Gwen carried the Maggia princess over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and chucked her down right next to the mangled, bloodied corpse of Harry Osborn. She reached down and ripped the webs from Whitney’s mouth, nearly tearing open her lips.
“Tell me exactly where you took MJ,” Gwen said coldly. “Or you’re going to accompany Harry to wherever the dead go.”
Normally, such a threat wouldn't have rattled a woman of Whitney Frost’s pedigree. As the daughter of Count Nefaria, she had been raised in the criminal underworld, surrounded by mobsters and murderers. But Gwen’s delivery was cold, emotionless, and it became utterly terrifying when being in the same room as the corpse of her friend.
Whitney looked up at the terrifying white-and-black mask on Gwen’s face, then down at the glazed eyes of the boy who had just been brutally killed. She began to tremble, her sophisticated facade shattering completely. If this vigilante didn't hold back against her childhood friend, why would she spare a complete stranger? Especially one connected to the man who had tried to kill her and her father?
“Harry sent his girlfriend to me and asked me to keep her safe!” She glanced at the corpse beside her and swallowed audibly. “That was it. I wasn't part of his revenge plot, I swear.”
Dante wasn’t buying it so easily. “If you were just babysitting, how did you get your hands on a serum?”
“Harry gave me the fluid. I had a few highly skilled, black-market scientists kidnapped to reverse-engineer it.” She looked like she was about to cry. “Please believe me… I just want to return to Italy and raise my child in peace.”
“You’re pregnant? Don’t tell me it’s Norman’s?”
Whitney went dead silent for a few moments before whispering with a bitter expression, “He proposed a fantasy to me… A life of absolute power. And I was stupid enough to fall for it.”
He didn’t know if his Biokinesis was finely tuned enough to perform a localized paternity test on a fetus just yet, so he decided to trust her for the time being. Besides, it wasn’t like the identity of the father of her child would change anything.
“Where is MJ?”
“She’s in my penthouse suite,” Whitney answered, digging frantically into her tailored suit jacket. “I haven't hurt her. I’ll ask my men to escort her straight home right now.”
“Get to it.”
Whitney’s fingers shook as she unlocked her phone and barked rapid Italian into the receiver, ordering her subordinates to put the red-haired girl in a town car and drop her at her doorstep unharmed.
When she hung up, Gwen turned to Dante. “Harry lied to us? About the brothel?”
“Probably,” he said softly. “He just wanted to see you suffer as much as possible.”
She put her hands on her hips, letting out a deep sigh. “These Osborns really had it out for me, didn't they?”
She took another involuntary glance at Harry’s body. The bloody glider stuck in his chest, the shattered wall behind him…
He gently took her hand, tracing her knuckles with his thumb. “Don’t overthink it.”
“I’m not,” she said bitterly. “Can we bury him? If we leave him here, he’ll become research material for the government.”
“I know a place even SHIELD can't reach.”
He looked back at Whitney. The miserable, pathetic look on her face almost made him sigh. In the comics, she was Madam Masque, a brilliant villain, a Maggia leader, and a romantic partner to Tony Stark. Even here, she had run to Tony for salvation, but Stark had rejected her. It was a remarkably wise decision on Tony's part not to mess with forces he couldn't yet understand.
‘Some things are never meant to be.’
He escorted Whitney to a guest bedroom down the hall. With a wave of his hand, he planted a few heavy mystical wards, completely sealing the room. Even if Whitney tried to run, she’d just bounce off invisible walls.
“Rest here tonight. We'll deal with you tomorrow.”
Whitney didn't even try to argue. She just plopped down onto the bed, looking utterly defeated.
Dante closed the door behind him and returned to Harry’s corpse, then opened a portal to Asgard. It felt vile to even consider the thought of burying such filth in Asgard, but there wasn’t a better place away from the mortal world.
Gwen pulled the hoverboard lodged in Harry and tossed it into the portal before carrying him inside. Kneeling on the ground, she used the board’s sharp tip to dig up a grave. Dante knew she wouldn’t accept his help, so he just stood by her side and let her process everything in her own way.
It took over an hour, but Gwen carried out the task with an almost dazed look on her face, never faltering for even a moment. She plucked flowers from nearby and placed them on the grave.
She stood over it silently for a few minutes then turned to face him. “Can I come with you tonight? I don’t want to be alone in my head right now.”
It was completely understandable. Leaving her alone in a quiet room would only fuel the trauma, allowing her mind to loop the choking sounds Harry had made over and over again.
He nodded. “You’ll have to share a bed with Felicia.”
“I have no problem with that.”
The usual Gwen would have cracked a joke here or poked fun at Felicia’s expense. But right now, she was too defeated to even smile properly.
He raised his hand and conjured a sparking orange portal leading directly back to his bedroom. The spinning circle revealed Felicia sitting comfortably on the bed, gently caressing a fluffy lavender-furred cat curled up in her lap.
As the portal hummed, the cat’s long ears twitched. She opened her bright eyes. “Daddy!”
She leaped at him, which he had expected her to do. He caught her easily and stroked the soft fur along her back as she purred loudly.
Felicia smiled warmly at the sight, which vanished the second Gwen stepped through the portal behind him. “Gwennie, why do you look like you’ve been through hell?”
Gwen didn’t answer. The Anti-Venom suit melted back into her skin, leaving her in her civilian clothes. She trudged to the bed and collapsed face-first onto the mattress.
“Bother me tomorrow,” Gwen mumbled into the sheets. “I’m so tired.”
She crawled up the mattress, found a pillow, and buried her face in it. Within thirty seconds, she was out cold, her breathing evening out into soft snores.
Felicia looked at Dante with a suspicious glint in her eyes. “Laura said Gwen looked upset with you earlier. Did you two get into an argument?”
“If we did, would she come to sleep in my bed?”
“She could just be giving you the cold shoulder. Gwennie isn't the passive-aggressive type, but you never know.” Felicia walked over to him, keeping her voice to a whisper so as not to wake the sleeping blonde. “Wait, did she find out about Harry?”
“She did. We’ll talk about the details tomorrow.” Dante looked down at Sharon purring in his arms. “How are you still awake, troublemaker?”
She blinked her big innocent eyes up at him. “Sharon can’t spend late-night time with Daddy?”
That melted him instantly. He sat down on the bed beside Felicia and continued stroking Sharon’s fur. She had returned on a whim with Psylocke, who had been tasked with managing the Hellions over at the Massachusetts Academy during Emma’s absence. Now, though, it seemed like the feline mutant was going to stick around until their planned trip to Egypt.
He spent the next twenty minutes spoiling her with pets and scratches behind her ears until she was thoroughly melted. Then, he reluctantly ordered her back to her own room. She predictably pleaded for a sleepover, but he shot the idea down. Sharon's mindset was still remarkably innocent and immature compared to her peers. Still, he had to teach her proper boundaries if he wanted her to start acting her age some time into the future.
Once Sharon grudgingly left the room, he stood up and began taking off his shirt, only to have his wrist gently grabbed by Felicia.
“You forgot your bedtime drink, darling.”
His eyes drifted down to the plunging neckline of her silk nightgown, and then over to Gwen, who was snoring softly on the far side.
“You know, I’m suddenly in the mood for a very long shower,” he murmured with a grin. “It’s quite healthy for our bodies before bed. It helps with the sleep cycle too.”
Felicia’s grin was even more wicked than his. “What a coincidence. I care deeply about my health.”
He felt a little guilty to be doing this when Gwen was dealing with so much emotions. But… he couldn’t resist Felicia’s offer.
***
An hour later, after satisfying Felicia and himself, and sending a quick “Goodnight, hope everything went well” text to Silvija, he was finally lying in bed. He was comfortably sandwiched between the deeply sleeping Gwen and a thoroughly satisfied Felicia.
But he had no intention of sleeping just yet.
‘Null, initiate the resonance link with Jean Grey.’
He had spent a long time considering his options. The mutant world was overflowing with high-level telepaths. Mr. Sinister could have massively expanded his genetic knowledge. Linking with Emma Frost could have granted him deep insight into her organic diamond form, which he likely could have replicated and improved upon using his Biokinesis. Nathan Summers, aka Cable, possessed a terrifying plethora of powers alongside his Omega-level Telepathy and Telekinesis. He even considered Charles Xavier, or his unhinged sister, Cassandra Nova.
But in the end, he opted for Jean.
None of them matched the terrifying raw output of Jean Grey's mind. More importantly, establishing a Resonance with Jean was the foundational stepping stone to understanding the Phoenix Force, which he fully intended to link with in the future. Even though the Phoenix was an entity almost on par with Death herself, comprehending its nature would ironically be easier than understanding his own cosmic girlfriend. Death possessed an endless multitude of aspects, each one infinitely more complex than the last.
The Phoenix Force, however, had one singular, burning core: Evolution and Creation through Destruction. As such, Phoenix Force despised stagnation, which contributed the most to the lack of evolution in a civilization.
He closed his eyes as his mind was submerged into the mindscape of Jean Grey’s life.
‘It’s going to be a weird experience.’
Unlike the previous entities he had drawn power from, he knew Jean personally. This Jean wasn’t the exact same person she was in the comics or the movies, but the core of her soul was identical.
