But… It’s me! The real Spider-Man!

The visit to the police captain brought more new questions than answers. Jane Stacy herself, surprisingly, took Deadpool's visit to her house rather calmly. After a while, Wanda even managed to get the police captain to cooperate with her by giving up investigative secrets. She didn't have to lie, twist, or threaten the woman to do so; on the contrary, Wilson honestly admitted that she was looking for Peter Parker and, very likely, Gwen Stacy. After all, according to the mercenary's version, once she finds one, she's sure to find the other.

But just when Wanda thought things were going too well, unpleasant details of the case come to light. Yucca Sarasti, her last lead, a witness to the capture and probably the undercover agent assigned to Parker is not in the custody of Captain Stacy's department.

"They picked her up the second day after the incident," Jane confessed, "posed as Shield agents and demanded a witness, enough credentials and paperwork to cover the walls of the precinct. We couldn't even interrogate her, she was just starting to stabilize and was about to regain consciousness when they showed up."

"Shit! It's obvious, of course, they took their doggie when she got her tail pinched!" Wilson slammed her fist into her open palm in excitement.

"What does my daughter have to do with this kidnapping?" Stacy asked, gathering her courage, "I have a reason to know."

"Uh..." Wilson stammered, appealing to her eloquence, "you never checked your daughter's computer? You'd be surprised what she's into secretly... tight latex suits are only a small part..."

"Just answer the question!" Jane tried to reason with the mercenary, unmoved by the provocation.

"Well, that's my point, who do you think she was playing games with, with tying and cover me with your white sticky stuff? That's how she got involved when Parker was kidnapped. All right, if you don't have any more leads on this case, I'll go. While we're talking, who knows what's going on with little Gwen right now."

Leaving the bewildered policewoman behind, Wanda left Stacy's apartment. Her faithful battle buddy, Gita, was waiting for her in the entryway.

"So, Miss Poole, where are we going now?" Not seeing Wanda's sullen expression under her mask, the Indian girl asked cheerfully.

"Oh, fuck me!" exclaimed Deadpool, dropping her head on the dashboard, the passenger side of it, "I'm totally fucked, Gita! I don't know where we're going."

Desperate, Wanda decided not to even try to hide anything.

"What's wrong, Miss Poole?" the cabbie was sympathetic.

"The last string is broken! I do not know who kidnapped Peter, or where to look for him, the only witness who might know something in the hands of a secret intelligence organization, and do not know which of their hundreds of super-secret bases they keep it, and my dear teammates" increasingly hitting the drama, Wanda told, and Gita was no longer glad to offer help "Venom and Spider-Woman disappeared without a trace, leaving the trail of kidnappers. What can you do for me, my sweet truffle friend?"

"Oh, Spiderwoman!" the Indian woman perked up again when she heard the last of Wanda's complaints, "I know where Venom and Spiderwoman have gone. Oh, I see, it was your friend Peter they were looking for when my poor car overturned... wait, that means it was your friend who threw that invisible web on the road that caused me to have an accident!"

It's ironic... it's even more of an open mockery that the person who could have guided her to the trail of her missing friends had been there the whole time. Of course, she couldn't have known that beforehand, but still, she should have mentioned the disappearance after Peter Venom and the Spiderwoman earlier.

After she got over her shock, Wanda got all the details of her encounter with the superheroines out of the cabbie. Though, to be fair, she had more to do with restraining her chatty friend than asking. The mercenary could only thank God for sending her that overly curious girl who not only wasn't afraid to talk to Venom, but was reckless enough to overhear their conversation and then remember exactly where they went.

Back at the crash site, Deadpool, following Gita's instructions, retraced her friends' route to the ill-fated alleyway, the whole way being visible from the crash site. After that, Wilson sent the cabbie home again, warning that it was too dangerous to stay with her, and proceeded to search for evidence.

Neither the ill-fated van nor any other obvious trace was there by this time. This, of course, had been taken care of by the kidnappers, after the stalkers they had duped into following a false trail. But Wanda would not have been herself-one of the best in the business-if she had given up so easily. After a careful look around, Deadpool noticed several bullet chips on the brick wall of the old, nineties-era firehouse adjacent to the alley. After roughly estimating the direction from which the gunfire had come, the mercenary continued her search for trace evidence, and she did not shy away from the debris that had piled up around her. Soon her efforts were rewarded: Wanda first found an abandoned webbed cartridge and then a hidden trapdoor.

Standing over the manhole cover, Wanda decided whether she should blow the secret entrance to the enemy base to hell to make her way with fire and blood, or try to sneak in unnoticed. Fortunately the mercenary had the means to do both: a teleport to sneak in, and Norma Osborne's helpfully provided explosives of the latest generation to make a spectacular appearance. Before, she would undoubtedly have chosen the noisy option...

"Eh," the mercenary rubbed the collar that still held back her regeneration with a slight annoyance. Wearing it was necessary until the healing process was complete, which meant she should avoid any major firefights for now.

Everything feels like a white haze, separating me from the real world, as if it's trying to keep my self in non-existence, in unreality. Of course, it's an illusion. Nothing is holding me back, on the contrary, all the resources of a system doomed without a central processor are now directed to help my waking consciousness. The last act of a dying "God". All so that my brain, stimulated by a carefully calibrated cocktail of drugs, will return to its original state, to remember what it was "before. Before my consciousness dissolved into the system, and even before... remembering a time that seems to have never existed, or was so long ago that it does not matter, just as it does not matter to those who live, what was before the Big Bang, before the creation of the universe...

And yet my consciousness reluctantly, with great difficulty, rises from the depths. It pushes its way through the viscous fog with an unbelievable effort.

It is as if I am dying again, but my brain feels more alive than ever, gamma waves snaking between the thalamus and the cortex like synchronized lightning. More clearly than ever, I am aware of myself: of myself as a human being - a brilliant scientist and researcher, a terrible husband and a mediocre superhero- and of myself as part of the system.

Yes, I am indeed dying. A part of me, borrowed, all these unfortunates - the body of the god whose head I was - they are destined to sacrifice themselves. For one purpose: to bring Peter Parker back to life.