[ Now… ]

The man with the rook black hair stood motionless at the roof’s edge, warm summer breeze smoothing his furred skin. It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to dip behind the Manhattan skyline, edging the endless rise and fall of buildings with a hazy bronze. The air was heavy with smoke and steam, and a steady rumble of noise drifted up from the streets far below. Another man might have found beauty in such a spectacle… but there was no other man like Sergei Kravinoff. Sergei loathed the city, its filth and its clamour and its cloying stink, and as soon as he was done here he would be gone, back to the empty, red heat of the desert.

Pigeons wheeled and cooed but kept their distance. Wise birds. Sergei The Huntsman - a living effigy of muscle and scar and animal hide - was a killer, to be avoided at costs.

Unfortunately for Peter Parker, that wasn’t an option. Not that he knew much about it…

Sergei held the young man’s body at arm’s length, out over the roof’s balcony. One hand clasped Peter about the scruff of his collar. The other hand held the blade of an enormous knife to his throat. The Huntsman’s eyes glinted, black flecked with gold. He sneered, and the identical scars that cut from each eye down to the opposite corners of his mouth danced.

“You play dead, Skinwalker,” the tall man hissed, his voice laced with Russian accent. “But you cannot deceive my senses. The tranquilliser in your blood would cause prolonged torpor in a normal human, but not in a witch-beast like yourself. Not in the Spider-Man. You live, you breathe. You plot. I understand and accept this. But know this, my prey. If you would fight me, test yourself against me as my dreams have decreed you must, then the time is now. No more games, no more pretence. Show yourself! Shed your false skin and betray your true nature!”

The Huntsman pressed the blade against Peter’s neck. Just slightly, but enough to draw blood. And yet…

For the first time Sergei’s certitude flickered. Was it possible? Could he be wrong? He’d been so sure, tracking his adversary’s unnatural spoor through the city’s polluted airways to this place - this building, this rooftop, the apartment room below where, a short while previously, he’d raised his rifle and shot his foe not with a bullet but with a barbiturate dart. Yet perhaps this wasn’t his quarry. Or perhaps this Spider-Man was simply not as formidable as Rose Red or the Navajo - or even his own dreams as a child - had led him to believe.

Disappointing. And yet there was a contract to fulfil, for money and for blood. The Huntsman’s sneer twisted into a snarl. Feral. Tooth and claw. The blade of the knife flashed in the descending sun. So be it then. It would be a hollow death…

…but the Skinwalker witch would die.

The girl in the lilac raincoat knocked on the door in front of her and then checked her wristwatch for the third time. She huffed, hands on hips. She was pretty, but her expression was cross - although as far as Ash Kennedy was concerned, that actually made her prettier. Not that he was developing a thing for cross women. Or indeed for abjectly furious women who were also mentally unbalanced and who felt the need to kick the crap out of him, much like the person who called herself The Silver Scourge had done earlier that day. No, that was just a misfortune of circumstance and not something he wished to make a habit of. Luckily the girl in the raincoat didn’t seem the overly aggressive type, although of course one could never -

“Hello?”

Ash blinked, startled, as the girl turned away from the door and saw him watching her from the top of the stairwell across the landing. She cocked her head, stroking a lock of ash-blonde hair over her ear. Her eyes were a clear, piercing blue. She didn’t smile.

“My name’s Gwen,” the girl said. “Gwendolyn Stacy. Are you a friend of Peter Parker? This is his apartment, right?”

Ash glanced at the door where Gwen had knocked. She followed his gaze then appraised him coolly. Ash grimaced. No denying it now then.

“Yeah. I’m Ash Kennedy, his flat-mate. Well… no, actually, that’s not true. Yet. Although it’s almost true because we’ve talked about it, and we decided it made a lot of sense, what with rent being what it is, and sharing an apartment would mean…”

Ash faltered. Then winced. “That’s probably too much information, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. You never know when seemingly trivial facts might become important.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. I’m an investigative journalist, you see, with - ”

“The Daily Bugle.”

Gwen Stacy raised an eyebrow.

“Pete, uh… left a message on my cell. Said he’d run into you earlier today. He didn’t mention your name but I knew it was you he was talking about because he said something about your… your, uh…”

“My what?”

“Your eyes. He said they were very distinctive.”

The girl looked suddenly stricken. Ash waved his hands like a bird that had just eaten a really, really, really big worm, and was either very proud of the fact or choking to death.

“No. No, no, no. Nothing bad. At all. Definitely no. You’ve got beautiful eyes. You’ve got the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Gwen opened her mouth. No sound came out so she closed it again. Ash spluttered and began waving his hands even more frantically.

“Not that I’m coming onto you or anything!” he bleated, his voice shrill now. “Because I’m not weird. Honestly, not. At all. I’m not the kind of person who makes suggestive remarks to strange, beautiful girls within ten seconds of meeting them. Although, obviously, I just did that now, but it’s not something I do often. Or at all. Ever. Apart from now. And I didn’t mean that you’re a strange beautiful girl, I meant that you’re a… a… a beautiful stranger. A… a beautiful… oh. Oh God, now I’m quoting Madonna songs…”

Gwen Stacy looked on in utter befuddlement. Ash stopped waving his hands and bowed his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I do this a lot. I think I have special needs.”

Gwen shifted uncomfortably. “Listen, Mister Kennedy,” she said, eventually. “I… I just need to speak to Peter, okay? We were talking at his workplace earlier and there wasn’t time to finish our interview so I arranged to meet him here, now. Well, at five. It’s a quarter past now. I know he’s here because a neighbour said he’d seen him arrive, but he’s not answering the door. I don’t know if he’s changed his mind about speaking to me but I really don’t have time to - ”

Ash raised a hand. He was grasping a key between thumb and forefinger. “As I said, I may as well be living here already.”

He moved forward and unlocked the door to Peter Parker’s apartment, trying not to crowd the blonde girl and make her any more uncomfortable than she already was. “He’s probably just in the shower or something and couldn’t hear you knocking,” he said, knowing he was still rambling but unable to stop himself. “Please, if you want to grab a seat, I’ll find him and get you a glass of water or something, and then I’ll totally go and hide in a closet or something until you’re done, because otherwise I’ll just keep making a fool of myself and I’m already so humiliated I won’t be planning on leaving the apartment again until next Christmas, and - ”

Ash froze a half-dozen steps into the apartment. He drew to a halt so suddenly that Gwen bumped into him with a gasp. She stepped to one side, spots of pink high on her cheeks, but when she saw Ash’s expression she immediately forgot her discomfort and instead became concerned. “Is something wrong?” she asked, gazing around at what appeared to be a typical front room in a typical male-occupied apartment. A little untidy, poorly utilised, not enough colour, but otherwise…

Ash was looking sharply to his right, his eyes narrowed. He was staring at an open window with the dark metal struts of an extended fire escape beyond. His nostrils flared.

“That’s not advisable,” Gwen scolded. “Leaving points of entry unlocked, it encourages crime, even on the upper floors. I wrote a piece on this last month.”

Ash nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m always telling Pete not to go up on the roof that way. He never listens.” He turned back to Gwen, his manner completely altered from the babbling lad of before. Now his face was smooth as dark marble, his words precise, and he spoke in such a way that the blonde girl couldn’t help but pay heed.

“Stay here,” he instructed. “Please. I’ll be back in a minute or two. I’ll just check Pete’s okay and remind him that you’re here for your interview.”

Ash didn’t wait to see if Gwen would agree to those terms. He was already striding across to the window and clambering out onto the fire escape without a single glance backwards. Gwen Stacy watched him depart with a slight shake of the head.

He was weird. Total weirdo. Cute, in a goofy way, but… yeah.

She pursed her lips and sat down on a nearby sofa in a huff without even bothering to remove her raincoat. Whatever Ash Kennedy and Peter Parker were up to on the roof of their apartment building she hoped it wasn’t going to take long…

Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot!

Ash often had cause to lament his own intelligence - or lack of it. Accepting Peter Parker’s offer of a tour of the Arachnology Department at the ESZI, that was a prime example. That hadn’t been bright. Getting bitten by a recently discovered species of spider the size of a dinner plate? Not entirely his fault, but still, not bright. Deciding, however reluctantly, to don an experimental bodysuit and play superhero after discovering that the aforementioned spider-bite had somehow given him miraculous powers? Absolutely utterly completely not bright.

And then, of course, there was meeting an investigative reporter from a newspaper that was hell-bent on accusing him of involvement in a murder he’d been trying to prevent and instead of sending her away as fast as her legs would carry her he had invited her into the apartment. Reporters were like vampires. You did not encourage them to cross your threshold. Especially when you had a big old newsflash secret identity you were trying to keep hidden.

See? Idiot.

Actually, considering that it was Pete’s apartment, and it was Pete who’d been responsible for the initial inviting, and in fact it was Pete who had coerced him into wearing the suit and becoming a hero in the first place, and it was Pete who’d supposedly been in charge on the day that spider had got loose, then it went without saying that Peter Parker was an idiot too. An even bigger idiot than Ash himself. If it weren’t for Pete then Ash wouldn’t have spent the last few weeks being slapped about by costumed freaks and mutated lizard-scientists and lunatic Nazi-hunters and all the rest.

Which meant that Pete was worse than an idiot. It meant that he was a jinx.

As Ash sprinted up the fire escape to the roof, his expression decidedly furious, it occurred to him that apartment sharing with Peter Parker was probably the last thing he should be contemplating. Instead he should be putting as much space between them as humanly possible. And once he’d learned why Pete was up on the roof in the first place, and why his preternatural Spider-Sense had been playing havoc ever since he’d stepped into the apartment downstairs and had almost immediately detected the air of wrongness that permeated everything, well… he was going to give that young man a piece of his mind. He was going to…

To…

…Pete?

Just as Ash reached a point three storeys below the edge of the roof, Peter Parker flew past him.

On the way down.

Ash squawked, instinctively arching his back and hurling himself away from the building, arms outstretched. In reality he didn’t need to be climbing a fire escape in the first place, as one of his aforementioned powers was the ability to climb walls. He just hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself. Of course, here was that idea shot to hell - executing an instantaneous backwards somersault into thin air twenty storeys up wasn’t exactly typical behaviour. And neither was utilizing another of his unique powers, the ability to secrete a silvery adhesive substance from apertures in his wrists: his webbing.

Peter plummeted, but no more than half the height of the building. His fall was arrested by a web thread that attached to a trailing ankle and then snapped tight, just as another wrapped about his waist to distribute his weight and momentum and prevent a broken leg or back. Peter’s inanimate body then suddenly shifted sideways, pulled along and upwards by Ash on the other end of the web. Ash twisted at the waist and swung on yet another strand of webbing, supporting himself whilst gathering Peter in close. He wrapped one arm around the other man’s midriff and then grabbed out at the façade of the nearest building with his free hand, all in one unbroken movement.

Ash exhaled, his expression stricken with panic. He turned Peter’s face towards him.

“Pete?” he barked. “Pete, what the hell? Did you… did you slip, or…”

His voice trailed away. There was blood at Peter’s throat, staining the collar of his shirt. His head was lolling. Ash reached out tentatively, pulling the wet material aside… and then breathed deeply a second time, again in relief, as he saw a scratch that was no more than skin deep. Peter snorted. His nostrils flared and his eyes twitched, as if he were dreaming. Ash shook him, but the other man didn’t awaken. Ash scowled.

Asleep? No, not that. Not shock either. It was like he was… drugged?

Ash’s head snapped up, the special sense at the base of his skull quivering. His intuition bordered on the supernatural in many respects but it wasn’t; it was simply that his perception was enhanced to an astonishing degree. Even at a considerable distance and at an oblique angle he’d just spotted something important - the briefest glimpse, but that was enough. He’d seen movement on the roof of the apartment building from where Peter had fallen. A shadow. A second person.

“Bastard,” Ash whispered. “You think you can try and kill my friend, whoever you are? You think you can do that?”

Setting Peter’s still motionless body aside in a safe and secure location on a railed balcony close by, Ash grabbed at his own shirt and ripped it aside, revealing a distinctive black and red costume beneath.

Had someone attacked Peter out of mistaken identity or to send a message? Ash didn’t know. But one thing was certain: if someone was looking for Spider-Man…

…then they’d sure as hell found him.

The Huntsman held his ceremonial blade aloft, watching with black eyes as the fading rays of the afternoon sun melted gold upon the blade, then turned away from the edge of the roof. And so, in the end, he’d been right to doubt his convictions. The man he’d attacked had not been the Skinwalker. A clever subterfuge, one he should have expected from a witch with base cunning but no pride. The one called Spider-Man had allowed another to hold his place, to draw his enemy’s sting. And Sergei, to his shame, had fallen for the ploy. He’d been too eager. Too arrogant. That had always been his problem, the single flaw that all his training with the Navajo had been unable to eradicate. He -

“Hey, stinky! Are you making some kind of statement? Because animal furs are just so Naomi Campbell, and that’s not cool.”

The Hunstman turned, slowly. His eyes narrowed as he stared across the rooftop at the figure in the black-and-red costume who was crouched in the far corner, the reflective lenses of his mask shining brightly.

“Skinwalker,” Sergei breathed.

“Butt-crack.”

“Witch.”

“Skank.”

“Vile desecrator of bodily flesh.”

“Oh, now, come on. That’s just nasty.” Spider-Man skipped forward, somersaulted, and then landed in front of his enemy, his masked face in line with The Huntsman’s broad chest. He looked up. “So, Mister Whiskers. You are the guy who just threw a friend of mine off this roof, right? Good. Just so’s we’re straight.”

And then he slammed a punch into The Huntsman’s face with such ferocity that he lifted the villain clear off his feet and sent him flying backwards through the air, out over the street. Before the man fell, however, a cord of webbing curled about his abdomen and snapped taut, and then he was yanked forwards once more, all the way back into the path of another sledgehammer punch. The air misted with blood and teeth. The Huntsman staggered, his expression a mask of shock, then crumpled.

“There we go,” Spider-Man declared, crossing his arms and tapping his foot as his foe hunched and gasped before him. “See, now? If we’d just have done this right off the bat then everyone could’ve saved themselves a lot of heartache. I’d be sat in front of the box eating ice cream and channel surfing, you’d be back on the budget airline to whatever jungle you shipped in from…”

The Huntsman snarled.

“What was that, Curious George? You say you’re sorry for calling me a desecrator or whatever it was you said? Well, George, I know we’re supposed to forgive and forget, but seriously, I - ”

The Huntsman snarled again - but this time it wasn’t the sound of a man in pain. It was the deep, throaty rasp of an animal. A furious animal. Ash stepped back, lips pursed beneath his mask.

“Okay, so… hello? What, are you epileptic or something?”

The Huntsman was shuddering and writhing where he crouched, his head ducked down behind his shoulders. He exhaled a series of squeals and hisses. There was the sound of popping bone and stretching flesh. And then, slowly, he rose to his feet and turned… and Spider-Man made a small noise of his own.

“Well, now,” he said, weakly. “There was I thinking that The Chameleon was one twisted lady with her half-human, half-lizard shtick. But you, buddy, you take the biscuit. What’re you? Monkey?”

The creature that had once been Sergei Kravinoff inclined its head, his black-gold eyes shining like coins. He was taller now, and wider, his body spilling out of his hides, and now he boasted his own pelt of red and golden fur, thick and matted along his elongated forearms and in a ruff about his throat. His hands had transformed into spade-like claws, hooked with cruel talons, and his jaw was misshapen with an overflow of fangs. Those teeth now glistened as he smiled down upon his slender foe.

“I… am The Hunstman,” he growled, his voice no longer human but instead utterly bestial. “I am the sacred vassal for the spirit of the puma, noble protector of the desert people.”

Spider-Man sighed. “No. No, no, sorry. Looking at you, I’m still totally getting monkey. A weremonkey, yes, but still monkey. Maybe it’s the jowls, I don’t know. But I do know that if you’re here for bananas then you’re out of luck. Because - ”

The Huntsman lashed out with one fist of claws, catching his adversary full across the face and sending him sprawling along the rooftop. Spider-Man rolled and flipped, all in one movement, and landed back on his feet at a safe distance. He raised a gloved palm gingerly to his jaw. “Ow. Okay, so, yeah, that was faster than expected. Not to self: no banana jokes.”

“I am your better in every way,” The Huntsman purred. “In speed, in strength, in savagery… I am the embodiment of the ancient cougar spirit.”

“Ooh. I’m thinking you can also drink a saucer of milk and lick behind your own ears, both at the same time. Am I right? Am I? Am I right? I bet I’m right.”

The Huntsman charged. Spider-Man reacted, wheeling away to the right and twisting his body at the hips to propel himself clear of his enemy’s reach, but in the next instant he received a heavy blow to the stomach that send him spinning in the opposite direction. He tried to right himself in mid-air but another slash of claws raked down his back, slamming into the ground. He grunted, rolling to his knees, but his foe was already upon him, a clawed hand curled about his throat.

“Your costume makes you durable,” The Huntsman hissed, “but even if it takes all night I’ll strip it from your body and then do the same to your stolen flesh.”

“Oh, you and your sweet-talk…”

Spider-Man bucked, shifting his weight and then pushing through his arms and shoulders with all his strength, dislodging his enemy and hurling him away even as he scrambled to his feet. “Well,” he whistled. “Now that’s what I call getting a monkey off your back.”

The Huntsman turned and charged once more, impossibly swift. This time Spider-Man was able to dodge, feinting one way and then flipping to the other, but his heart was in his throat as he landed, knowing he only had a split second before he’d need to avoid the next attack. His foe was fast, phenomenally so, and this robbed him of one advantage; there was also every possibility that the villain was stronger, as he’d claimed, and there was no question he’d rip Ash limb from limb given the chance. The Spider suit, durable as it was, couldn’t hold up forever. That just left one weapon in his armoury that his adversary didn’t possess: his webs. But would he ever be able to manoeuvre himself into a position to use them…?

The Huntsman leapt, slashing with his talons. Spider-Man ducked and reeled, then instinctively decided to make a brief stand, slamming a hefty punch into his foe’s gut. The Huntsman barely staggered. Instead he took full advantage of the opportunity, returning Spider-Man’s blow with added force, causing the smaller fellow’s head to snap back on his neck like a punching bag in a boxing gym. Spider-Man staggered, his senses ringing. Claws slashed again, right across his mask, and he felt the razor sharpness desperate to lacerate his skin. His mask didn’t tear, but that was possibly only because he pulled back at the very last second. A full blow would have penetrated.

“Rose Red promised me a battle,” The Huntsman roared. “Are you destined to disappoint me twice, witch?”

Spider-Man feinted and twisted, throwing himself to one side and then the other, but The Huntsman tagged him far more than he was fooled. Even on those occasions that his blows didn’t strike clean there was no opportunity for his enemy to retaliate. Beneath his mask, Ash’s eyes were wide with fear. This was bad. This was very bad. This was worse than The Chameleon, or The Silver Scourge. Faster, stronger, unrelenting… what the hell could he do against this? And that name this freak of nature had mentioned, Rose Red. Now where had he heard that before…?

Claws locked about Spider-Man’s shoulder and shoved him down, hard, against the flat of the roof and then dragging him to the edge. He grunted and tried to twist free but The Huntsman was already upon him, full weight upon his chest, pinning him down. The animal man grinned, wildcat eyes burning black, then ducked his head towards his enemy’s throat. Those fangs were very long and very sharp. They would rip through the neck lining of his costume, Ash knew. And there was nothing he could do about -

“Mister Kennedy? Mister Parker? Are you up there? And, more importantly, are you coming back down? Because I’m a busy woman and I’ve got places I need to be…”

Ash’s heart leapt. For a split second he couldn’t place the female voice drifting up from somewhere below, but then he remembered: Gwendolyn. He heard the click-clang of hesitant boot-steps on the metal of the fire escape. Dear God, was she coming up? But -

“Another of your sacrifices?” The Huntsman snarled. “How many innocents would you cast in front of me in your craven attempt to slither free?”

“Hey, don’t you be calling me craven. Cravin’ bananas, maybe…”

The Huntsman’s scarred, feline face twitched. “Enough of you,” he hissed. “Your words aren’t weapons, yet they burn my ears.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot. And, man, I sympathise. With ears like yours, it must be hell. But, seriously, look. I don’t taste good. Very anti-banana. Ask Catharine Connors. I - ”

“This ends now.”

Click-clang. Ash groaned inwardly. Yeah, Gwen was definitely on her way up. That was the problem with reporters. Once they sank their teeth in they couldn’t let go. Vampire and werewolf in one. Just like Kate Beckinsale in that -

Wait. Couldn’t let go?

“Okay,” Spider-Man breathed, silently wrapping his arm about his enemy’s waist as far as he could as he lay there pinned. “So, this is it, right? The final curtain. My friend, I’ll say it clear; I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain… a final request from a man about to become catfood? Hmm?”

The Huntsman hesitated. Ash smiled behind his mask.

“Say it for me,” he said. “Go on. You know you want to.”

“Say what?”

“Oh, Lion-O, you know how it goes. Thundercats… hoooooo!”

And then Spider-Man kicked out, slamming his feet down against the roof and tipping both himself and his adversary backwards over the balustrade that edged the perimeter of the roof. He hadn’t been able to gain enough leverage to cast The Huntsman aside but he had been able to unbalance them both together. And the scarred man had been so distracted by his enemy’s inane prattle that he hadn’t realised Spider-Man was twining his arms and legs around his own, locking them tightly together - not until it was too late. The Huntsman’s instinct was to pull himself free, using his agility to grab onto the edge of the roof before they plummeted, but Spider-Man wasn’t allowing him that freedom. In that crucial moment they couldn’t be separated.

Sergei’s cat eyes shot wide in disbelief. “What are you doing?” he shrieked. “You’ll kill us both! You - ”

“Ah, don’t fret, pussycat. You’re the one with nine lives, right? Besides - when was the last time you met a spider who was scared of heights? Because we’ve got an ace up the sleeve… or rather, in the wrist.”

Spider-Man had already saved Peter Parker’s life with a well-placed web thread. Now it was time to save his own. Twisting in The Huntsman’s grasp as they fell, he wriggled one arm free and whipped it up above his head, then released a web cord that attached to the outside of the nearest building. As the thread snapped taut he shifted all his downward velocity into his hips, swinging his legs free of his enemy and hurling himself sideways into a somersault. He then shot two more web-cords: another one upwards, to arrest his fall permanently, and another downward to snag the figure of The Huntsman who was still plummeting. He caught the villain by the arm with a resounding snap of splintering bone… and then, almost instantly, the pair of them were stilled in mid-air, suspended by silvery lines.

The Huntsman glared up at his foe, still snarling, his eyes dark with hatred. If he was agony from his newly broken arm he wasn’t about to let it show. Spider-Man stared down in turn. Behind his mask, Ash’s expression was solemn.

“You know something?” he said, loud enough for his enemy to hear, his voice no longer jaunty and mocking as before. Now he was deadly serious. “My friend Peter - the one you tried to kill? - he’s a big advocate of this whole hero business. I often wonder to myself, what would have happened if Peter Parker had become Spider-Man instead of me? Because he’s got this whole sense of righteous responsibility going on, right? In this position he’d reel you in and send you off to the authorities in a neat little package. But for what? So you could get free one day and try and murder him again? Try and murder his friends? Me… well, I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a hero. Never have been.

“The newspapers say I was involved in a man’s death. The police and the lawyers and the activists, they’d throw me behind bars as soon as look at me. It’s not like me making a citizen’s arrest and then handing you over would win me points. I’d probably just be shot at. So what’s to stop me from letting go of this web-cord and dropping you, right now? Are you agile enough to save yourself with that busted arm you’ve got there, or would I be doing the world a service by saving everyone, myself included, a whole heap of future heartache?”

“You wear the skin of the spider, witch,” The Huntsman hissed. “And even as the spider weaves its beauty, its sole motivation is hunger. I am here to protect this world from you. You are here to feast upon it. So long as I live I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth!”

Spider-Man cocked his head. “Right,” he said, quietly. “Well, just so everyone knows where they stand. Peter Parker? He’d just suck it up and take the bruises, now and forever. But Peter Parker isn’t Spider-Man. Ash Kennedy is Spider-Man. And that’s a whole different ballgame, pal. So… let’s see if it’s true that cats always land on their feet, hmm?”

And then he let go of his web-thread, and The Huntsman - immediately giving over to instinct and his enhanced reflexes - had four seconds to try and save himself before he hit the ground. Without a broken arm, he might have managed it. But as it was, he -

High above, Spider-Man looked down, suspended on the end of his webbing. He heard the sound of impact and he flinched. For a minute or two afterwards, in the silence that preceded the first whine of distant sirens, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Then he remembered Peter, and Gwen.

Time for the spider to fade away and the man to return.

The three of them sat in the front room of Peter’s apartment, drinking hot cocoa. Gwen had cancelled an appointment that she’d been running late for. Business, not a date. She’d glanced at Ash as she’d offered up that snippet of information, a curious flicker in her eyes. Another time Ash might have noticed. But not tonight.

“You should go to the hospital, you know,” Gwen murmured over the steam of her drink. “Both of you.”

Peter and Ash exchanged glances. The former was still drowsy from the tranquilliser and was decidedly pale. Ash sat awkwardly, pillows behind his back and beneath his legs, dressed in his civvies now but obviously suffering from sprains and bruises. Gwen looked from one to the other and sighed.

There was a digital recorder on the coffee table between them. With a deep breath she picked it up, clicked a switch, and dropped the machine into her bag.

“Right,” she said. “Here’s the deal. Off the record. Everything. But I need to know. I need to understand what I saw tonight.”

Ash and Peter exchanged glances again, this time uneasily. Gwen leaned forward in the armchair where she was sitting, her expression blank save for one arched eyebrow.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get what I want,” she said, with an edge to her voice that left the two young men opposite her in no doubt that she meant it. “Ash Kennedy, you are the costumed vigilante known as Spider-Man - and tonight, a man who was trying to kill you accidentally fell to his death. That’s all I’ve got. It’s up to you to fill in the rest, preferably before the police come knocking on doors looking for witnesses…”

Accidentally. Ash shifted uncomfortably. That was what Gwen had thought she’d seen from her vantage point, high above the action. Peter, still drugged at the time, hadn’t witnessed anything at all but hadn’t questioned Gwen’s statement. Why would he? Ash Kennedy was Spider-Man. A hero.

“And then what?” Ash asked. “What happens to the three of us next?”

This time they all looked at one another.

Well, that really was the question, wasn’t it…?

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Okay, so, thanks to everyone who’s waited the best part of a year for this new issue to hit, and to everyone who’s been along for the ride for these seven issues, and…

…and, yes, that’s me signing off. Time constraints have done for me, I’m afraid. I had so many more stories that I wanted to tell with Ash, Peter and Gwen, but it’s not going to happen. Not under my penmanship, anyway.

Will Ultimate Spider-Man continue? I hope so, and if whoever comes next wants to sift through my plots for the stories-that-will-now-never-be then they’re more than welcome. Otherwise… well, it’s been a blast. Thank you for your time and patience. I hope you’ve found something to enjoy here, because I’ve certainly enjoyed the writing.

Cheers, Meri