Past Friends

Part 73: A Beetle In The Junkyard

Meanwhile a little earlier with you...

You walked out of the shed feeling good, you were able to distract yourself from worrying about Thor and Loki; You found that you were able to let go of your fear and focus on other things. You had taken off your goggles and face mask, it was a bit stuffy in the shed and you wanted to get some fresh air plus the goggles were starting to hurt your face. You pause for a moment to take a quick look around making sure you remembered the way back correctly. You see off in the distance an old car you recognize and you are about to start walking again when you hear something land behind you. You have a bad feeling about it and taking no chances as you turn around you take a leap away from whatever it was. When you turn back and you realize it wasn't a something but a someone, a very dangerous someone; you were standing less than 3 meters away from the Beetle.

You recognized him from Shield's Most Wanted List; the Beetle was a villain for hire, a high-tech mercenary who would steal anything for the right price. An expert in hand-to-hand combat, off the charts intelligence, and an iron man like beetle suit he made himself, Mr. Abner Jenkins was not someone you messed with. You knew from his file he was a professional, going the extra mile to get the job done and get it done right. He was driven, deadly, and ruthless and would kill anyone who got in his way, or anyone who he saw as a potential threat. You were way out of your league here, and out of your mind if you thought you could take him one-on-one, but luckily you didn't have to beat him, just out run him.

You do your best to play up the "weak innocent girl act", doing your best to look helpless so he would drop his guard. You might have went a little far, as you stuttered out "your the... the... the Beetle" as you do your best to look absolutely terrified. You start to shake a little and even begin to tear up, definitely over the top but he seem to buy it. The Beetle seems to have dropped his guard as he strolls over to you, appearing a bit cocky, like this would be the easiest payday ever.

He approaches you as you begin to visibility tense up, moving subtly into position as the Beetle reached out to grab you. You instantly drop the act and drop kick his ass into a nearby junk pile. The force of sending him flying did knock you down but you quickly recover as the pile he landed in starts to come down on top of him. You jump to your feet, hit the button on your safety alarm and book it out of there before the Beetle was able to catch up. In all honesty that was probably one of the most badass things you've ever done but you didn't have time to celebrate, you needed to get back to Hulk and Peter.

The walk with Rick to the back of the Junkyard yard took about 20 minutes, but seeing as you were walking relatively slow you couldn't be more than 2km (1.24 miles) away. If you run as fast as you can you could probably get there in less than 10 minutes, assuming you didn't get lost. But of course you did, and ended up at a dead-end and with the alarm going off Peter and Hulk could still find you, but so could the Beetle. You debate on whether or not you should turn off the alarm; the alarm was loud clocking in at about 130 decibels, you had no doubt that they heard it and were on their way but the Junkyard was like a maze, and you weren't sure who would find you first.

Before you could make up your mind, the Beetle flew in and you narrowly dodge him, falling to the ground but unfortunately he managed to grab your phone. He ripped off the alarm, tossing your phone to the ground, holding on to the alarm in his hands but for some reason not turning it off or breaking it. You start to crawl backwards, looking around for anything you could use to your advantage when you feel the rumble in the Earth and hear Hulk's mighty roar in the distance. It catches the Beetle off guard and as he turns towards the sound you get back on your feet and escape once again. He drops the alarm crushing it underneath his boot before falling off into the sky, no doubt formulating a plan.

You come to realize that the sad reality was that you probably couldn't out run him, but also that he planned to take you alive. If he was hired to kill you he would have done so by now, easily shooting you with a small explosive or something but he didn't, and knowing that you finally had an advantage. You needed to come up with a plan, you weren't going to last long out here before he no doubt found you, knocked you unconscious and flew off with you to take you to his employer or whoever. You managed to get enough distance between you and you quickly ducked into an old car to hide while you thought of what to do next.

You could hear Peter call your name, and you got excited, happy that he was nearby but you weren't the only one who heard him. You hear as countless junk piles get blown up and knocked down, junk scattering in all directions. You didn't really have a plan per say but you did have something up your sleeve, something that might come in handy. You sneakily look out through a rusty opening in the side of the car to see Peter landing on a junk pile directly across from you. You were about to call out to him when you see the Beetle fly at him, shooting deadly laser fire at him from the air. Peter goes down near your hiding place finding his lower half trapped but not crushed under some junk. The Beetle closes in, and you don't hesitate to rush out from your hiding spot to try and protect Peter. It was a dumb idea, but you couldn't just sit there and let Peter die, he was your friend, he was family and you would do just about anything to protect your family.

You stand in between a nearly unconscious Spiderman and the Beetle, staring him down saying "I'm here, I'm the one you're after. Take me or kill me but there's no need to hurt the kid". The Beetle remains silent but gestures with his hand for you to come closer as Peter calls out for you to stop as he tries to escape from under the heavy debris. You step within arms reach of the Beetle and for a moment he doesn't do anything as you begin to breathe heavier and try not to cry. He grabs you by your face, holding you still, comparing it to the photo he has to confirm your identity. He lets go and out of nowhere he zaps you with something and your body goes limp. He tosses you over his shoulder, and as your backpack hits the ground his wings shoot out from his suit and he takes off with you in tow.

As it turns out he was hired to kill you, by none other then those people who were involved with that alien weapons ring you helped take down. It was Lucky, or unlucky I guess depending on your perspective but they weren't the Beetle's real boss, someone else knew they were going to take revenge on you and took advantage of the situation. You were important, the key to their master plan; it would be poetic and beautiful, turning you into the ultimate weapon and watching as you willingly destroyed the Avengers, killing them off one by one.