The words on the page seemed to burn themselves into Sergeant Marlene's retinas as she read John's response to the second question. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead cast stark shadows across the paper, making the neat handwriting look almost sinister in its precision.
Of course, I have to go, John had written in response to the government prohibition scenario. But what followed was something that made her stomach clench with a mixture of admiration and horror. The more they try to stop me, the more it proves there's a problem that needs my attention. It doesn't matter if I go, as long as they can't prove I was there. And even if they can, so what? I'll deny everything. If their reason for stopping me is legitimate, I'll quietly withdraw. If there's an advantage to be gained, I'll take it and leave no trace. If I uncover a scandal, I'll gather evidence to use as leverage. And if it's something truly damning, I'll call in the media and destroy my political enemies on the spot.
John's actual words were more subtle, wrapped in the kind of diplomatic language that politicians used to make poison sound like medicine, but this was the unmistakable, ruthless meaning behind them. The subtext crawled off the page like living things, each implication more calculating than the last. It wasn't just like a shameless politician's playbook; it was a shameless politician's playbook, written by someone who understood power dynamics with the clarity of a chess grandmaster.
A million variations of What the hell? screamed through Sergeant Marlene's mind like a discordant symphony of disbelief. The coffee she'd been sipping earlier now tasted bitter and cold in her mouth, forgotten in the face of this cognitive earthquake. She looked up at John—the righteous-looking young man with his gentle demeanor and warm smile, sitting there as if he'd just written down a recipe for chocolate chip cookies rather than a masterclass in political warfare—and felt a profound sense of cognitive dissonance that made her question her ability to read people.
The air in the small interrogation room suddenly felt thick and oppressive, heavy with implications that made her twenty years of experience feel inadequate. The familiar sounds of the police station—distant conversations, ringing phones, the hum of computers—seemed to fade into background noise as her focus narrowed to the impossible contradiction sitting across from her.
She didn't even need to dwell on the third question about released criminals. Peter's answer was exactly what she expected from someone his age with his moral compass: he'd continue the investigation through proper channels, gather more evidence legally, and keep a watchful eye on the suspect. It was the answer of a good, normal person who believed the system would eventually work if you just tried hard enough and followed the rules. It was naive, perhaps, but it was human.
But after years on the force—years of watching guilty people walk free on technicalities while their victims suffered in silence—Marlene knew the law was a limited tool, sometimes frustratingly blunt when surgical precision was needed.
John's answer was a different beast entirely, something that prowled through legal loopholes with predatory grace. Insufficient evidence? Fine. You like to erase evidence to get away with your crimes? Our alliance will arrange a smear campaign twice as effective. You feel you've been wronged? The people who are about to wrong you know exactly how wronged you are. You like to hide behind the law? Good. We really like the law, too.
The implications hung in the air like smoke from a distant fire. Marlene felt a bit ashamed at the small thrill of satisfaction that ran through her as she read it—the dark pleasure of seeing someone willing to fight dirty against people who deserved it. She had to admit, despite her professional concerns, his approach was a wild but viable solution to problems that had kept her awake at night for years. She guessed that if those criminals still tried to cause trouble after facing John's methods, their final outcome would be grim indeed.
This, however, was exactly the problem. John's mindset was... concerning in ways that made her skin crawl with professional paranoia. She had to report it to the Captain immediately, before whatever was lurking beneath that gentle exterior decided to surface at an inconvenient time.
Peter looked at John's answer sheet with the kind of disbelief usually reserved for witnessing physics-defying magic tricks. His mask couldn't hide the way his shoulders tensed, or how his breathing became shallow and rapid as he processed each line. Deny everything, take every advantage, use blackmail, smear campaigns... The words seemed to rearrange themselves on the page, transforming his friend into someone he didn't recognize.
This isn't right, his mind rebelled against the evidence before his eyes. Why does this make John sound like a bad guy? He rubbed his eyes through the fabric of his mask, the gesture automatic and futile, then looked back at the ruthless words on the paper, hoping they would have changed into something more palatable. They hadn't.
His gaze shifted to John, who was still wearing that same gentle smile—the expression of someone completely at peace with himself and the world around him. The disconnect was jarring, like watching someone hum a lullaby while sharpening a knife. He had always thought John was just a more knowledgeable, more experienced version of himself—someone who had figured out how to be a better hero through careful study and preparation.
Today, sitting in this sterile room with its institutional lighting and government-issued furniture, he realized they weren't the same kind of person at all. They weren't even playing the same game.
John, meanwhile, felt nothing particularly noteworthy about Peter's answers. They were exactly as he expected from his friend: honest, law-abiding, simple, and kind. The responses radiated the same warmth and moral clarity that made Peter such a good person to work with, even if they sometimes made him predictable in tactical situations.
He remembered the story from the comics of Peter being possessed by the Venom symbiote—supposedly the darkest chapter in Spider-Man's history. Even under alien influence, the worst things Peter could think to do were wear a black suit and ask for a raise from his newspaper job. In Peter's mind, those represented the peak of human corruption, the absolute depths to which a person could sink.
It was endearing, really. John's smile deepened slightly as he watched his friend struggle with the implications of different approaches to justice. Some people were born to see the world in clear moral terms, and Peter was one of them. It was a gift, even if it sometimes made certain solutions... difficult to implement.
Sergeant Marlene collected their phone numbers with hands that were steadier than she felt, dismissed them with professional courtesy that masked her internal turmoil, and went immediately to report to Captain Stacy. Her footsteps echoed down the hallway with unusual urgency, the sound sharp against the linoleum floors as she navigated the familiar maze of desks and cubicles.
The Captain's office smelled of coffee and old leather, with late afternoon sunlight filtering through venetian blinds to cast alternating bars of light and shadow across his desk. He looked up from a stack of incident reports as she entered, his expression shifting to professional attention at her obvious agitation.
"Captain, these are their answer sheets," she said without preamble, placing the papers on his desk with the careful precision of someone handling evidence in a murder case. The sound of paper against wood seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet office. "Take a look. I think we have a problem with John."
Captain Stacy adjusted his reading glasses—a gesture that always preceded his most careful analysis—and picked up the documents. "Okay, let me see." His voice carried the measured tone of someone preparing to evaluate personnel, the same voice he'd used for twenty years of performance reviews and fitness assessments.
He flipped through Peter's answers first, nodding approvingly as he read. The responses were exactly what he'd hoped to see: passionate but thoughtful, kind but not naive, the work of someone who could be molded into an excellent superhuman police officer with proper training and guidance.
But when he reached John's answers, the Captain fell silent. The only sounds in the office were the distant hum of the building's air conditioning and the faint rustle of paper as he read and re-read the responses. His expression grew increasingly thoughtful, then concerned, then deeply puzzled.
He had not expected this. It wasn't that the answers were wrong—if one of his veteran detectives had come up with these strategies, he would have praised their tactical insight and political acumen. Hell, some of these approaches were more sophisticated than anything he'd seen from officers with decades of experience navigating the murky waters where law enforcement met politics.
The problem was the massive disconnect between the answers and John's actual personality. Both he and Gwen saw John as a kind, upright person of unimpeachable character—the kind of young man who would return a lost wallet with the money still inside and probably add a few dollars of his own if the owner looked like they needed it. He was like a modern-day Captain America, all moral clarity and heroic determination.
Would Captain America answer like this? Absolutely not. Steve Rogers would have found a way to save the day while following every regulation and maintaining the moral high ground. It didn't make sense that someone with John's apparent character would think in terms of leverage, blackmail, and media manipulation.
He sat at his desk, pondering the contradiction while the shadows from the blinds slowly shifted across the papers. The late afternoon light was beginning to take on that golden quality that preceded evening, casting everything in warm but somehow ominous tones.
Why would John think like this? Then he remembered that John's entire understanding of their partnership had been unconventional from the start. The fake IDs, the creative interpretation of regulations, the willingness to work outside official channels—perhaps it was simply because John himself was an unconventional person who saw solutions where others saw problems.
He understood why Marlene was concerned. The implications were troubling from a security standpoint. She suspected John's entire gentle personality might be a carefully constructed disguise, and a superhuman with ulterior motives inside the NYPD could cause immense harm. It was the kind of scenario that kept department heads awake at night, staring at the ceiling while imagining worst-case possibilities.
"Marlene," he said, deciding to put her mind at ease with information that might provide context for the contradiction they were witnessing. "John is my daughter's boyfriend. He's a student at Midtown High. His background is clean, and his character is not an issue. He is kind and brave. I can personally confirm this."
The words carried the weight of paternal certainty, backed by months of observation and the kind of protective scrutiny that fathers applied to young men who wanted to date their daughters.
Marlene wasn't surprised by the revelation—she'd suspected some personal connection given the Captain's obvious comfort with John. Her own intuition, honed by years of reading people in high-stress situations, told her John was fundamentally a good kid. But that only made the situation more troubling, like discovering that your neighbor's friendly golden retriever was also a trained attack dog.
"Captain, are you sure he's a kind person?" she pressed, her voice carrying the weight of professional paranoia earned through years of seeing how well some people could wear masks. The question hung in the air between them, heavy with implications about the nature of deception and the difficulty of truly knowing another person.
"I have no doubts," he said firmly, his voice carrying the absolute conviction of someone who had staked his professional reputation and his daughter's safety on that assessment. "When my daughter was kidnapped, he took two bullets for her and still managed to bring her home before collapsing at our feet. I am absolutely sure he is a good person."
The memory was still vivid—the sight of John staggering up their front steps with Gwen in his arms, blood seeping through his shirt but his focus entirely on her safety. It had been the kind of moment that revealed character in ways that no amount of conversation or observation could match.
Marlene didn't answer immediately. The revelation about the kidnapping added context but didn't resolve her concerns. She paced back and forth in front of his desk, her shoes making soft sounds against the carpet as she worked through the psychological implications. The office felt smaller with her restless energy filling it.
"You know I've studied psychology," she said after a long silence, her voice carrying the careful precision of someone approaching a delicate topic. "John's profile isn't normal."
"What do you mean?" The Captain leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking softly as he prepared for what sounded like it might be a lengthy analysis.
"Are there any problems with his family?" Her questions had the methodical quality of a professional assessment, each one designed to build a psychological profile from available data.
"His parents passed away when he was young. He was in an orphanage for a year before being adopted by his cousin. The cousin is a good guardian; our background check found no issues." The Captain recited the facts with the automatic precision of someone who had reviewed the file multiple times, but saying them aloud made him wonder if he'd missed something significant.
"A lack of parental companionship can lead to precocious maturity," Marlene mused, her voice taking on the clinical tone of someone analyzing case studies. "Does he have any flaws?"
The question hung in the air like a challenge to everything the Captain thought he knew about human nature.
"That's the thing," the Captain admitted, his voice carrying a note of confusion that he rarely allowed others to hear. "I really haven't found any. Does being almost unnaturally calm count as a flaw?"
Marlene gave him a look that suggested he was missing something fundamental about human psychology. "Of course not. In fact, that's the problem. At his age, he should be more emotionally unstable. A young person's thoughts and their behavior shouldn't be so drastically different. I suspect he might have a tendency towards a dissociative disorder, like schizophrenia."
The words hit the office like a physical blow, transforming the comfortable space into something that felt suddenly clinical and threatening. The golden afternoon light streaming through the blinds seemed less warm, more harsh, as if the very atmosphere had changed in response to the diagnosis.
"Marlene, you're overthinking it," the Captain said, but his voice carried less conviction than he would have liked. The exasperation was real, but so was the small kernel of doubt that her words had planted. "He might just have unique ideas. I think you have an occupational hazard; you study criminals all day, and now you're seeing them everywhere."
It was a fair criticism. Police psychologists often developed a skewed perspective on human nature, spending so much time analyzing the worst of humanity that they began to see pathology in normal behavior. The office felt heavy with the weight of professional paranoia and parental concern warring with each other.
Marlene considered his point and conceded that her perspective might be colored by years of analyzing criminal minds. The acknowledgment came reluctantly, like admitting a personal weakness. "Okay," she sighed, the sound carrying the weight of someone who desperately wanted to be wrong but couldn't shake their professional instincts. "I hope so."
"I'll go talk to Gwen," the Captain said, already planning how to approach the conversation without alarming his daughter. "She's with him every day. If he really has a problem, she'll know. We'll discuss it again after that."
The plan was reasonable, but it felt inadequate in the face of the questions they were grappling with. How do you evaluate the mental health of someone whose capabilities defied normal human understanding?
"Okay. Then I'll go study how to train them." Marlene's voice carried the professional focus of someone compartmentalizing concerns to deal with immediate practical needs.
"Go ahead." The Captain watched her leave, then turned back to the answer sheets on his desk. The papers seemed to mock him with their contradictions—evidence of either brilliant tactical thinking or concerning psychological issues, depending on how you interpreted them.
On the flight back, the late afternoon air was crisp and clean at altitude, carrying the scents of the city below—car exhaust, cooking food, and the million other aromas that made up New York's signature smell. Golem's wings cut through the air with mechanical precision, its engines humming with the steady rhythm of well-maintained machinery.
Peter's earlier question resurfaced with the persistence of an itch that couldn't be scratched. The wind whipped around his mask as he leaned closer to John, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of their passage through the sky.
"John, can I really not borrow the big beetle to play with?"
"No." John's response was immediate and final, carrying the tone of someone who had already considered and rejected the possibility multiple times.
Peter's expression fell again, visible even through the mask in the way his shoulders slumped and his head dropped slightly. His hopes, which had apparently been building during the flight despite previous rejections, were dashed once more against the immovable wall of John's refusal.
The city spread out below them as they flew home, millions of lights beginning to flicker on as evening approached. Somewhere down there, normal people were dealing with normal problems using normal solutions, blissfully unaware that two teenagers with world-changing abilities were having a perfectly mundane argument about borrowing toys while flying through the sky on a mechanical beetle.
"Throw PowerStones For my Support. Person with #1#2#3 Will get a chance for extra chapters preview"
""Hey Guys I also Have my paetron p.atreon.com/Scoldey Jod
Where I will upload advance chapters 25+ chapters."