Spider-Man: Fear Itself

Chapter 11

The SHIELD command room was a flurry of activity as agents and heroes worked together, monitoring the situation inside the shielded Manhattan. Steve Rogers, standing at the central console, leaned over the comms with a focused frown. His voice cut through the noise as he received a new report.

"Spider-Man, we've got reports of a fast-moving red and black vehicle in your vicinity. Something we should know about?"

The other heroes in the room paused, their attention turning to the comm line as they waited for Spider-Man's response.

A brief moment of static followed before Spider-Man's voice came through, calm but carrying a slight edge of dark amusement. "That would be me. It's my car."

The heroes blinked in surprise. Tony Stark raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. "Your car? Since when do you have a car?"

Before Spider-Man could respond, Johnny Storm—ever the one to try to lighten the mood—jumped in, his voice feigning mock outrage. "You made a car, and you didn't tell me? Man, we could've teamed up! I would've given it a turbo boost—flames, maybe a few aerial tricks."

Spider-Man chuckled, though it was grim. "Yeah, well, I'll take you up on that next time, Johnny."

Johnny grinned, but the smile faded as the gravity of the situation settled back over the room. The brief levity quickly evaporated, and all eyes turned back to the screens tracking Spider-Man's progress.

Peter pulled the Spider-Mobile over to a secluded alley, his thoughts returning to the more pressing matter at hand. He had the syringe the driver tried to use on him earlier, and now that he had a moment, he pulled out a small scanner from his utility belt. Holding the device over the syringe, he began analyzing the chemical compound inside.

"While I've got your attention," Peter said over the comms, his tone now all business, "I've got something for you. The thug who tried to inject me was carrying a new fear toxin. Mysterio's been busy. Scanning it now."

He watched the scanner's readout as the chemical formula began to decode itself. A moment later, the results came in, and his suspicions were confirmed. It was a new variation of the fear gas—a compound far more advanced than anything they'd seen before.

"This isn't your run-of-the-mill scare gas," Peter muttered to himself, though the comms were still live. "Mysterio's upped his game."

Without wasting time, Spider-Man uploaded the chemical data to the SHIELD servers and sent it directly to the command room. "I'm sending the formula now. Reed, Hank, Tony—you'll want to take a look. It's a nasty piece of work."

Reed Richards, standing beside Steve in the command room, immediately leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as the data streamed in. "Got it. Let's see what we're dealing with."

Hank Pym, who had been quietly monitoring from a remote location, chimed in over the comms as well. "This... is sophisticated. I'll work on countermeasures from here."

Tony glanced at the data on the screen, already calculating potential solutions in his head. "We'll crack this. But Spider-Man, be careful—this is dangerous stuff."

"Yeah," Spider-Man replied, his voice still cold and distant, "I know."

As the scientists and SHIELD agents in the command room began working on decoding the formula, Spider-Man reached into his pocket and discreetly sent the data to another contact on his phone. It wasn't a name most of the heroes would recognize—someone outside the usual channels, someone he trusted for reasons he never explained. Whoever it was, he knew they would help if things got out of hand.