4 Edge of Insanity

-Six weeks later-

'Tonight's the night.'

Peter Parker sat alone on the floor in his room, dressed in a black hooded jacket, a white t-shirt, black jeans, and a pair of sneakers, all of which looked dirty and worn out.

He hasn't changed his clothes in days. No reason to, he hasn't showered in a while too.

His hair was messy and unwept, and his eyes were red, lifeless; devoid of anything resembling the boy he once was. He had dark noticeable eye bags under each one from lack of sleep.

He didn't sleep much anymore.

His room was mess, he had clothes lying around everywhere with rubbish of all kinds, mainly packets of fast food and pizza. His walls covered in numerous maps, documents and pictures of close up faces and more, pinned up on the wall with colored strings connecting them to each other.

His room looked like it belonged to a conspiracy theorists paranoid corner of the world.

His lips formed a thin line, his eyes scrutinizing the two objects in front of him with an almost obsessive gaze. A hint of madness shone behind his eyes; whatever he felt six weeks ago after his near-death experience when he found himself miraculously healed was like a drop in the ocean compared to what he was feeling now.

Now the memory of meeting Death or the implications of his meeting meant little to nothing to him.

In front of him lay two objects. On one side was a handgun, a Sig Arms 1911 GSR Revolution, loaded and ready to use. It was his uncle's piece, he kept it around the house for security, he found it under the loose floor board near their bed, everyone in the house knew where it was, like an unspoken rule no one ever talked about.

While on the other, a syringe containing the last dose of his lizard serum.

Peter didn't know what else to do now. This was his only chance and he was running out of reasons to talk himself out of this.

He stared at the two objects, looking at one and then the other, his eyes going back and forth between the two.

His life was a mess right now. His uncle died; they told him a bullet went through his head from the back. It was over for him in an instant, they couldn't save him even if they had all the money on earth.

They buried him a week ago. There were only 23 people at his funeral, he noticed, his workmates were there, and some of the neighbors. He didn't have many friends at school, and both of his only friends effectively dumped him.

He was the only teen there.

MJ's- Watson's aunt was there and told him she went back to visit her parents and said something about her and her friends going to London for a week.

His friends...

Gwen was rolling with the cool kids now, they have a band and everything, The Marry-Janes they're called. Harry Osbourn booked them gig's all over the city, they were pretty popular. An all-girls band, with Cindy Moon, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and Liz Allen, they sold tickets faster than boys could buy them.

The last time they met was an accidental meet-up at the hospital, Gwen was there to visit her dad, who recovering quite well from the injuries Peter inflicted on him during his lizard rampage. It didn't go so well, he couldn't look her in the eye as all the memories from his rampage came rushing back, she didn't know why he was there and his refusal to tell her why along with some pent-up anger and jealousy he had over her newfound popularity just came bubbling out.

He was looking for ways to vent, he figured that out later.

Not to mention her new budding relationship with his high school bullies, their presence there just made things worse for him, that meeting had some disastrous results, words were said that couldn't be taken back from both of them, and Harry left a rather nasty bruise on his face.

That right hook made the most views on You-Tube in 8 hours.

He could also cross him ever dating Mary Jane Watson off his wish list, the look of disgust she gave was enough indication that they aren't happening at all.

'Yeah right, fuck you too bitch.' he couldn't fathom why he had a crush on her now. Maybe he was just fed up with it all.

Funny enough, it was Gwen's eyes that hurt way more than any hit Harry or that Brain-dead jock Flash could ever physically dish out.

Gwen gave him this look he couldn't describe, it was like a look of pity mixed with hate, guilt, and sadness as if she understood him but at the same time could care less about him, like she hated him but felt overwhelming guilt at the same time.

She never even glanced back when Harry and Watson pulled her away.

He was sure they were never gonna see each other for a while, and even if they did, going back to the close friends they were was off the table.

He wondered if she ever found out why he was at the hospital in the first place if she found out about his aunt and uncle. But seeing as how she never showed up at the funeral, he guessed that she could care less about him now, she had better friends, richer friends, enjoying her time in London.

He could relate with her though, with the guilt part at least, as much as he tried to he couldn't bring himself to hate her, she did something for herself, changed her life around. If anything he was happy for her, as everything came into perspective he started to realize he was the one with the problem.

His jealousy, anger, and frustration led to desperation, which lead to the creation of that this damn serum.

He was focused too much on meaningless things like social status, popularity, and likability. Trying so hard to be liked by all these fake assholes, he should have realized that none of them could give two shits about him, why the hell was he seeking their attention in the first place. School, classes, marks, friends, popular, unpopular, jocks, nerds.

'They can call go fucking die.'

He had shit to do now. He's been planning it for the last few weeks.

'Tonight was the night I kill the people who took everything from me.' His thoughts were resolute.

It was accidental, the way he found the person who shot them, just looking at the wrong thing at the right time.

In this case, it was the TV in the waiting room while the news was playing. He thought he was mistaken at first, but it just kept nagging him, then he decided to check, that was his mistake.

'Benjamin Poindexter' Peter's eyes filled with hate as he thought of that name.

That was his name. An ex-FBI agent working on now working in private security. He found that out from the officers who were working on his case.

'Wilson Fisk.'

That was who he worked for, the generous business tycoon giving donations to the cities, primarily Hells Kitchen in the millions. He also had some shady connections if the dark side of the Internet had anything to say about it, but that was just speculation from some weirdo locked up somewhere with too much time on their hands.

How he found them was either his twisted Parker-luck or Fate.

He was sitting in the waiting room waiting for his aunt to get out of surgery when it happened, he watched Wilson Fisk make his way off some stage at city hall after another generous donation, only it was raining then, and one of his protection detail brought him an umbrella to walk him back to his car.

That was when he saw, the tattoo just below the back of his palm his right hand, right under his sleeve.

A bulls-eye.

The same tattoo in the exact same place, looking exactly like he remembered from the shooting, how could he forget that? when he spent every waking moment agonizing over it, replaying the memory over and over until it was the only thing left in his head.

He did the sensible thing, he went to the cops about it and begged them for help. They gave him a look and simply told him ' Go home kid, it's just a tattoo' he pressed on and tried to collect evidence searching every little thing the Internet could give him, going over every minute detail.

He even stalked the guy for a couple of weeks.

All the while he followed their way and went to a therapist every two days for an hour to deal with his trauma and grief. Child services had someone come to check up on him every now and then. His neighbor, Mr. and Ms. Leeds, volunteered to be his temporary caretakers as their son Ned would be staying with his Grandparents for the next two years. At least until Aunty May...

Aunt May was still in a coma, the doctors did everything they could, they tried to reassure him that she would wake up in a few months, but her health was deteriorating faster than they anticipated.

He found out a few days later that the case was officially closing, a simple shoot and run they told him, they even had the supposed shooter in custody for him to go identify, one of them had a star enclosed in two circles tattooed on his wrist just below the palm of his hand. Still fresh with the skin red, and blistering.

The two criminals confessed to the crime, and they got every detail right, down to the clothes his uncle and aunt were wearing at that time, he tried to tell the cops that they weren't the guys, that this was a setup.

But the cops could care less, it was a closed case, what was one traumatized kid's possibly inaccurate memory in comparison to two solid confessions, the murder weapon and the getaway car?

Nothing that's what.

They sent him home with a pat on the back, almost proud of themselves. They told him they knew what he was doing, and that Mr. Poindexter won't press charges since he understood what Peter was going through, and that he sympathized with his case.

They also told him that he donated a large sum of money to Peter's college funds. All he had to do was move on with his life and make something of himself.

AS IF HE COULD DO THAT.

Maybe it was paranoia or his brain was just working overtime, but It was then that he figured it out.

They were in on it.

Aunt May said the killer never saw her, she was quite sure of that fact, and the only people she called were the cops, which got the attention of the FEDs, but if the killer never saw her then the cops did, and if the cops did then so did the FBI Agents who interviewed her, and guess who just so happens to be an ex-FBI agent.

'Benjamin Poindexter, it wasn't hard to find out really'

Not only that, but the facts actually match up. Stanley Eastwood was on the city council in Hells Kitchen, he openly spoke out against Wilson Fisk, often slandering the man on public television about his 'blood money' and how the city didn't need it.

Three days ago, before the incident at the park, he got into a car accident, and instead of going to the local hospital at Hell's Kitchen, they drove all the way here. Only for him to die and Aunt May to be the only witness.

This all led to the shooting at the park.

Either he really was crazy smart and this all was starting to make sense, or he was just going insane and after this, he would be in a nut house.

He had this, messed up idea to refine the serum and harness its healing capabilities so he could heal Aunt May, he almost went through with it too. Until he realized what that would lead to.

What if he fucked that up and Aunt May turned into what he became, he quickly squashed that idea, nipping it from the bud.

There was also the fact that he had no way to do that anymore. He was banned from Oscorp and fired from his internship after evidence was found that he was tampering with their more expensive equipment after hours.

A little late for that, since he already made the serum, that was what he thought back then. He found it funny how that came back to bite him in the ass.

At one point he had a breakdown and tried calling Death, just to see if anything could happen.

Obviously, nothing happened.

So now he was left with two choices, either take the gun and go shoot the bastards, or inject himself and go another mindless rampage, hopefully, if he injected himself close enough he would end up ripping them apart, eventually.

There was a third choice he knew, but he just ignored it entirely.

"It's now or never," Peter told himself.

His room was littered with maps, pictures, and articles all surrounding one man, Benjamin Poindexter.

He had it all planned out, Wilson Fisk enjoyed a particular art gallery, at 8 pm on the dot he would arrive there, and arriving with him would be his bodyguard, Poindexter.

He would enter, Poindexter would follow him in, and after an hour they would leave, all he had to do was walk up to them while they were leaving, and bam.

He glanced down at the two objects again.

He then reached for the syringe, his hand shaking the closer he got. Stilling himself he picked it up and brought it close to his other forearm. Only the closer he got to injecting it in the more his hand and body shook.

Flashes of the fight between him and spider-women, slammed into his psyche like a floodgate just opening in the forefront of his mind.

Everything came rushing back with it, the pain, his pleading voice, his broken bones, his mangled flesh, and the pain, him healing, bones creaking, mending, and THE PAIN.

'STOP IT HURTS, IT ISN'T ME, STOP IT PLEAS-'

"GAAH!.. FUCK!!...huff...huff...I can't freaking do it...Huff," he was panting heavily, even looking at the syringe made him feel wrong, he didn't even realize he dropped it. He watched it rolled over by the gun.

He stared at it almost absentmindedly, his panting calmly decreased into eerie soft and controlled breaths.

'Come on Peter, don't be a pussy, Just PICK IT UP'

His eyes darkened with a glow in the shadow of his hood like that of a predator at night, his head tilting slightly to the left, his lips thinned.

He slowly got up and picked up the syringe, his hands strangely no longer shaking when he held it. He then took the gun and tucked it behind his jeans.

'Tonight someone will die, either him or me, tonight I kill a murderer' his mind made, he placed the syringe in his draw and his made way down the stairs.

Sadly it never occurred to Peter that not all his actions were his own, that some of his thoughts weren't his, that the whispers that kept him up some nights weren't nightmares.

{Aijin-Dorment_?}

It was the entity bound to Peter, it would grant him an array of powerful gifts, but everything came with its price. A side effect of its dormant state is that it made its hosts suicidal. All so it could bring them back, to prove its worth as their greatest and most useful tool.

A morbid relationship born from death and a perverted sense of duty, loyalty, and care.

But Peter would learn this later, tonight he had a murderer to kill or die trying.

{Integration_45.7%}

-End of Chapter-