While Peter and Felicia lingered in St. Mark's Square, Jessica Drew sat near the bow of a wooden gondola, drifting through the labyrinthine canals of Venice. The ancient, sun-baked buildings rising from the water hadn't been renovated in decades, but the air still felt infinitely more refreshing than the dust-choked streets of Lisbon.
Jessica leaned back against the cushioned seat, forcing her rigid shoulders to drop. Her condition was deteriorating. The mysterious, progressive muscle atrophy had flared up severely over the last few days. Her grip occasionally failed; her legs randomly gave out. It hadn't entirely crippled her daily routine yet, so she was determined to soak in every ounce of Europe while her body still allowed it.
She lifted her phone, framing a shot of a weathered stone bridge. Her hands trembled slightly. She snapped the picture anyway.
Lowering the screen, Jessica reviewed the image. She frowned. Thick, frothing white watermarks scarred the surface of the canal in the background. She looked over the side of the boat. The actual water was churning. Several distinct, pale wakes were cutting through the murky green depths.
"Excuse me, sir," Jessica called out, turning to the gondolier steering from the stern. "What's making those white streaks?"
"Just fish, signorina," the gondolier replied lazily, adjusting his long oar. "You see them sometimes."
Jessica tracked the streaks. They were accelerating. They weren't meandering like wildlife; they were converging, darting against the current at an absurd, terrifying velocity.
Those aren't fish.
"Stop!" Jessica shouted, her voice echoing sharply off the stone walls. "No, wait, don't stop! Turn the boat around! Get us to the shore right now!"
The other students on the gondola jumped, startled by her sudden outburst.
"Turn it around!" Jessica screamed, gripping the wooden railing as her knuckles went white. "There's something under the water!"
She was a second too late.
The white streaks slammed together beneath the surface. The canal erupted. A colossal, towering behemoth composed entirely of churning water burst into the open air. It loomed over the screaming tourists, its featureless liquid face swiveling toward the crowds.
"SPIDER-MAN!" Hydro-Man roared, his voice sounding like a crashing tidal wave. He swung a massive, liquid fist, instantly capsizing two nearby gondolas and sending ordinary civilians plummeting into the canal.
A few blocks away, Peter Parker's head snapped up.
He lowered his camera. Felicia immediately stiffened beside him. Peter frowned, waiting for the familiar, needle-like prickle at the base of his skull. Nothing. His enhanced spider-sense remained entirely dormant.
"No warning," Peter muttered, his eyes narrowing. "It's not an ambush. It's a lure."
"Jessica is still out on the water," Felicia said, her voice dropping its usual playful lilt.
"I'm going after her," Peter said, stepping backward into the fleeing crowd. "I need you to prep the containment bomb I brought. It's in my hotel room. You know exactly where my bag is."
Felicia crossed her arms, annoyed. "I don't have a key to your room, Parker."
"You don't need a key," Peter deadpanned, turning on his heel.
Felicia let out a long, theatrical sigh, rolling her eyes toward the Venetian sky before sprinting in the opposite direction.
Peter slipped against the tide of panicking tourists, ducking into a narrow, shadowed alleyway. He stripped off his civilian clothes in three seconds flat, webbing his jeans and t-shirt high up against the underside of a terracotta roof.
He was flying solo today. The symbiote was still completely incapacitated. The brutal, searing heat from the Molten Man fight had severely drained the alien, forcing Peter to leave it dormant in his hotel room to recover. He pulled the sleek, black fabric of his stealth suit over his shoulders, sealing the mask.
Peter fired a web line, launching himself over the rooftops and diving straight toward the canals.
Tourists were thrashing in the water. Peter didn't hesitate. He swung low, firing rapid, precision webs. He snagged three floundering civilians, yanking them out of the current and depositing them onto the cobblestone walkways. He shot another line, sticking it to the hull of an overturned gondola, and hauled the entire wooden boat toward the stone steps.
Hydro-Man noticed the black blur immediately. The massive Hydro-Man shifted, pulling thousands of gallons from the canal to reassemble his towering form. He reared back, preparing to strike.
Peter didn't give him the opening. He released his web, utilizing his enhanced speed and agility to vault directly over the creature's massive shoulder.
"Morning, Morris!" Peter yelled, landing lightly on a brick chimney. "What brings you to Venice? Honestly, a giant puddle vacationing in a city made of water feels a little redundant, don't you think?"
Hydro-Man bellowed, swinging a massive watery hammer. Peter backflipped off the chimney, letting the strike demolish the brickwork. He twisted mid-air, scanning the canal. More students were struggling to stay afloat.
The deafening roar of rotor blades suddenly drowned out the screaming.
A sleek, black assault helicopter belonging to the Wild Pack banked sharply over the rooftops, hovering directly in front of the elemental. Silvija sat in the pilot's seat. Her silver hair whipped around her face. She locked her eyes on the towering water monster, her expression dead serious. She squeezed the firing trigger.
Capture him or kill him, Silvija thought grimly. Either way, we're putting another Elemental in the ground.
While Silvija provided heavy covering fire, Peter swung frantically from bridge to bridge. He shot lines of structural, protein-based spider-silk, pasting them to drowning tourists and violently hauling them out of the canal. He dropped them unceremoniously onto the pavement. Several soaked, terrified civilians immediately started shouting curses at him for the rough handling.
Peter ignored them. He didn't have the luxury of gentle customer service.
He spotted the final target. Jessica Drew was thrashing wildly in the center of the canal. Her muscle atrophy was betraying her; she couldn't keep her head above the churning waves. She reached a desperate hand up toward the black-suited hero swinging overhead.
Peter didn't reach for her hand. He let go of his web, diving headfirst into the freezing water.
He broke the surface, wrapped a reinforced arm securely around her waist, and fired a web-line straight up at a stone archway. The winch violently retracted, hauling them both out of the canal. Peter landed smoothly on the bridge, setting Jessica gently on her feet.
Jessica gasped, violently coughing up water. "Spider-Man? I... I thought you were going to grab my hand!"
"And dislocate your shoulder? No thanks, Miss," Peter quipped, his white lenses narrowing. "Make sure you don't skip swimming lessons next semester. Could save your life."
"I'm an excellent swimmer," Jessica wheezed, her legs shaking as she clung to the stone railing. "I just... I couldn't find my strength." She wiped the wet hair out of her eyes, finally registering his tactical black armor. "Oh. New uniform?"
"European business trips demand a different wardrobe," Peter said smoothly. He took a half-step back, checking her posture. "Can you walk? I've got a giant leaky faucet to deal with."
Before Jessica could force out another breathless thank you, Peter was gone, launching himself back into the sky.
His earpiece clicked. "Kinetic rounds are completely ineffective, Spider-Man," Silvija reported from the gunship, banking hard to avoid a massive geyser. "The bullets are passing straight through him."
"All civilians extracted from the water," Cindy Moon's calm, concise voice chimed in over the S.H.I.E.L.D. comms.
Peter swung in a wide arc, landing squarely on the slanted roof of an old clock tower. A second later, Cindy dropped silently onto the tiles beside him, clad in her red-and-black Silk uniform.
Peter stared down at the roaring, shifting mass of Hydro-Man. He cracked his knuckles.
"Alright," Peter said. "Let's see how much heat this guy can take before he evaporates."