I was basically helping to beta test it, I really didn’t get a full list of the available options. It was basically a single-person transport to any SHIELD safehouse on Earth. Unfortunately, the closest safe house I could get was in the Upper East Side. Wrong side of Central Park.

So, doing all that I could to get to my apartment, I set out across the park. Of course, as is always the luck of the Amazing Spider-Man, I ran into several million skirmishes along the way.

A yelp of pain brought my attention back to the fight at hand. A youth, no older than eighteen, was clutching his right wrist as a Stark soldier marched toward him, a blaster in hand.

I hadn’t quite seen what had happened to the kid’s wrist, but judging by his pain, it was likely broken. I bent low and using the little strength that I had left in my legs propelled myself towards the fight. Just as the Stark soldier was raising his weapon, I tackled the kid to the ground. I felt the heat of a plasma blast go by my legs. In under a second, I was back on my feet and executed a spinning heel kick disarming the enemy. Without his weapon, the alien really didn’t have a chance anymore. He made a clumsy attempt to lunge at me, but I sidestepped the attack easily and grabbed a hold of some of the tubing that protruded from the rag-tag armor. Giving one yank, I ripped the tubing out and a black oil-like substance poured from it onto the ground.

The alien fell to the ground dead. Before I could consider how I felt about that, the youth at my feet moaned. I looked down at him and saw that his wrist was blackened and burned to the third degree.

I ripped the kid’s shirt off of him and wrapped it around his wound.

“You’ve done all you could. Right now, if you stay here, you’ll just be another casualty. Go find some place to get this treated and take pride in the fact that you did all you could to defend your home.”

The words had come from my mouth and yet I knew that a few days ago, I never would have been the one to utter them. They sounded familiar, and it didn’t take me long to realize that they could just as easily have come from the mouth of Captain America himself.

The kid looked back up at me with a look that was not the fear that I expected. Instead, what I saw there was a look of pride. Not saying a word, he nodded once, and holding his wrist tightly ran from the battlefield with his head down like a good soldier following orders from his superior.

I looked back at the Stark I had just killed. I felt no remorse. There had never been any question that this was war, but I don’t think I had let it hit me until that moment.

“Damn it! The phone lines are dead!”

Jill Stacy turned her attention away from the window. Beyond this piece of glass there was a war being waged. Logically speaking, she knew there was really very little that she could do, but at the same time, the feeling of powerlessness was overwhelming. The only comfort she could take was that probably every other person was feeling the same way.

“All the better for you, I would say. I’d hate to see what your long distance bill is going to look like,” Jill tried to lighten the mood.

Her best friend and employer, Mary Jane Watson Parker smiled slightly at her friend. She had plenty on her mind. She had been trying to avoid thinking by keeping herself busy. She had called her Aunt Anna and Aunt May several times already in the past few hours. It seemed that the residents of the condo complex where they lived in Florida had been herded into some form of bunker that had been built for the eventuality of a huge hurricane. That combined with the fact that Florida didn’t seem to have been hit as hard as New York meant that she had reason to believe that the elderly women were safe for now. Still, she liked having confirmation.

“Jill, thanks for being here. I don’t know what I’d do if I were all alone with May,” MJ said as she squeezed her infant daughter just a little bit tighter.

Jill shrugged, “I’m glad to be here. After all, where else would I be. It’s not like I have a family to run home to.” The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. It was true that in normal circumstances she would have allowed herself some self-pity, but in this case, MJ’s husband, Peter, hadn’t been home in days. She could only imagine the kind of torment MJ was going through.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a part of this family,” MJ said, pretending the comment hadn’t affected her. In truth, she was so worried about Peter, she was feeling physically ill. The last time she had seen him, he was leaving for work, the day the Invasion started. At that time, she was still mad at him. Three weeks earlier, Peter had accepted an offer from his boss to go back to school. He had done so without consulting with Mary Jane, and this had upset her to no end.

At the time, all she could think of was how selfish he was being. They had a daughter to think about, and with both of their careers in full swing, she didn’t understand how he could take on yet another obligation without consulting her first.

The spat had lasted too long, and soon enough, MJ had begun to feel like the whole thing was silly. Still, her eternal stubbornness had prevented her from saying anything. All that until five days ago when Peter left for work, and hadn’t returned home. She knew that he was out on the streets fighting the good fight because she had been following the news reports religiously. Two days earlier he had called her from Seattle. Then yesterday morning from the African nation of Wakanda. It hadn’t taken her long to express her concern, and they both apologized. Still, if Peter never came back, she would never forgive herself for being mad at him the last time she had seen him.

Her worries went beyond that as reports continued coming in about all the heroes that had lost their lives fighting to save the Earth. In the public’s eye, superheroes had come to be seen as near immortals. They were constantly fighting to save the Earth, but they always seemed to live to fight again. This war was causing the reality of the heroes’ mortality to sink in.

Even MJ had sometimes come to forget that Peter was only human. After all, he did so much, and he risked everything so often, and every time he came back home to her. Amidst all those nights that she stayed up worrying, every now and then, she took it for granted that Peter would be fine, and drifted off to sleep.

The war had brought her back to reality. She watched reports of heroes like the Great Lakes Avengers dying en masse. The New Warriors being torn apart. X-Men and Avengers putting their lives on the line, some not destined to keep them.

Still, she forced her worry for Peter to the background, noting that her number one responsibility was the care of May. While there was really nothing that she could do to help Peter, she had to make it her duty to protect their child. Still, she wished he could be here with her. She knew that such a wish was selfish because the entire world needed Spider-Man’s help, but she couldn’t help feel that being his wife, she deserved some kind of priority.

Jill was still looking out the window. MJ knew she was wondering where Peter was and why MJ hadn’t shown more concern, but she had restrained herself from asking that question, and MJ appreciated it very much. She was indeed very glad her friend was with her.

Baby May’s strident cry pierced the air, and caused Mary Jane a small jump.

“What’s a matter sweetie?”

Not a moment after the words had left MJ’s mouth, there was a loud booming noise and the ground began to shake.

Never before had Central Park felt as big as it did on that day. All I had to do was get from one side to the other. I had done it countless times before. Of course, no other time had the park been filled with alien invaders, military personnel, and ordinary civilians trying to do their part to fight off an invasion.

Fatigue was really setting in now. If I had been running off adrenaline before, the adrenaline reserves had been pretty close to depleted. It had been hours since I had gotten back to New York City with the singular purpose of reuniting with my wife and child. Unfortunately, someone had other plans for me, and I spent much more of my time fighting more and more of the Stark.

The idea of taking off and leaving the battle to be fought by someone else had crossed my mind on more than one occasion. But then, my Uncle Ben’s words came back to me, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” At first, that was what made me stay in the park and keep fighting my way through. However, soon I realized that Uncle Ben’s message that had driven me for most of my life had a singular hole in its logic… what if someone doesn’t have great power?

The question burned at my mind as I watched the citizens of New York take up whatever arms that they had at their disposal and fight. It had always been a sense of responsibility that drew me to helping people. What was it that drew these people out to fight? Were they fighting solely for themselves? No, that made no sense, because if they were, they would stay indoors. Stay at home, like all of the government-issued warnings had instructed them to. There had to be something more.

With those thoughts in mind, I went about protecting as many of these people as I could. In my tired state, I was moving slower and wasn’t hitting as hard as I had been days, or even hours earlier. Still, I did what I could to protect the people.

I didn’t always succeed.

I watched as one blast cut down a man just a split second before I got to him. Under normal circumstances, this would have shocked me, but I was on auto-pilot. There were still dozens of others who I could save.

While I went around protecting people, I began to realize that my role had changed somehow. I had always been most comfortable working alone, even though fate always seemed to push me into some ridiculous team-up. It was the reason why my career as an Avenger was both undistinguished, and practically non-existent.

Still, in this battle, I found myself not working apart from New York’s citizens, zipping in and saving someone and immediately zipping out, but rather working with them. I shouted directions, warnings and sometimes orders. My actions and my speech seemed to be controlled by someone else. The Amazing Spider-Man by definition was the class clown. I was the guy who had been around for every major battle on Earth in the past decade, but always as the good soldier. My role, had indeed shifted.

I don’t purport to have been giving orders with military precision, because even if I did have that knowledge, which I didn’t, the people I was fighting with certainly didn’t. Some had come out with handguns that I cringed to think where they had gotten from, but most merely had baseball bats, lead pipes or kitchen knives.

Earth’s defenders ranged in ages from adolescents to senior citizens. The number of women present was nearly as high as the number of men. Ethnic backgrounds were well-represented. If the situation weren’t so dire, this would have been a perfect example of how much we can achieve when we work together. It is a shame that it took tragedy in order for it to occur.

Throughout the fight, my philosophical ramblings kept going through my head over and over again. I would have liked to chalk it up to getting older, more mature and wiser, but in the end, I knew that it was an unconscious exercise to keep my mind occupied so that I didn’t have to think about Mary Jane and May.

Chaos.

It was the one word to describe it. The noise levels were unbearable. People scurried around like chickens without heads. Some had already crumbled from exhaustion. Over it all, one man yelled.

He was their general, and his name was J. Jonah Jameson. The Daily Bugle’s bullpen wasn’t a traditional battlefield – despite its uncanny resemblance – but it was the medium through which some men and women had chosen to contribute to the war effort.

In times of uncertainty and fear, people want to be informed. Information is their security blanket. With decades in the industry, Jonah knew this all too well. He had his staff firing off special editions like there was no tomorrow. In an uncharacteristic move, he had agreed to share information with other publications in an effort to facilitate its dispersion.

Through it all, Jonah’s heart was pumping, but he didn’t care. This is where he felt at home. This was how he could help fight off the invaders.

Ever since the report that there were plans to crash the Stark fleet into the Earth, the machine that was the Daily Bugle went into whatever gear comes after overdrive. International reports of damage, such as one Stark vessel already having crashed in France, were filing in and being published, but the Bugle had tried to concentrate on the local reports. They tried to keep the public informed on what was happening in their own backyard.

The military had been deployed and police were now acting as a para-military force. The city’s spandex wearing community was doing its part as well, and the Bugle was actually acknowledging that. Many of the paper’s staff had wondered about the sudden change in policy, but none had dared question it.

“I want a report on Times Square!” Jonah yelled at the top of his lungs. One young reporter, whose name he couldn’t be bothered to remember stopped her furious typing.

“There’s not much left to report on, Mr. Jameson.”

He didn’t like her tone, but he let it slide because he had more important matters to deal with. “What about Central Park?”

“There’s a few isolated incidents throughout the park, but the biggest story there right now is that Spider-Man appears to be leading a group of civilians against a larger Stark force. There’s also a small military presence there.”

“Spider-Man!” Jonah almost swallowed his cigar. “I thought he was last reported to be in Africa?”

“He was. These super-hero types move fast, it seems.”

Jonah still thought the young woman was too smug, but he had time to yell at her when this was all dealt with. For now, he said a silent prayer that Peter would be able to go home to his family at the end of the day.

My trek across Central Park had turned into an all out battle with me leading a team of civilians against a battalion of Stark troops. All in all, the battle had gone better than could have been expected. The Stark had a singular focus, and that was to kill. They had experience doing it and they were equipped. The people of New York City had whatever weapon they could come up with and a passionate will.

Still, despite the odds against us, we had done what we could. The numbers of Stark had declined sharply. Unfortunately, so had the numbers of the Earth forces. Where at one time we had a numerical advantage, we were now left at almost equal forces, and that did not bode well.

The harsh truth was that the battle was coming to a close and despite our great efforts, the result looked like it would be a draw at best. A bloody draw. By the time this scene was over, I feared, not a single Stark or human would be left standing.

I, myself, was now utterly exhausted. Any semblance of energy that I had left, was completely and utterly gone. No longer could I jump across the battlefield. Instead, I had to content myself with staying in one place and taking on those Stark that engaged me. My blows were sloppy and slow; my reflexes were pretty much the same.

My Spider-Sense buzzed for me to jump, but that was out of the question. My legs would not permit me to get more than three feet off the ground. Instead, I turned and tried to step to the side. That wasn’t good enough. A wide-array concussive blast came my way and impacted me in the midsection. The blow knocked me off my feet and I flew backwards and skidded along the grass for fifteen feet before coming to a halt.

As I struggled to catch the wind that had been knocked out of my lungs, my muscles strained to pull me upright. No response. My first thought was that I had been paralyzed or that the blast that hit me had some sort of paralytic effect. After a moment though, I realized that it was just my own body telling me that it had nothing left. The tank was empty.

I saw a shadow come over me and two Starks stood over me.

Their hideous visages were the things of nightmares, but after battling them for days, they seemed as normal as anything else.

The two foot soldiers stood over me, and said the line that I had heard hundreds of times this week.

“Do you have a God?”

Strangely enough, the sharp-tongued Amazing Spider-Man, the man who was always ready with a riposte at the drop of a hat, was silent. I really wanted to come up with something snappy, but in the end, all I could do was think of my wife and daughter and offer a silent prayer to a God that I had never really put much faith in to keep them safe.

I closed my eyes and waited with the utmost patience for my end to come.

Perhaps my patience was not quite utmost because as I waited, I began to wonder why my end was taking so long to come. I opened my eyes again, and the two Stark were back-peddling; firing their concussive blasts at some other unknown target. The noises above me had intensified, and whereas I had thought that the battle was winding down, it sounded like it had been renewed and intensified.

I strained my neck to see who was behind me, and I spied an abnormally large man in trousers and a button down shirt. His size wasn’t the most unusual thing about him, but rather his long green hair that was pulled back in a ponytail.

The man took two concussive blasts to the chest and barely flinched. He barreled forward and grabbed both Stark, one in each arm, and squeezed them tight in a bear hug. There was some grinding of metal on metal and consecutively, the two space invaders dropped their weapons, and the behemoth dropped them.

The green-haired man stooped over and offered me a hand. I took it and with one motion he had me up on my feet and was supporting me with his other paw on my shoulder.

“Everything okay, Spider-Man?”

“I think I know you,” I managed to mutter.

“My name is Doctor Leonard Samson. In the superhero community, I go by Doc Samson.”

“Right… the shrink.”

Samson gave a good chuckle.

“Right. Now, will you be okay, because I’ve got to help these folks out.”

The battle had still been going on around us, but the number of standing combatants had dwindled to very few.

“Go,” was all I had to say and he was off. With great efficiency, he dispatched what remained of the Stark single-handedly. In under ten minutes, the whole thing was over, and not a single Stark was left standing in the park. The remaining civilians that were still conscious, about two dozen of them, gave a resounding cry of joy. A few rushed towards me, where I was leaning against a tree and slapped me on the back or actually grabbed and hugged me.

Sentences like, “we did it,” and, “that’ll teach them,” or, “yeeha,” were uttered. I knew that outside central park, the war was still going on and the moment that these people realized the price that they had paid for their victory, their moods would sober. For now, though, I thought it was best to let them enjoy it.

Doc Samson made his way towards me. I offered him my hand and he shook it with surprising restraint. Most of these super-strong types could crush a guy’s hand.

“Thanks a lot, Doc. If you hadn’t shown up, I was done for. These folks right here owe you a lot, too.”

Doc Samson dismissed me with a wave. “I didn’t do much. I was just the cavalry. I was at Avengers Mansion across the park, and when I found out what was going on here, I decided that I needed to break into action. It’s those of you that have been here from the beginning that deserve the true thanks.” A cheer arose from our small crowd.

It only took me another moment to realize that I now had the chance to get to the true reason I had come back to New York. “Doc, I’m sure you can handle things from here. I’ve got somewhere to be.”

I’m sure the good doctor was about to protest and lecture me on the state of my health, but before he got the chance, I was already running off in the direction of the Upper West Side.

The angry protests of my muscles continued as I swung from web to web. I was running on very little web fluid. I had had to conserve it during the fight in the park if I wanted to have enough to make it home. I simply hoped that I hadn’t miscalculated… after surviving a battle with an invading alien race, it would be embarrassing to die falling from ten stories up because I ran out of webs.

After what felt like an eternity, I could see the building on the corner of my block. The air was thick with smog. This wasn’t uncommon throughout the city with so many things burning.

With one mighty swing, I made my way onto the roof of the building that should have been across the street from mine. The sight that I saw froze my heart. My building, and my penthouse apartment were barely standing. The whole building was ablaze, and a large chunk of the concrete that formed the outer wall of my apartment was blown away,

With an unintelligible animal cry of desperation, I threw myself off the roof of the building I was standing on, and into the scorching remains of my own building. With a good chunk of the wall missing, it was easy to land inside. There was more carbon monoxide in the air then there was oxygen, and it was difficult to breathe. My best protection against it was what little my mask did for me. I looked around what had once been my apartment, and several sections were burning. I looked around for any sign of Mary Jane or May. A supporting beam had fallen across the floor which meant that it probably wouldn’t be long before the roof collapsed in on me. Grabbing the beam in one hand, I tossed it aside as I made my way systematically from room to room, flames and wreckage not deterring me.

“MJ! MARY JANE! Where are you!?” I yelled angrily, as if this was all some practical joke that wasn’t funny.

My Spider-Sense buzzed and I whirled around, expecting to see a Stark squadron. There was nothing there, and I cursed thinking that this was not the time for my Spider-Sense to go on the blink. The buzzing continued and it took me another several moments before I realized what it was. My spider-tracers that I tracked through my Spider-Sense had a similar effect to what I was feeling, but I hadn’t used a tracer for quite some time. The only other thing that had the same effect was the communicator that MJ carried with her to contact me in cases of emergency.

Following the signal, I made my way to the edge of the apartment, and, jumped out the hole in the wall. As I free fell towards the road below, the signal became stronger and stronger. At the last moment, I shot out a web and slowed my descent enough that I could land without hurting myself.

Frantically I ran towards the signal that kept getting stronger and stronger. Across the street in the entryway to the building that I had been standing atop, a redhead emerged. She was running, not walking towards me, and like a scene in a cheesy romance film we came together. I grabbed her in my arms and spun her around.

I held her tightly in my arms as we both muttered repeatedly, “Thank God you’re okay.”

When the rush of emotion had passed, I heard Mary Jane say, “Oh no.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, scared. Immediately my mind jumped to May and I became incredibly worried.

“We’re going to have some explaining to do,” MJ said as she cocked her head towards the doorway that she had emerged from.

In that doorway, stood our nanny, Jill, holding our daughter. Her face bore a puzzled expression as she watched her married best friend in the arms of the Amazing Spider-Man.

I looked skyward thinking that this was now the least of my worries and I saw the starscape. I hadn’t realized how long we had been fighting. It had lasted throughout the day. Suddenly, one corner of the sky was lit up from an explosion in outer space.

Perhaps the war was over I thought. If only I had known how wrong I was.

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