Caught In A Web (Peter Parker/Tom Holland)

Chapter 33

The next couple of days were calm. More calm then usual. There was no news about the Mangler's arrest. It worried both us and Stark.

"What if he wasn't caught, what if he somehow escaped?" Peter asks me and Stark while we stood in one of Starks conference rooms.

"I'm sure he's in prison, police probably didn't want to broadcast that news," Stark says, trying to calm him down.

"But what if he escaped after we left? What if he's planning on attacking me, or worse Veronica?" Peter says frantically.

"How would he attack you, I see why Veronica, but why you?" Stark asks. Peter gulps.

"Uh, he knows my identity," Peter says quietly.

Stark takes a deep breath and rubs his face with his hand.

"He knows your identity," Stark grumbles, not looking up at us.

"He put two and two together because of that old headline about "Spider-Mans Lover" on TV when he saw me and Peter together, then Peter as Spider-Man," I say. Stark grumbles under his breath then looks up at us both.

"I'll try to see if he was successfully put in prison," Stark says.

"Thank you so much."

---

The weekend was finally here. Peter was telling me about how shaken up all his classmates were since they were attacked. They would be even more horrified if they had seen what me, Peter, and the victims had seen.

Still nothing on the Mangler. Stark says he doesn't know.

Did he somehow escape? How would he escape that mess? He was webbed the ground and was surrounded by cops.

Me and Peter were back at the coffee shop, that was recently fixed up.

"What if we go back to the place?" I ask, referring to the place Mangler kept his victims. Peter looks at me.

"I mean, that would be a good and bad idea," Peter says.

"Why would it be a bad idea?" I ask.

"Well, what if he wasn't caught? What if he pops out of nowhere and attacks?" He says.

"Peter, you need to stop being so paranoid," I say, gabbing and rubbing his hand. He huffs and grips my hand.

"Aren't you paranoid too?" He asks me. I nod my head.

"Well yeah, who wouldn't be after seeing that hellhole," I say. "But not hearing anything about the psycho is making me more paranoid."

"I guess you're right," Peter says.

"So should we go? I mean," I look around and lean in close to Peter and whisper, "Not as Spider-Man."

Peter gives me a strange look.

"What?" He says. "You think I should go as myself?"

"Yeah, no one will be there, and if there is, bring your suit just in case," I say.

"Alright."

---

About an hour later we arrive to the hideout. Happy was nice enough to drive us there, knowing May wouldn't have done it without questioning us on why we wanted to go there.

"Thanks, Happy," I say while closing the car door. He smiled as we turned and saw the house.

The house was blocked off by yellow caution tape. No one was there, except us. We both approach the house and duck underneath the tape.

I open the door and immediately regret it. The familiar, horrible odor of the rotting bodies filled my nose. I covered my nose quickly, trying not to vomit. Peter does the same.

I see that the house portion of the hideout was destroyed from the fight.

"Wow," I say looking over at Peter. "You really destroyed this place."

He laughs.

"The bastard deserved it," He laughs. I smile before looking over at the trapdoor. It was wide open. Police had been down there for sure.

I look over at Peter before walking towards the trapdoor. I stare down the trapdoor, thinking about the horrible dream I had the other night. I, unintentionally, imagined the red lights that was in the nightmare.

"Veronica?" I hear. I am overwhelmed by major déjà vu, before turning to see Peter staring at me. "Are you okay?" I nod.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine, just a little déjà vu, that's all," I say before turning back towards the trapdoor. I then start to climb down the trapdoor.

Peter climbs down behind me.

I drop to the ground and turn to see tables and police stuff everywhere. The tables were covered in random everyday objects. Some were photos of the murdered and photos of the rotten bodies.

I then looked over to see a table full of needles and thread. I approached the table and looked closely at the needles. They all had names on them. I picked one up, a needle that was clean from blood.

'Peter Parker' It had written on it. I feel my eyes widen and I drop the needle on to the table. I looked down to see another clean needle. I pick that one up. It had my name on it.

"What the hell?" I mumble.

"Veronica," I hear an angered Peter say. I turn to see him staring at something on the ground.

"What? What's wrong?" I ask.

He points to the thing he is staring at and also holds up a paper. I walk over to him and take the paper out of his hand.

It's a note, written in sloppy hand writing.

It says,

"You were close Spider-Man, you were close."

I look up from the note and see Peter still staring at something. I look at what he was staring at.

It was the webs the Mangler was bound too, except they were black and decayed. Peter looks over at me. Anger is written across his face.

"How the hell did he get away?" He says. I look around the space, now super paranoid, wondering where he went.

Then I notice there was more dry blood on the floor then there was earlier. I looked back at Peter.

"I think he attacked them," I say. He looks at me. "Well, for some reason the webs are blackened and decayed, so maybe somehow he did that, like he has a power, maybe he obtained it during your fight?"

"But that's impossible," Peter says.

"No," I say. "You obtained powers by being bitten by a radioactive spider, right? Maybe he was exposed to something."

I look back at the decayed webs. I then remembered something, from a biology class when I was a freshmen.

"Wait," I say, before walking towards the webs but stopping before I got too close. "I remember learning about a bacteria that can decay anything. People are infected by the bacteria without even knowing they were infected. A woman was once infected after bumping into a table, she thought what appeared on her leg was a bruise, but it was the bacteria. It somehow got inside her. What if the same happened to the Mangler, but this time it was different and gave him power?"

Peter stares at me.

"That's a perfect idea," Peter says happily.

Now that we had an idea of how he decayed the webs, we just needed to figure out a very important thing.

What the hell was he planning to do next?