"Hel…"
Peter opened his mouth, but the sound got stuck in his throat and wouldn't come out.
He was still wearing his suit, but it was torn up, blood seeping from the ripped openings.
Mark was in even worse shape.
The room reeked of a sickening, bloody stench.
Bant frowned.
He could tell most of Peter's injuries were superficial, so he wasn't too tense, but Mark looked like he was genuinely on the verge of dying.
"What happened?"
Bant strode up to Peter and pulled out a small vial of serum.
Mark was lucky. Bant had brought a few vials back, intending to keep them at home just in case. He hadn't expected they'd be needed immediately.
Peter watched Bant jam the vial into Daredevil's neck.
Instinctively, he felt something was off, his mind flashing back to the Lizard Serum from not long ago.
If it really was that stuff, it could save Daredevil's life, sure, but he'd turn into a monster!
"Don't worry. I improved the serum," Bant said.
Once the green serum was fully injected, it took effect immediately.
The wounds on Mark's body began healing at high speed, and he slowly started to regain consciousness.
"Mmm…"
His mind felt blank. A flood of chaotic information from the outside world crashed into him, and for a moment he couldn't think at all.
In the next second, a heavy blow smashed into the back of his neck.
Mark passed out again.
"Why did you knock him out again?" Peter didn't even have time to breathe in relief before he shouted, staring at Bant in disbelief, Bant's chop-hand still raised.
"Or what?" Bant shot back.
"Let him wake up, learn your real identity and home address, and then next time he's injured or runs into a problem he can't solve, he comes knocking again and drags danger straight to Uncle Ben and Aunt May?"
His tone was annoyed.
Truthfully, Bant was a little unhappy that Peter had brought Mark home tonight.
He also knew Mark could identify people by their heartbeat frequency, so Spider-Man's identity wasn't something Mark could really be kept from.
But there was a difference between being figured out and being told outright.
Right now, Bant was sending a signal: stay away from this house.
"I…" Peter tried to argue but couldn't. "I didn't know where else to take him. I can't exactly take him to a hospital."
He wasn't wrong.
Bant's tone softened. "Next time, carry a few vials with you."
The self-healing serum still couldn't be mass-produced in the short term, mainly because the raw materials were limited. The mutant lizards currently raised by Primus couldn't support large-scale production.
But Bant had already told Connors to start preparing an ecological park.
"So, what exactly happened?"
Peter had originally tried to put Mark on the bed, but Bant stopped him and had Mark lie on the floor instead, then grabbed an air freshener and sprayed a few times.
"I don't know. It was just too weird." Peter stammered.
He quickly sorted out his thoughts and started from the beginning.
A few days ago, he ran into Daredevil in Manhattan. The two fought first, then got to know each other.
But Daredevil wasn't happy about Spider-Man sticking his nose into his business.
That lit a fire under Peter.
He wanted to prove he could do just as well as Daredevil.
The two competed in the shadows, and the ones who suffered were the gangs of Hell's Kitchen.
But tonight, when Peter went back to Hell's Kitchen, something changed.
They were attacked.
"I get that. But who could beat you two into this state?" Bant asked.
In truth, he already had a guess.
Daredevil's most famous enemies were basically Kingpin and the Hand, and Peter's wounds were mostly tearing injuries. That reeked of Hand ninja work.
If their luck was even worse, it could mean Kingpin and the Hand were cooperating.
By now, Peter was much calmer.
His injuries weren't that serious, nowhere near as bad as the time Dr. Connors had clawed him.
The reason he'd panicked was because of the enemy he'd run into tonight.
"You don't know how terrifying that monster was!"
He remembered that wrapped-up figure, a face with only two openings where the eyes should be, but what showed through wasn't pupils. It was darkness that kept dripping blood.
"It was insane!"
He looked close to breaking. Even now, just thinking about that monster made his skin crawl.
Dr. Lizard looked terrifying too, but that thing gave Peter a completely different feeling. His goosebumps felt like they were sliding right off his body.
Peter took a deep breath and continued, "My spider-sense didn't work at all. Daredevil's senses failed too."
"Your spider-sense failed?" Bant asked, startled.
To be honest, he didn't know Daredevil's story that well. He only knew the big names like Kingpin and the Hand.
He'd only vaguely heard of an internal Hand member called Madam Gao.
But an enemy who could make spider-sense fail was definitely worth taking seriously.
"After we ran into that guy, we got jumped by a group of ninjas. Daredevil was badly injured, so I grabbed him and ran," Peter said.
Bant pinched his chin, thinking.
Just then, Mark let out a muffled groan. The self-healing serum was still working, so he woke up a bit too quickly.
He reached toward the back of his neck, but Bant immediately followed up with another chop.
Smack.
Daredevil dropped again.
Peter's eyelid twitched violently. He was terrified Bant would give the man a concussion.
"Get him out first, then we'll go check who that guy really is," Bant said.
He didn't transform. Instead, he put on his Spider suit.
At the same time, he tossed the new Spider suit to Peter.
"Whoa!"
Peter's eyes lit up.
The new suit looked similar to the old one, but the details were far more refined.
At the very least, a suit printed by high-precision machines didn't have loose threads everywhere.
"I upgraded the web-shooters and added a bunch of new functions and gear. I'll give you a manual later," Bant said.
The two climbed out the window and swung toward Manhattan.
Meanwhile, in Hell's Kitchen, the artist Muse stood before a massive wall.
In a frenzy, he grabbed a Black police officer and slammed him hard into the ground, ignoring his wailing pleas. Muse raised a blade and slit the man's throat.
Then he grabbed a bucket, held it under the officer's throat, and let the blood pour in.
A few minutes later, the officer had bled out completely.
Muse lifted the bucket, shook it, and said in disappointment, "This little paint isn't enough…"
How could his great art be created without blood soaking into it?
"I need more blood!"
Thanks to Starry Morning Light for the 100100-point tip, thank you boss. Also, it's Tuesday, please keep reading, sob…
Muse, the artist, should be Blindspot's nemesis. He's so deranged he's basically Marvel's Joker.
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