Chapter 15- Banquet

POV- Nathan Cross

It was days before any significant gang movement occurred, the deterrent of spiderman and Leviathan apparently forcing them to be sneakier. 'Maybe one day I'll be like Batman, forcing them to work during the day.'

"There's the bitch."

"And how do you know she's a bitch Levy?"

"Firestar, don't call me that please, I know the name's long but Levy isn't exactly awe-inspiring, is it? Also, she runs a drug-running gang of bastards who kill everyone who opposes them, and they act like loan sharks. So yes, she's a bitch."

"It has NOTHING to do with you having to wait 4 days before we found her right? Her implications not subtle at all.

"Maybe a little, Robin, what can you see?"

"40 people give or take 5, with most armed and possible escape vehicles in the back entrance on the south side."

"Can you take the cars out of commission?" Hearing a snort through the comms, I hear arrows being fired, near silently removing the air from the tires of the cars. "Okay Firestar, you can take the back and I'll come in the front. Phrasing. Anyway, with your flames preventing escape, I will take out the inside, with Firestar. Kate, some of them will try to escape or call for backup, I need you to handle them, everyone knows what they're doing.

"Burn stuff."

"Shoot people.

"Good enough, let's go."

Using my easily recognised kagune, I crash through the front door, already seeing wisps of the green flame flickering on the other side of the workshop. "Good evening, everyone-" Immediately being fired upon, I cut my entrance speech short. 'Maybe I talk too much in these situations. I've been spending too much time with Peter.' Growing needles across the kagune, I fling them into the crowd, each flick of a red tentacle bringing down dozens of needles. Firestar had already come in the back door, 'Phrasing,' and captured the woman in charge, burning her bodyguards a bit before planting a foot into her face. A scream comes from behind me, as a thin, mouse of a man who'd been hiding under a table had pulled out his phone, only to find himself shot with an electrified taser arrow.

While a few had died, the majority were arrested, after a call to the cops revealed the hideout of a drug dealer, though no money was found, but a note was left on a table, reading, "Sorry, we took their money, but don't worry it's for a good cause."

"Sometimes it sucks being on overwatch. I miss most of the fights, and even when I get to fight, you guys blast through them without many issues."

"True, but if I'm not there and someone is fireproof, you can put them down. Or if they use vegetation, Hawkeye carries a herbicide arrowhead. While neither you nor Clint are the powerhouses of your squads, you are the situational hero with an answer for everything. EMP arrows, Explosives, Tasers, Thermite, Smoke. Every situation, you can have an answer for, so don't feel that you're unnecessary, because you're not."

Kate was practically beaming at me as Jessie slapped my arm, "So what about me? What're you gonna say to sweet talk me, charmer?"

"I would flirt with you but I don't like the French, even when they look like you." 'Admittedly, she looks amazing, in a costume based on Shego, and her hair looks so soft, long enough to rest on her sizeable chest.' Watching her bend over to grab her food from the counter I hear Nat cough behind me, one of the meeting rooms having been refurbished into a meals room.

"Enjoying the view?" If her eyebrow went any higher it would blend with her hair.

"Beautiful women in leather and latex. I'm definitely developing a fetish." The slap was quick and whippy, smacking the back of my head lightly. Annoyed, I couldn't help but push her buttons, "If it makes you feel better Nat, you look lovely without it too." This time missing, she gave up on hitting me, instead pouring the full pot of freshly made coffee with my name on it down the sink. "Nat, please NOOOO!"

"Serves you right you prick," Kate noted, apparently having also noticed me staring at Jessie's ass.

For the next few weeks, I leave the girls under the supervision of Clint, who'd only been taking the role officially and had left it basically to me anyway. Checking how far Peter had gotten with the weapons dealer he admitted that he had found fairly little, as finding a weapons deal was more a game of luck than anything else. At least until his suit can scan the energy readings of some of the weapons, and then use that to identify and track the energy signatures.

Having a boy's night, we sit on a rooftop that happens to be near Liz's house. A matter of pure coincidence…maybe, probably not. "So this is what you do when you're waiting for crime?" Peter gestured looking at the phone I'd pulled out and started watching YouTube on.

"What else am I meant to do, help people carry groceries? Peter it's 1 in the morning, there is nothing to do EXCEPT watch videos and attack criminals."

"You could learn a new skill?"

"Not without eating someone."

"What? No, I meant an actual skill, that YOU learn. An instrument? Online Chess?"

"Seriously, those are the nerdiest things you could have brought up. Besides, I'm not going to listen about me wasting my time, when you have barely progressed with Liz. Talk about wasting time, what happened? You started off strong. Did you get caught checking out someone else?"

"I wouldn't do that unlike you, my bastard of a brother. I don't know. We were fine, and then we just sort of grew distant."

"Do you want to date her?"

"Obviously."

"Did you tell her that? You know PROGRESS the relationship beyond just making out in every dark corner you can find?"

"I'm an idiot, aren't I?"

"If you have to ask…"

"Shit."

Groaning as I put away my phone and pat down my suit, not that it can crease, I rise from the admittedly beautiful viewpoint. "Come on, we've got a group of thieves in a car chase with the cops. Their getaway driver obviously sucks but we don't want them crashing into anything."

"Or anyone," Peter added, pulling his mask back over his face.

"Sure, that too." Jumping off the 16-story building was exhilarating, and the new use for my needles, combined with super strength, meant that by stabbing the needles into surfaces, I could catch myself even without the kagune. When using the kagune, rather than leave bowling ball-sized holes in walls, the holes are barely large enough to stick a finger through, yet strong enough to support my weight.

"3 blocks that way, I yell into the wind, as Spiderman flings up and behind the car, webbing it to surrounding buildings to slow it down before it crashes into me. More specifically the 4 giant kagune that have rooted into the ground, surrounding the front end of the car and forcing it to a stop.

"Poor guys, the whiplash must be neck-breaking."

"That's why you tried to slow them down right? It's not your fault they were going 110 in a 60 zone."

As Spiderman checked over the guys in the car the following cops pull up and call for ambulances to arrive. "See, I can leave people alive?" I cheer towards Spiderman, as he'd spent about 20 minutes of tonight whinging about the number of people that I kill. Not THAT I kill, just the amount.

Not even 10 minutes later we see a fire-manipulating mutant, but this one doesn't have a sexy pair of long, toned legs and wear a black and green skin-tight suit. "All yours," I call out, watching the bald, fat man who looked like someone had melted an oversized sex doll, burning down the locked door to a jewellery store.

"You don't want to eat him?"

"Not if his power makes me look like that." One of the downsides of my Ghoulish Consumption skill is that while I get the ability of the other person, I copy the ability entirely, downsides and all. So, when I absorbed the pheromone skill I hadn't expected to be affected by my own pheromones, and looking at the man's melted features, I was less than appetised both by the power and the idea of chewing through that skin.

"Maybe he'd taste like bubble gum?" Peter teases, referring to the man's pinkish skin. Watching as Peter's webs burst into flames was amusing, and witnessing him crash into the road helped lighten my mood. Sprinting at the Bubble Gum Arsonist, Peter rolls under the streams of fire, then gets up, springing into the air and grabbing a lamp post, using his inertia to spin around the pole like a gymnast and propel himself at his foe. As both feet hit the man, he crashes into the road a few meters away, Peter obviously having restrained his strength immensely. "Now that Hubba Bubba's down, can we call it a night, I need to plan what to say to Liz?"

"What part of, you being a nervous, and overly cautious wreck is what caused the issue in the first place, did you not understand?" He muttered something so quietly that even my super hearing couldn't quite decipher what he had said.

"What was that?"

"I said at least my issues don't make me a sex maniac!" His voice was loud and crisp, but the moment he said it he apologised, "I'm sorry, I know you can't control that guy's powers. I shouldn't have said anything."

I let him stew in his guilt for a few minutes before I released him from it. "Don't worry it's fine. It's something I'll have to deal with from now on, but maybe one day I'll be able to control it freely….And Spidey? If I was a sex maniac, I'd have fucked May by now, and Wanda, and both the girls, and probably Nat, and MJ."

"You haven't slept with her yet? I thought you-"

"Clint called after I'd finished with Betty and just given MJ her first O, but just before I put it in. That's why I was so pissed, I thought you knew?"

"That makes SO much more sense, yeah, no your anger was totally justified. I just figured that with superhuman endurance and regeneration, you wanted to keep going. And I have to ask, how bad is it when you lose control?"

"I can't think at all. I'm basically a wild animal with one goal, luckily I can be brought out of it relatively easily, but I hate not being in control. Though it seems my hypothesis was right, bottling it up made it wild and explosive when it leaked."

Dragging the pink marshmallow off the floor, we take him to the Avengers tower, where he will be detained and transported, while we, will shower and sleep. 'Tomorrow I'm going to have to target Vulture more directly, perhaps send photos to his house to anger him.'

'Yeah, that sounds fun.'