Author's Note: I hope you'll excuse this entirely too-belated interlude to my little story of dubious import. Structurally it dovetails purposefully with the chapters 'Negative I' and 'Negative Reality', and you have my word that this'll be the last of the tampering; I've staved off post-story additions for six years now, only to cave here when I felt Johnny and Peter's little side-plot needed a bit of additional attention fully a year and a half after I finished the original story. Lambaste away, if you must, particularly since this story hasn't really aged well, I feel. Anyway. It occurred to me that I never really explained why, after leading the charge into Prison 42 to reclaim Spider-Man from the ever-so dastardly clutches of Loki and Dr Doom, Johnny and your friendly neighborhood what's his face simply vanished. So what I've done here is dig out a lost part of the story. Maybe not so lost, for little new ground is broken. Instead I've gone for a bit of a retrospective, a character flashback: taken some of the things I've been thinking and writing about the FF, their relationship to Spidey, and their role in the Marvel Universe vis-a-vis secret identities-and applied all that to the thematic milieu which is 'Powers': a sprawling, if disjointed, notation on what makes heroes and keeps them heroes in Norman Osborn's America. At the time of this writing, I should also note, that notion of Osborn's America might seem a little moot-given the events of Siege and the final result of Dark Reign. But there are still lessons there. Mostly about why a guy like Spider-Man would keep on keeping on. But that's another story, another time. For now, we don't mention Osborn that much, and so this interlude is more of a meditation on Johnny and Peter: more indirectly, on the very roots of Marvel's First Family. I hope you enjoy it...

The Negative Zone, Prison Alpha.

Spider-Man.

The first instance of light in Peter Parker's eyes brought pain. More so than usual.

He was lying in his back, and he knew this because if he lay perfectly flat or perfectly still for a long time his shoulder started to act up.

He sat up slowly and groaned and scratched his head.

Didn't bother asking where he was, because the answer was right in front of him. Like usual but especially now.

Loki was standing there in some damn confabulation of armour, with gilded plating across the torso and shoulder paulders. Dr Doom was standing next to him, his green cloak draped over him. He looked like a floating curtain with a metal skull for a head. A quintet of giant rocky things with the classic Cylon uni-eye stood behind him.

They were standing in the middle of a long catwalk done up in silver armour-plating. In the recesses on either side were Doombots. A shitload of Doombots.

Up ahead in the distance, on a wide dais, there was Namor, one hand on his hip, the other wrapped tightly around a gilded trident. He was, as usual, giving Spider-Man the perpetual sourpuss look. Surrounded by a group of his blue-skinned Atlanteans friends with swords in one hand and polearms in the other.

And Emma Frost was there too, with three girls who looked exactly freaking like her standing around her.

And the Mole-Man with a couple of the shrivelled little yellow guys with bad odours, bad manners, and the weirdest damn killing instinct this side of Kraven.

And a big stocky Asgardian-type fellow with a big honkin battle axe, and about ten other big Asgardian types behind the first guy. All with battle axes.

More good news.

Peter Parker frowned through the facemask as he finally sorted it all out.

Then he looked at Loki again, and it made sense.

"You messed with my mind!" Spider-Man said and flew forward. The lunge required what energy he had left, and he threw his hands in front of him. He was going to choke the life from Loki.

But he stopped in mid-air.

Dr Doom had one of his steel-plated arms thrown forth, the fingers extended skyward. The demagogue appealing to his people. Or shushing an already entranced crowd. It was the latter for Parker, except for that whole entranced bit.

Invisible fibres of mystical source held Spider-Man motionless in the air.

"Your parlour tricks have no place here," Dr Doom said.

Loki stepped forward and touched Spider-Man's chin lightly with his thumb and forefinger. Alas Poor Parker, we knew ye well.

"What the hell did you do?" He was almost barking it at Loki.

"I gave you an image of what your life was—or, might have been."

"Clever," Spider-Man said and didn't mean it. "I've fallen for that before. What chance did you think you stood?"

"A slim one, I must admit," Loki conceded. "But it was a meaningful exercise. I perceived the deepest parts of your brain. I explored your fears and loves and longings and anxieties. It was most illuminating."

"Why?"

"I wanted to tamper, if you wish me to be fully honest," Loki said and offered his hands in a contrite apologetic. "I wanted to see what it was that warranted such attention from your Norman Osborn. And of course, I altered the manuscript somewhat."

"Where is he?"

Loki said nothing to that. Only raised his head a degree so he could look down his nose at Spider-Man. The nostrils flared and stayed there for a moment. "He is safe."

"Why am I here?"

Then Loki laughed. "My dear boy, I took your friend Osborn and brought him here. It was you who followed against all rationale. Are we really going to have a culpability argument? While we're on the subject, this army you see before you?"

"Yeah." Spider-Man saw them from his periphery. Lots of Doombots. LOTS of Doombots.

"They are a defence mechanism. Meant to keep us safe from your friends."

"Funny," Spider-Man said. "I keep my friends safe from people like you."

Loki snorted. Turned away.

"You are a most interesting creature, Peter Parker. You've experienced death, the betrayal and loss of your friends. You're a mere man by our conventions, and yet you have seen much. You know all there is of life and death. The fates have gambled your life recklessly for lo, these many years. And yet you persist, when a saner man might have shot himself in the head."

"Because," Spider-Man choked out, "It's the right th—"

"Be silent," Loki said and scowled. "I am not interested in your justifications. All that matters is that you see things carried out to your satisfaction, Peter Parker. And that is your name, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And you aren't going to ask how I've come by that knowledge?"

"Not really," Spidey said. "You're a god. You do things like this."

"That I am," Loki said and bowed with a wide grin. When he came back up, his face was severe again, the eyes piercing right through Parker. "But it doesn't really matter who I am, Peter. May I call you Peter?"

Spidey shrugged as much as he could.

Loki chortled. Once. A brief affair that mixed air forcing out of his nostrils with a quiet chirp from high in his throat.

Dr Doom gestured again, and Spider-Man levelled out on the armour-plated floor. No longer bound by gossamer threads of infinity.

The God of Mischief turned in place and strolled backward on the catwalk. Ahead lay a vast glass window. If Spider-Man had craned his head all the way back and kept looking up, he would have had to lay on the floor to see the ceiling, gaping in the distant heights. The window—and that was the closest thing he could call it—stared out at a scarred and pock-marked lunar surface. The star field was brilliant. Shimmering. Alive.

And then he figured it out.

"Oh God," he said. "This. This is. The Negative Zone prison."

"Correct," Loki said. His back turned to Spider-Man, his head angled slightly, staring at the shifting blue-white surface of the planet Baluur in the distance. He half-turned back to Spider-Man. "Peter Parker, you identified me a moment ago as your God of Mischief."

"Not my God," Spidey said. Crossed his arms over his chest.

Loki went on like he hadn't heard that. "I'm so much more now. So much has changed since the rebirth cycle. Thor is gone. Asgard is mine. And your pitiful world shall soon be mine as well. Does that please you, Peter?"

"Look, I know what you're doing. The Bond speech. I grew up on those, courtesy of Norman Osborn. You know 'im, you just shanghaied him away from Manhattan a second ago. You tell me where he is, I'll take him back and you and Doomsie can go back to whatever the hell it is you're doing in here. None of us has to speak of this ever again."

Loki's half-turned became a full one. He was facing Spider-Man head-on now, and he looked absolutely disgusted. The slender and pompous face had bent itself into a hideous glower. Offended at the thought of unrecognition.

"You think this is about Osborn?" Then he laughed, deep and unctuous. "You mortals do astonish me from time to time. No, this is not about Norman Osborn. For surely as Yggdrasil is strong, Norman Osborn is but a pebble floating in the ocean. He is nothing, Peter Parker. Nothing! The roots of all our lives go very deep, and Norman Osborn's have not even seeded themselves. He's a shell, a wasted carapace who thinks he runs things. This is an old refrain we have used for some time."

"Then why bother with the speech?" Spider-Man asked.

Loki cocked his head tiredly. "Because, Spider-Man, you are the perfect witness to my glorious mystical proof. You have seen much and gone far and yet your eyes do not wander. You do not seek dominion or wealth. Yours is a far more provincial, if more laudable and consequently less interesting, goal. You want justice."

"And you want to kill everyone," Spider-Man said. "You know I can't let you do that."

Loki stormed toward him. Spider-Man was actually suppressing a chuckle as the God of Mischief came barreling toward him.

Then Loki drew a sword from a brass scabbard, raised it wide around his waist. And let it fly.

The tip caught Spider-Man six inches above his crotch. It sliced through the suit and the skin and for a moment he thought his intestines would come bubbling out after the broken hoses of blood calmed down.

So Parker stood there for the next moment in a daze, clutching his stomach and watching the blood stick to his gloves in hot and gooey bands, and felt lunch churning itself in response. And he really wanted to go home right about now.

Loki slid the sword back into the scabbard and turned away. The whole thing took about three seconds.

"You are fortunate, Peter Parker. The Eddas tell of Tyrfing killing someone every time it is drawn. But for you, I make this exception."

Slowly, Spider-Man looked up at Loki.

Loki's face was drawn now. The features were drawn and smooth, the eyes sort of. Glistening. "I don't want to kill you," he said. "Or your friends. I want to show them the truth. I want to indulge their double-standards to their logical extreme. And I want you to be there, mortal."

Spider-Man chuckled.

Behind him, he heard crackling. He was no Reed Richards. Not even Hank Pym.

But since he was usually right about these things, he guessed it was some kind of gateway. One that Loki, for all his godhood, had apparently overlooked.

So he said, "Okay, Loki," calmly enough. "You win."

And sort of. Bent over.

The gateway behind him crackled with bioelectric discharge: the undulating field of blue energy that comprised the proper barrier swelled out. Spider-Man saw it in slow motion.

Johnny Storm was the first through.

He picked up Spider-Man. And then they were airborne and going ever higher.

Johnny had come for him.

Spider-Man looked down.

The Thing was the next one out of the gate. Then Wolverine. Both of whom dove headlong into one of the Doombot recesses and started doing their thing.

Johnny threw him over his shoulder. The fireman's carry. And flew a step angle for the roof of Prison 42.

Roof? Can't they give it a better name? Something with 60's flair, Peter. Something cool and Jet-Age and sexy. The marvelous steel structure on which the hopes of Earth's Mightiest rest! Catch it in this week's Tales to Astonish!

He chuckled. Drunkenly. Half-comatose.

Johnny flung a hand out and burned a hole through the ceiling so they could pass. Then he slowed and landed on one knee. Laid Spider-Man on his back.

Through cracked eyepieces, Spider-Man stared silently at the star field above Prison 42 and Baluur.

"This how you handle the kiddies?" he asked.

Johnny smiled. "Something like that."

Spider-Man propped himself on an elbow, and Johnny eased him back down.

Under the mask, Peter Parker frowned. "Uh. There's no atmosphere. How are we alive?"

"Negative Zone has oxygenated space," Johnny said. "I was surprised too, when we first visited." Then he cocked an eye and frowned. "'Course, then Annihilus showed up."

Spider-Man coughed and pulled the mask off with a weary, trembling hand. Tossed it aside and wiped his face with both hands.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Johnny."

Johnny pointed a finger at Parker and made a Dan Drebin face. "Stop it. You and I go way back. Most of my life, at this point. You get in trouble, I come running."

Parker chuckled, and suppressed a bit of blood at the back of his throat.

"Yeah," he wheezed.

"That is," Johnny said, "When you don't go running to Murdock." The Dan Drebin face turned into a sly little grin.

"Oh hey, in my defense, Murdock needs me a lot more than I need him, okay? Let's just get that straight."

"I was always fuzzy on his whole…thing. I mean, what happened?"

"Ehh, some gangster got a bright idea, some other stuff happened, he was in jail, then he wasn't. Now I don't think anyone cares."

Johnny's eyes flashed up and down in succession. "Huh. Well I guess that's a thing."

"Yeah," Parker said and spit the blood out. He cocked his head and watched it pool in a random oval on the metal. Whatever this place was made of, it gleamed even in the starlight.

"Peter."

Parker looked up at Johnny. Slowly.

"Loki really ran you down, didn't he?"

"Yeah," Parker said and coughed again. "Still, it's fine. I'm fine."

Johnny narrowed his eyes and looked up.

"Is that some Spider-code for, like, not fine?"

Parker looked away from him.

"You know the banter?"

"The parts where you call Norman Osborn a delicate little flower every Thursday? Sure, who doesn't?"

"It's an act."

Johnny's eyes darted in their sockets. He let out an incredulous chuckle. "Uh. I know."

"It was the first thing I thought of," Parker said. "You know. Way back when this was new to me. I thought…it would make them less scared of me. Does that even make sense?"

Johnny looked back at him.

A long silent moment passed.

Parker laid down, weaved his fingers in one another on his chest and let out a weary breath.

Johnny said, "Do you remember when we first met?"

Parker laughed. "What was I thinking?"

"You wanted a paycheck," Johnny said. "If I remember that right."

"Pretty much."

Pause.

"The paper bag was pretty dumb, though."

Then they both laughed.

Johnny started snapping his fingers. Snap—lighting his thumb on fire—and snap—blowing it out.

"Did I ever tell you why Reed cashed us out?"

"Huh?"

"After the rocket came back, I mean. Why he gave us goofy names. These suits and this life and moved us into the Baxter Building?"

"Maybe," Parker said. "I mean, probably you have, but I forget. I think."

"I'm trying to have what Sue calls a teachable moment here, Pete."

Parker waved an idle hand. "Teach on."

"He told me why once. Reed, I mean. Not that he'd tell anyone else, except for Sue and Ben. I mean no one. Okay? Not Stark, not Pym, not anyone else in his little Professor's Club."

"I get the picture."

"He said to me, he says, 'something amazing has happened to us'. This wasn't too long after we got out of the hospital—you know, we kind of had to go there after the crash and what-not."

"Yeah."

"So he says, 'This is a gift'—to which Ben promptly says, 'or a mean joke'. 'Course, Ben was pretty crabby about the whole thing for a long time after, you know."

"How long?"

"Well, it was a very long hospital stay, I'll say that," Johnny said. Then he smiled, and continued.

"So Reed feels guilty about the whole thing. Guilty over what happened to Ben. Guilty over dragging his fiancé into space with him and guilty over what happened to her. Not to mention, y'know, that I was like 15 at the time. Not exactly spacefaring age, yeah?"

"I went into space once."

"I know. Beyonder. We all did. I'm trying to emote here, Pete."

Parker waved another hand and said, "Fine, sorry. Go on."

Below, an explosion rocked the prison. The plating shuddered and groaned.

Guns and more explosions.

The distinctive sound of Cyclops' visor tearing a hole across the room, probably slamming into some poor idiot's face.

Plasma burts—Johnny had heard those enough times to be sure that's what they were. The even more distinctive tenor from a Doombots axial servos, weapons and boot repulsors.

"We should get down there," Parker said.

"They don't need us," Johnny said and looked back at the star field. "Sorry if that sounds shitty. Trust me, though, Pete. Ben and Logan are more than a match for a couple-hundred Doombots."

"Yeah?"

Another explosion. A single Doombot head flying out of the hole Johnny had earlier burned in the plated roof. Parker watched it fall, clank lifelessly on the metal, and then rest. Dead robot eyes stared up at him. Like a Terminator's, he thought. Red eyepiece under a fauxtainium shell.

Parker cracked a smile.

"I think I just invented a word."

"Oh yeah?"

"Fauxtainium," he said. "For the creepy human look those things have."

"Nice," Johnny said. "Those are the field issues. The human thing is only barely. Me, I think they look more like Sentinels. Y'know. Tiny versions of them anyway."

Another explosion. Then laughing, distant and triumphant.

"Sounds like Logan."

"Yeah," Johnny said with a smooth elation. "That is the sound of a thousand dying Doombots. God of War, Wolverine, and the ever-lovin' blue-eyed what's-his-face. They'll be fine without us."

"So you were teaching me something, then."

"Huh? Oh yeah."

"Classy."

Johnny gave Parker a fake little dirty look, then continued.

"So Reed was guilty. I mean he destroyed the lives of the only people that were really close to him, right? Government scientist isn't exactly a socialite job, you know? Why not feel bad about what happened? Not to mention stealing government property and flying off into the big wide universe without so much as a good countdown, right?"

"Sure."

"So we got back. Changed, but still basically, y'know, us. Heh."

"What?"

"I burned my hospital room on the first day. I woke up and I was burning and all I could think was, 'hey this is pretty cool'. Pretty friggin weird, but pretty friggin cool, too."

"Wow, you really were fifteen."

"What, you weren't?"

"Uh," Parker said. "Not really. Go on."

"Yeah," Johnny said. "We get back to the Baxter Building and Reed says to us, he says 'I've made a mess of your lives'. Or something like that, I don't really remember. But he says 'I've ruined your lives and I'm truly sorry, but I'm going to do my best to make it up to you'. 'Ben', he says, 'I'll devote my time and effort to finding a way to make you human again. Sue, I abused your trust and led you into a dangerous setting, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life making up for that'. You know what he said to me, Pete?"

"That you have more hair products than teenage girl?"

"He said to me, 'Johnny, you're going to have to grow up a little sooner than expected.'"

Pause.

"That's it?"

Johnny sighed and said, "Welcome to my world. Anyway, and here's my point, you know what I figured out about that day The rocket, the crash, these powers?"

"Now when girls say you're hot you get to bust out all your A-level puns?"

"Actually, yes. But here's what I getting at. We got back and Reed felt terrible. So he gave us these suits and he put us in a high-rise in the middle of town. We didn't have masks—well, Ben did there for a while, but that's whatever. We had bank accounts and coffee mugs and the Warhol quartet prints. We opened a gift shop on the ground floor."

"Maybe I should make Spider-Man bumper stickers," Parker muttered.

"You see the problem, right?" Johnny said. "Stark builds himself a suit but refuses to license is because he thinks the government will just end up taking the thing from him. Xavier's whole shtick is fear and loathing. And who knows what Murdock's doing this week to piss off the Federalies, am I right?"

"Sure."

Johnny looked up at the stars again. "Reed cashed us in. I guess I could be pretty upset about that. Y'know, not having a secret life or place to hide."

"But?"

"But then I don't want to, Pete. I like being out there. I like that I can walk to Dunkin' Donuts and sign pictures of myself and get phone numbers. I like that Top Gear asks me to come on and race their cars every so often."

Parker waited a moment. "Why do I feel like there's a regret coming in here somewhere?"

Johnny looked at Parker squarely. "I know where you stand. I understand what happens when your enemies start going after people you love, really I do."

"You have the life for it, Johnny. I don't. You know. I don't have a Negative Zone gateway in the next room, or a sister who can make my brain invisible."

Another moment's pause.

"There's just this," Parker said and gestured lamely at himself.

Johnny patted his shoulder.

"Here's the teachable moment, Pete. I don't think we can make them less scared. Reed made a life for me and Sue and Ben, but you remember Latveria. You remember what Reed did there after he sent Doomsie to the ol' fire down below."

Parker nodded, dazed, and said. "Yeah."

Johnny stood and cracked his knuckles. "Best we can hope for is that they understand us, Pete. And why we do what we do."

"Beating up a fat guy with robotic arms and granny glasses," Parker said. "Just doesn't get the support it used to, I guess."

"That's why I came in here to save you, Pete. Despite the flak I get from the hoi polloi about why someone as terrific as me—and I mean, look at me, come on—why I hang out with a menace like you. We're friends, Pete. Precisely because of these powers of ours."

"I assumed we were secretly arch-rivals angling for Murdock's affections."

Johnny laughed. "Y'know, I think about this sometimes. What if Reed Richards never took that rocket into space."

"And?"

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened. But it was so long ago. And so much has changed. So I can't. You know. I can't think of the person I'd be if this hadn't happened to me." Then he affected a worried face. "Honestly, I think I'd hate to meet him."

Then Johnny held out an arm. Parker took it and pulled his mask back on.

"You're my good friend, Pete," Johnny said. "I read Ben Urich's book. Believe it or not, I do a bunch of reading. I know what Norman Osborn's done, and not just to you."

"Yeah," Spider-Man said and scratched his head. This was approaching extreme awkwardness for him.

"So," Johnny said and smiled. "That is the most mature thing you'll hear me say until Sue makes me read Tuesdays With Morrie again."

Spider-Man smiled. The mask shifted slightly. "Osborn," he said.

"Right," Johnny said. "Let's go kick his ass."

They descended through the hole Johnny had burned earlier. Touched down and saw the Sentry standing at the threshold of the gateway. The event horizon shone behind him, a brilliant field undulating blue and white.

He looked like he wasn't there at all.

The Sentry, as it so turned out, also doubled as his own worst enemy. No psychobabble either, Johnny thought. A sometimes-man sometimes-abomination that Bob Reynolds calls The Void.

Which just so happens to be at its most powerful inside the Negative Zone.

"Oh shit," Johnny said.

We didn't see this coming, he thought.

Too late he and Spider-Man joined Reed and Sue, and the rest. Cyclops and Emma Frost. Ben and Wolverine. Bucky as Captain America and Spider-Woman and Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

And the Sentry standing there, staring at the floor, at them, at the star field beyond. Looking very sad and very unstable.

Ares, the God of War, stepped forward. He raised a salutary hand.

"Ho, Robert! The battle is won!"

Sentry's eyes came up from the floor while the rest of the head was still bowed. It was a probing, pathological glower.

The twisted edge was there, in his voice. Low and calm and unsettling. It sounded like rolling thunder.

Here. Now.

The Void was coming.

Reed Richards clutched one hand on his wife's shoulder and said, in a breathless whisper, "Oh no."

A single sad tear slid down Robert Reynolds' face.

Spider-Man leaned in close to Johnny. "I hope that's your fighting suit," he whispered.

Five metres away, the Sentry stood motionless. His cape flowing out behind him. His eyes glowing, multiplying in their brilliance. The rest of him looking deflated. Drawn.

But glowing. Like he was warming up to something.

Johnny made out Bob's final words. Before the thing calling itself Bob Reynolds...began calling itself something more monstrous.

His final words. Five of them. Little and terrifying.

"Run. All of you. Please."

End...