Civil War Prose Novel Read Online Free PDF

house.
    “Cap,” Spidey called.
    Captain America turned, squinted at Spider-Man, and flashed him a quick frown. Then he turned and resumed course for the burning building.
    Spidey shook his head. What was that about? He raised his hand to fire off a webline, planning to follow Cap and the Falcon—
    “Hey. You an Avenger?”
    A rescue worker had lowered his breathing mask. He looked exhausted, impatient.
    “Yeah,” Spider-Man said. “I guess I am.”
    “We could use some help.” He pointed to a collapsed pile of stone, the remains of an old city administrative building. “Motion detectors are picking up something, twenty feet down. But we don’t got our diggers here yet.”
    “I got it.” Spidey leapt through the air. “Clear a little space, guys?”
    Time to give this new suit a workout.
    And then he was digging, using his tentacles to clear away stone and mortar, the splintered remains of desks, walls, collapsed ceilings. He reached ground level and kept burrowing, down into the building’s basement, then its sub-basement. Climbing down carefully, steadying himself with web-braces, sweeping the tentacles around to clear debris and punch through layers of flooring. In the old days, he would have had to do this the hard way, lifting ceilings with his webbing and forcing his way through blocked passageways using muscle power alone.
    This seemed easier. More natural, even.
    Almost before Spider-Man knew it, the rescue workers had followed him down on grappling ropes. They fanned out around the sub-basement, while Spidey reinforced the creaky ceiling with layer after layer of webbing. When they’d located all five survivors, they rigged up rescue pulleys and began lifting the injured out. The civilians had inhaled a lot of dust; one had a broken leg. But they would all survive.
    Peter crawled back up to ground level, to scattered applause from the rescue workers. And two other figures, too: Tigra, the catlike were-woman, and Luke Cage, Power Man.
    Tigra reached out her arms and half-hugged, half-hoisted Spider-Man up out of the building. Her furry body was warm and muscular; her bikini costume barely covered her at all. She held Spidey close, just a little too long.
    “Welcome to the Avengers.” Tigra smiled, ran flirty eyes down Spider-Man’s thin frame. “‘Bout time we got some hot guys in this group.”
    “Thanks. Wish it was under less…” He gestured around. “Well, less horrifically apocalyptic circumstances.”
    “The Avengers saved my life.” Tigra seemed serious now. “After my transformation. Cap and Iron Man…if I hadn’t had this team for support, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
    Cage, a working-class hero from Harlem, wore dirty jeans, a black muscle shirt, and shades that hid his eyes. His dark face was covered with dirt and soot. He clapped Spider-Man on the back.
    “How ’bout you?” Spider-Man asked. “Being an Avenger, has it been good for you?”
    “Only been a couple months. This was prison, I wouldn’t even be eligible for parole yet.” Cage lowered his shades, peered closer at Spidey. “Interesting threads.”
    “It’s a Tony Stark designer original. They’ll be selling it at Target next year.”
    “Come on,” Tigra said. “Let’s see if we can help Cap out.”
    She set off on all fours, picking her way over downed stoplights, across fallen telephone poles. Cage gave Spidey a quick nod, and together they followed.
    Straight ahead, a single, freestanding brick building still raged with fire. Goliath, the latest in a long line of size-changing heroes, stood twenty feet high, picking debris off the roof. He reached down, recoiled from a blast of flame, and grabbed a loose chunk of tar. He threw it high into the air, and Ms. Marvel swooped down under it. She fired off a blast of radiant energy, incinerating the roof chunk instantly.
    Spider-Man frowned. “Is that a firehouse? On fire ?”
    “Former firehouse.” Falcon swooped in for a landing in