Jennifer Walters tapped the control readout of the Quinjet and looked at her co-pilot, the Machine Man. The being occasionally known as Aaron Stack was plugged into the Quinjet, making the machine an extension of his own mechanical body. She-Hulk smiled and shook her head. That was probably the reason she couldn’t see anything.

“We close then?”

||Very,|| he replied in his hollow mechanical voice. ||We’ll be entering California very soon, and Los Angeles will quickly follow.||

“Glad to hear it,” she replied. “I’m sick of airplanes, and I’m still sore from the Factor 3 shit.”

||Query,|| X-51 stated. ||Why are we, member of the Avengers’ east coast branch traveling to Los Angeles when the West Coast branch is so close?||

“I’ve wondered the same thing,” she replied. “I know the Wackos lost over half their team a few weeks ago. I think Iron Man asked Cap because they’re so shorthanded.”

||So designate [Captain America] sent us as a favor?|| he stated with an ironic grin. Jen chuckled at the android’s expression.

“That’s what I’d say,” she replied. “And all over a kid who was an Avenger for all of ten minutes.” She shook her head. “Living Lightning.”

Ben Reilly sipped at his morning coffee as he hung on the side of the Staples Center. He swished the hot liquid between his teeth for a couple moments and swallowed. He heard the morning traffic of Los Angeles nearby, the honking and shouting creating a symphony around him. He grinned, took a final sip and dropped the cup into a garbage can below. He pulled his mask back down over his face.

“Glad my morning commute’s a bit different,” he muttered. He extended his arm to fire a webline to the nearest building, but the crackle of electricity stopped him. He turned and grinned.

“Lightning?” he said.

“The very same,” replied Miguel Santos. The former Avenger descended to join Ben in his lightning form. “How was your trip?”

“Brutal,” Ben replied. “Wasn’t a vacation by any means.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“So am I.” The Scarlet Spider motioned toward the city. “I’m home now. Anything pressing worth looking into?”

“Not real-“ There was a sudden thunderous explosion. Living Lightning spun. “Uhm, never mind.”

“Always happens on this early in the morning,” Ben muttered. “Shall we?”

“Keep your hands up!” Lieutenant Fischer of the LAPD screamed. “Keep them up!” He grasped the radio at his shoulder and began speaking. “This is Fischer-“ He glanced at the large figure in a trench coat and fedora. “-we’ve got a potential super-human situation.”

“Super-human?”

“He just blew up half a freaking block by tearing into the street,” Fischer growled. “I’m only saying potential because it might only be a situation.”

“Uh… we’re dispatching back-up!”

“And we’re here,” came a voice from above. Scarlet Spider dropped to the ground next to Fischer and Living Lightning descended to the other side of him.

“Kinda,” Spider shrugged.

“Not quite what I expected, but you guys work.” The figure turned and grinned at the two new arrivals. Ben caught a whiff of his scent and gagged.

“His smell is certainly superhuman,” he muttered. “D-Man, is that you?”

“Not quite,” growled the figure. He cast his clothing aside with a flourish. Ben groaned.

“Great,” he grunted. Emil Blonsky, the Abomination, drew himself up to his full height and bared his yellowed teeth. He clenched his massive fists and bellowed an animal roar.

“Officer, get down!” Miguel cried, pushing Lieutenant Fischer out of the way. He transformed in an instant and sprayed the gamma-powered brute with thousands of volts of lightning. Fischer scrambled away from what he was sure was about to become a pitched superhero battle. Abomination slowed and stopped for several moments. Miguel relented and the electricity in the air slowly died.

“Not bad,” Blonsky said. “Nice and… sparky.” He grinned and rushed at them again. He roared and raised his fists over his head. Each of the heroes jumped into the air. Ben fired a webline and swung over their opponent. Abomination slammed into the ground, ripping up concrete and asphalt. Ben fired another line connected him to a building opposite the one connected to his other line and tugged downwards hard. He went sailing down, feet first, and slammed into the back of Blonsky’s head. He felt the villain’s chin pound against his chest. He pushed off and flipped over his opponent, spraying him with webbing.

“Nice!” Lightning exclaimed. “Not a bad job!” Abomination struggled against the webbed cocoon that Ben had woven over his body. He grinned beneath his mask, proud at the accomplishment.

“I know, I know!” he said. “I’ll be signing autographs later.”

“Sign one for me!” Blonsky roared. He flexed his back and ripped the webbing apart. He stood, ripping up chunks of street with it.

“Oh crap,” Ben muttered.

“That’s bad,” Miguel replied. Abomination chuckled, a sound that grated Ben’s spine.

“Don’t you have some secret Avengers club house signal watch?” he asked. “Something to summon your buddies?”

“No need,” said a female voice from above. She-Hulk dropped into Ben’s view, nailing Abomination in a piledriver.

|We are already here,| X-51 continued.

“Oh, now that just makes my day!” Scarlet Spider exclaimed.

Jessica Carradine eagerly ran through the Los Angeles streets, camera in hand. She had attempted to take a taxi to the site of the fight, but had found herself ensnared in gridlock as soon as they got close. She had completed her magazine assignment for the day and the moment she’d been done, set off into the city, praying she could find Ben. The radio had been her answer.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, pushing past an on-looker. “Excuse me. Excuse-“ She spun as she thought she’d felt someone goose her, but she couldn’t tell who the culprit was. Shaking her head, she turned back to the gathering crowd and found herself at the edge of the line of people.

Only four or five yards from Ben Reilly.

“Oh boy,” she muttered and raised her camera to her face. After snapping several pictures, she realized her vantage point was pretty poor. She looked up a saw a small balcony on an adjoining building. Perfect. Grinning, she started pushing through the crowd again.

Ollie Osnick whistled and turned a full 360 degrees to take in their new lab as the rest of his team did the same. The former Steel Spider was impressed by his new employer. To say the SimsCorp labs was state of the art was an understatement. He picked up a microprocessor set on a nearby desk and examined it closely.

“Amazing,” he whispered.

“I’m sure it is,” said a female voice from the door, “but I need to distract you for a few moments, Mister Osnick.” Ollie turned to see a gorgeous woman with long red hair standing in the doorway. She stuck her hand out.

“Julia Carpenter,” she said. “I’m the project supervisor over your… other position.” Ollie nodded and took the offered hand.

“Is that what you need me for?” he asked. Julia nodded. “Lead the way.” She broke into a brisk walk and Ollie took a couple running steps to catch up.

“What’s going on?” he asked in a low voice.

“Abomination” she muttered. “We need to monitor the suit in a high stress situation like this.” Ollie nodded and realized that he was practically running to keep up with her. She hit a separate key when they reached the bank of elevators and he stopped, gasping for air.

“I’m not that out of shape, am I?” he asked.

“Sorry,” Julia said sheepishly. “It was me. New… diet supplement.” She turned back to the elevator as the door opened. Ollie followed and she hit the only button for a floor- the number 13.

“How do you get off on other floors?” he asked. She smiled.

“Use another elevator,” she replied. The car dropped suddenly, causing his stomach to start doing flips. It slowed several moments later, then came to a stop. The door slid open to reveal a lab tech zooming by on boots that hovered three inches above the ground.

“Welcome to the Thirteen Floor Ollie,” Julia said.

Ben jumped into the air to avoid a chunk of flying concrete, flipped and fired two thick strands of webbing. They struck the rubble, covering it in sticky goo, and he tugged, pulling it back towards him. He landed and glanced over his shoulder. Blonsky was right behind him, in the thick of it with She-Hulk. He grinned and planted his heels, then tugged the webbing again. He spun, swinging the concrete in a large arc and slammed it into Abomination’s back. He cried out in pain and dropped to the ground. She-Hulk winked at him and slammed her balled fists into the back of the monster’s head.

“Very nice!” he called and gave Jen a thumbs-up. Blonsky began to stand, but Miguel swept in from above, spraying him with lightning. Ben was impressed by how hard the kid tried. His time with the Thunderbolts had been a black mark on his public reputation, but he didn’t seem to care. The electricity actually seemed to be working. Suddenly the Abomination’s right arm lashed out and backhanded a car, which went sailing into Miguel. Living Lightning flew back and slammed into a nearby balcony, crumbling the cement structure. Ben saw a dark-haired woman fall and he jumped, firing a webline. Miguel would be okay, the woman wouldn’t be.

He pulled himself towards her, using his arms to pull himself faster. As he neared her a shock of recognition jolted him.

What’s she doing here? Of all the distressed damsels in the world, why do I have to rescue Jessica Carradine? He was instantly hit with the heart ache of their relationship all over. The truth about her father. His double identity. His final regret as he died…

“Gotcha!” He grabbed her tightly around the waist. She exhaled loudly and nearly dropped her camera. She gasped for several moments, then slowly turned to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Took you long enough,” she said. “I probably fell three stories bef-“

“Why are you here Jess?” Ben growled and fired another line to set her on the street.

“For you,” she replied. “I wanted to see you.”

“Stop by SimsCorp later,” he said. “Just ask for me.” He landed and carefully set her on the ground. He felt a twinge of pain as he knew he had to leave her. Her hand lingered for several moments on his arm.

“Ben…” she whispered.

“Be careful,” he said. “I’ll see you later.” With that, he turned and jumped back into the fray.

“I need you to monitor the suit,” Julia said and pointed to a tablet computer. “He’s dealing with a Hulk-level threat and we need to make sure the suit isn’t compromised.”

Ollie nodded and grabbed the tablet. He whistled and arrowed through the diagnostics. The suit was a marvel, a hybrid of Stark armor designs, nano-tech and cutting edge exo-suit tech.

“Very nice,” he said. “I like him already.”

“Head in the game,” Julia laughed. “Pause the nerdgasm.”

“Wish I could,” he laughed. This job suddenly got very interesting.

“Good grief,” She-Hulk growled, wiping spit from her chin. “He is not going down is he?” She stood back as Lightning and X-51 went at Blonsky again.

“We’re doing better than we would be without you,” Ben replied. “I probably would have been smeared across a building at least once.” He paused as Machine Man took a blow that would have beheaded a human. “Maybe twice.”

“Any ideas?” Walters asked. Ben glanced around and grinned.

“Man I love LA,” he muttered. He pointed behind She-Hulk. Jen turned and grinned. “There’s always convenient cement trucks to bust over bad guy’s heads.” She-Hulk grinned and slammed her fist into her palm.

“Me, truck,” she said, “you, distraction.” Ben nodded. He jumped back into the air. He fired two lines to give him a couple moments to swing over him.

“Julia, you there?” he asked.

“As always Spider,” she replied. “How’s it looking out there?”

“Ugly,” he joked, “in more ways than one. You get those additions installed in my web-shooters?”

“Sure did,” she said. “Ready to go.” Ben smiled wide.

“Perfect.” He flipped and dove at Blonsky, fists extended. He began tapping the edges of his web-shooters, firing short hardened blasts of webbing. They weren’t quite the same as his stingers of old, but they worked. The small stingers hit Abomination hard, and he spun with a growl.

“Spider!” he roared. “Do you really think those will matter?!” He grabbed another nearby chunk of rubble to throw at him.

“Nope!” Ben yelled. “But she will!” Blonsky turned to see She-Hulk heft the cement truck and throw it on top of him.

“SHIT!” he growled. X-51 and Lightning jumped clear as the cement truck hit Abomination and exploded in a cloud of dust and liquid cement. Ben whistled and lowered himself to the ground next to She-Hulk at the edge of the mess of cement.

“High-five Shulkie!” he exclaimed, throwing his arm up in the air. Jen grinned and slapped the raised arm, sending Ben sprawling.

“Sorry,” she said.

|Apologies for dampening celebration,| X-51 cut in as Ben stood back up. |My sensors indicate Blonsky is not present in the concrete. Energy signature present indicate teleportation.|

“Damn,” Jen muttered. “All that work for nothing.”

“No kidding,” Ben muttered.

“You’re okay out here then?” Jen asked Miguel as the quartet stood on the helipad of SimsCorp. Ezekiel had offered an hour previous to let the Avengers leave their Quinjet atop the building. Ben leaned against the vehicle silently.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve gotten back into school on scholarship. I’m working part-time, and the Avengers severance Iron Man set up has been fantastic.”

|Have you had any contact with the Thunderbolts?| X-51 asked.

“None,” he answered. “I told them I wanted nothing more to do with them. They’ve respected that.” She-Hulk chewed her lip thoughtfully. Ben watched her. He’d taken enough psychology classes… Peter had taken enough psychology classes to almost earn a minor in it. He could tell something wasn’t sitting right with Jen, that she was thinking about how to pry more information out of Living Lightning.

“Good,” she finally mumbled. “It was good to see you Miguel. I know you and I hardly interacted, but it’s good to see you well.”

“You too,” he said. “I’ve got to run, may I…?”

“Sure,” Jen replied. “We’ll keep in touch.” Miguel nodded and transformed into his lightning form. He saluted Ben and blasted across the sky. The Avengers turned back to the Quinjet, looking right at Ben. He folded his arms.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Something’s off about him. Be careful.”

“Yeah Spider,” she said. “Be damn careful. As odd as it sounds, he’s not nearly as stand-offish as his profile says. Most would probably say he just came out of his shell but-“

“You think something’s wrong,” he said. “Gotcha. I’ll be careful.” He stepped away from the Quinjet and stuck his hand out. “Thanks for the assist.”

“Glad to,” She-Hulk replied, shaking Ben’s hand. She pulled a communicard from her belt and handed it to him.

“This isn’t giving you reserve status or anything,” she said, “unless the Wackos want to give it to you, but if you need something, let us know. They’ll dispatch someone.”

“That’s so reassuring,” he replied sardonically. “I’ll let you know.” He stepped away from the Quinjet. “We’ll be seeing you around. Now, I’ve got an appointment to keep myself. Adios!” He walked to the edge of the helipad and jumped. She-Hulk shook her head and turned back to X-51.

“Let’s hope I’m wrong,” she muttered.

|Indeed,| the machine replied.

“You did well,” Geoffrey Wilder said, tossing a large wad of bills to the large green figure. “We’re very pleased with your performance, despite the intervention of the Avengers.” Abomination grinned and flipped through the bills.

“It was my pleasure,” he growled. “It was nice to see LA.”

“Gave me a good measure of the Spider,” a third figure declared. Electro stepped out of the shadows, joining Wilder and Blonsky. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him or the original in action.”

“Heard you were dead,” Blonsky growled.

“I was,” Electro said simply. “Now I’m not.”

“Good to have you back. I like the new mask too.”

“Thanks,” Dillion replied. He turned to the leader of the Pride. “Wilder, the Six are ready now.”

“Excellent.”

“Ben, there’s someone here to see you,” Julia said, sticking her head into the cubicle he was working on his web-shooters. She grinned. “She’s cute.” He grinned and pushed away from his desk.

“You’re jealous,” he said. Julia laughed.

“If I was?”

“I’d be flattered,” Ben said. “Let the front desk know I’ll be down in a few.” Ben jumped to his feet. It blew him away to see Jessica again. She was the same he remembered. She claimed that she wanted to see him, but why? What drove her here?

Ben reached the elevator and punched the down button. A million thoughts were racing through his head. The elevator arrived and Ben slipped inside, punching the button for the lobby. He rubbed his eyes nervously, hoping to wipe the exhaustion out of them. His nerves seemed to bunch up in a knot in his gut as the elevator came to a stop. The doors parted and Ben saw a red-head waiting at the desk. He stepped into the lobby, frowning. There was something familiar about her. She turned and smiled at Ben. Shock hit his gut worse than he expected.

“Elizabeth…”

Across the street a tall figure in a trenchcoat watched the pair in the SimsCorp lobby. Reilly was setting himself up for a fall. When he did, Kaine would be there.

In Web of Scarlet Spider #7: Two of Ben’s old loves have re-entered his life, but why? And what is preying on city workers in the LA sewers?