Chapter 20: Resolve
"Are we all gathered? Then let the first meeting of the Legion of Doom commence," Doom rasped beneath his mask.
"You really shouldn't have let Annie name this," Joe Fixit muttered, his gray face deadpan.
"Doom named it. Miss Byrnes merely suggested it," Doom responded testily.
"Why is Annie here?" Peter asked brusquely as he gazed at Mary Jane's niece.
"The break room I hang out in is the quietest part of FEAST," Annie said with a shrug. "Popcorn?" she offered. Peter frowned.
"The more you involve yourself in this life, the more likely something bad is going to happen to you," Peter warned, but he already suspected that saying this wouldn't work.
It didn't. Annie shrugged. "I'm pretty involved for as long as you losers use a homeless shelter I work in to plot out your capers."
"They're more like hijinks," Joe said flatly. "We really do need to relocate to someplace more secure, Pete."
"Working on it," Peter said coolly. He took a deep breath and looked down at Annie. "If I promise to keep you in the loop, and tell you everything, and give you all the horrific details… you won't do something incredibly stupid like put on a Halloween costume and try to involve yourself that way?"
His own Annie, Annie Parker, had nearly killed him when she did that. And so had Mary Jane.
Annie frowned and pressed her lips together, looking down. "I'm not an idiot. Doc and Joe said you were headed to a fight that's even bigger than the one where you got shot the last time."
So, they were Doc and Joe now.
"I just want to make sure you don't get killed, okay? Sue me. Not like I can do anything but watch this whole nightmare from the cheap seats and see whether you come out the other end alive or dead," Annie said, her expression sullen.
"I'm not going to die, Annie," Peter said firmly.
"Tell that to Martin Li," Annie said, and her voice cracked. By just a hair. Trying to fight back tears like she had when they read off Martin's will.
He gave her a gentle look and wanted to hold her hand. He couldn't. He would just be playing at being a father again, and he didn't have the right to try to be her family. He—
The Symbiote gently extended Peter's hand, as they both gripped Annie's fingers softly. She grimaced, fighting her own emotions back, as Peter found himself leaning in a bit closer.
"Don't scare Anna with any of this. Not until it starts to be a risk to your safety, or her own safety, at least. You're going to hear and see things you don't want to." Peter's voice was stern and calm. Annie just nodded her head at him, her expression set and serious, before she allowed him to release her hands.
The Symbiote betrayed some anxiety after that, wondering if they overstepped by moving on Peter's behalf. 'It's fine, buddy,' Peter reassured them. He wasn't mad. Their connection meant that he knew that the Symbiote had genuinely wanted to hold Annie's hand and provide what comfort they could, just as much as Peter did. They had a right to do so.
The Symbiote perked up with that, though their mood was still tinged with a subdued sort of melancholy that Peter could not identify. But they were both now ready for more important things.
Doom coughed. "I have not had cause to use these implements in our time together… back then…" Doom said, for lack of a better term for their original timeline. "The talismans the Arachnid spread in Osborn's office are purely magical in nature. They have no mechanical component, but act as a focus to scry from long distances while remaining hidden from those who lack a second sight. We should be grateful that all but a slim minority of the Arachnid's foes have any faculty with magic."
"Well, what about that Mysterio guy?" Joe said, trying to suppress a grin. Doom stared balefully at Joe Fixit with a furious and bloodshot glare. Peter's own glance at Joe was far calmer, but it was also tired and annoyed. He shook his head at the Hulk in disapproval and muted frustration.
Joe took Peter's rebuke with far more grace than any other Hulk would have, as he simply shrugged and nodded his head. "Sorry, Vic."
And Doom, too, took Joe's apology with far more grace than he could have afforded any other living being, as he simply sighed and went back to the business at hand, only for Annie to interrupt.
"Why are you guys trying to kill a billionaire?" Annie couldn't help but ask.
"We're not trying to kill Norman Osborn," Peter said, as the two other men grunted halfheartedly in affirmation, though Doom still rolled his eyes. The matter was settled for Peter, and uncertainty could be deadly. He could never forgive Norman for the things he did. But while Harry yet lived, he would not kill his father for what he hadn't yet done.
'And what he definitely will do, if you don't take care of this now,' he reminded himself.
"Okay, so why are you spying on a billionaire?" Annie said, now looking a bit excited.
"Miss Byrnes," Doom began, his voice exuding irritation, "it is a very long, and very complicated story. Suffice it to say that Norman Osborn is a supervillain known as the Green Goblin, and we intend to bring him to what passes for justice under a United States court of law."
"How would the Latverian courts have handled the Green Goblin?" Joe couldn't help but ask.
"With a firing squad," Doom said with icy certainty. "As it is, let us hope the Arachnid's methods will keep him from being a thorn in our side for a time." He waved his hands theatrically, as a few sorcerous sigils flared to life around his armored fingers. "We should have a complete, three dimensional, and audiovisual, view of Osborn's office just about… now!"
There, in the center of the cheap plastic table the four of them were seated around, was a holographic image of Osborn's office, with a miniscule version of Osborn himself seated at a long table at the center of it. The image was a small one, requiring the four of them to peer close, but they could still see and hear everything they needed to.
"Wouldn't a teleconference have been more discreet?" grumbled a miniature Otto Octavius, seated at the opposite end of the table from Osborn. Peter leaned in, peering in closer at the five other small figures sitting between Otto and Norman.
There was Kraven the Hunter. Electro. Vulture. Mysterio. But no Sandman. There was no Flint Baker. His absence felt conspicuous to Peter, especially since his replacement was also noteworthy. Black Tarantula casually reclined in a chair. His masked face was inscrutable but his body language exuded boredom. The Carlos LaMuerto of this timeline found himself in a costume that was remarkably like Peter's. A jet-black jacket and slacks, streaked briefly with white, a pair of nondescript black gloves, and a black mask emblazoned with a bone white spider upon his face. He was simply black wherever Peter's costume was red, and white where he was black.
"You and your team underperformed during that break-in," Osborn said disdainfully. "I needed to see whether there's still a fire in you, Doctor." Norman halted, glancing at Black Tarantula. A sneer formed on his lips, likely brought out by the man's resemblance to Spider-Man. "And this would be the Tarantula?" Norman said with a slightly hostile glint in his eyes.
"The Black Tarantula," the masked man clarified for emphasis.
"What on earth is the difference?" Osborn grumbled.
"The Tarantula is Chilean, and is an extremely silly person. I am Argentinian, and am incredibly cool," the man said with casual sarcasm that set Norman on edge again. The smart mouth was yet another resemblance to Spider-Man that Norman doubtlessly didn't like.
But Peter knew that the resemblance between the two of them ran deeper than that. Black Tarantula had the same powers as Peter, and few extras for good measure. He was every bit as strong and as fast as Peter, and able to cling to walls and run along vertical surfaces just as easily. While he lacked the Spider Sense, he had martial arts training that had always been far more advanced than Peter's self-taught skills from his younger days, supplied to him by a conspiracy of renegade martial artists and assassins called the Hand. Peter's webbing was the only card he had in his deck that LaMuerto always lacked, and it was still something that Black Tarantula could easily tear his way free from given his sheer strength.
But on top of that, Black Tarantula was almost unkillable, with regenerative abilities rivalling the likes of Wolverine, Sabretooth, or Deadpool. To say nothing of his bizarre ability to emit blasts of energy from his eyes akin to Cyclops, something that only further undermined the larger man's spider motif.
[That's cheating!] the Symbiote thought in outrage, as they also reviewed Peter's memories of Black Tarantula.
"Suffice it to say," Otto intoned, a touch hastily, "Mister LaMuerto's resemblance to your problem person is, while somewhat aggravating, still a very happy coincidence. The Black Tarantula's powerset is eminently well suited to removing your pest problem, Mister Osborn."
He was never sure how Black Tarantula had gotten his powers. Carlos certainly wasn't telling. Given his gamut of abilities appropriated not just from Peter, but also from a few of the more famous mutants, it was hard to say whether LaMuerto was also bitten by some sort of radioactive spider, whether his powers were the result of some inborn mutations, or whether like Nuke and Deadpool, his abilities were the result of grafting multiple sets of powers on to a normal human being.
What Peter did know for certain was that Black Tarantula was one of the very few people to hand him a clean loss, during a fair fight. He was only ever on par with LaMuerto physically, and that was never enough to overcome the other man's healing factor. After Peter's first loss, he knew that the Black Tarantula was always an enemy that could be outplayed, outsmarted, or outmaneuvered, but never someone he could have simply outfought. The fact that LaMuerto was now involved in this matter with Otto's Six and the Green Goblin would usually be a signal for Peter to call in backup from whatever superhero he was on good terms with at the time. Which were, usually, very few and far between.
[But things are different now,] the Symbiote reminded him, excitement running through his costume. Before, Peter could only match Carlos physically, his webbing and lateral thinking being the only advantages he could exploit against Black Tarantula. But now he had the Symbiote, as well as experience, behind him. He was now far stronger, far faster… and also far more seasoned compared to the younger man who LaMuerto had nearly killed a few times before.
The Symbiote was like a young contender, eagerly wanting to compete alongside their host for the title of undisputed champion. They relished the challenge ahead of them and so, to his surprise, did Peter.
Mysterio's voice echoed beneath his domed helm. "We've recovered what little footage survived of this Spider-Man guy's fight with Bullseye, Mary, and Elektra. He's still dangerous, but he's also straightforward. A bit of enhanced strength and speed, he sticks to walls, but the guy otherwise seems to be coasting on Kung Fu with no other tricks involved." Peter bit back a grin. They didn't know about his webbing, mostly because Elektra had already destroyed his web-shooters through blind luck and Electro had fried what security footage they had of him using his webs.
His misfortunes seemed to finally come with a few silver linings, these days.
"The real trick though, is that he seems to react to attacks before they come in," Mysterio drawled lazily. "It's some kind of prescience, or instinctual response. It could be anything right now, even something like Taskmaster's muscle memory. The point is, we need to figure this out before we can get anywhere with him."
Peter's face set into a line. He was more careful now. More circumspect. He wouldn't be blabbering about his Spider Sense like he did when he was just starting out and wouldn't give his enemies any room to counter it. Least of all Mysterio, who he needed to keep guessing for as long as possible, before he figured out a way to both mimic and deceive his preternatural senses all over again in this new timeline.
"At first, I was going to call it 'Spider-Sense,' except Black Tarantula doesn't have anything like it. But then I remembered another guy who could move like this Spider-Man can. That Slinger kid, Ricochet, and his Danger Sense," Mysterio practically gloated over the words.
Damn it.
"Goofy kid," Mysterio chuckled paternally. "Always bragging about my Danger Sense this and my Danger Sense that. He's insecure. Anyway, I probably just need to adjust the signal to this guy's 'wavelength,' and we'll be able to spoof this Spider-Man's 'Danger Sense' too."
God damn it. Peter really needed to have a talk with those kids at some point.
"Arachnid, you really ought to have a talk with those children soon," Doom said warningly.
"I know!" Peter snapped back in frustration, before he scowled and went back to focusing on spying on Osborn.
"And we are certain this is to be a kill order?" Octavius's goggled eyes peered carefully at Norman Osborn. "We don't really care who might be under this mask?"
"What are you implying, Doctor?" Norman said in a low and wary tone of voice.
"Just that this isn't the first time we've been asked to kill someone, only for the client to have some regrets after the fact. And then they lay the blame on us, the executors of their misguided will. You can understand my misgivings. You asked for a face-to-face meeting to assess our resolve. I demand the same of you," Octavius proclaimed as he pointed a tentacle to Norman in a firm gesture.
"What-are-you-im-ply-ing, Doc-tor?" Norman repeated, now carefully enunciating every syllable through clenched teeth.
"Very well," Otto said, giving an awkward cough. Octavius was never used to being on the backfoot, verbally. "This Spider-Man character appears to be familiar with you, to an almost intimate degree. If we should find out that this Spider-Man is someone close to you, such as your son Harry, then…?"
"It's not Harry," Osborn said sharply and decisively. As much to convince himself as he was trying to convince Octavius. "Harry knows better than to defy me. And he's too much of an unambitious coward to try to blackmail anyone, let alone me."
Kraven chuckled, and his voice was heavy with disdain. "I kidnapped your son once. You remember. Or maybe, you don't?"
"I remember," Norman said, with a cold look at Kraven. Norman Osborn was never one to forgive slights, and he wanted to make that very clear to Sergei Kravinoff.
Kraven was not intimidated in the slightest. "Nice boy. You know, when I told him that you were not paying a cent for him, he didn't even blink. Did not even look surprised, or even disappointed. Brave boy. I would not be so sure of your son's loyalties. Or his courage." Norman flinched. So did Peter, as he wondered whether Kraven already suspected that Harry was conspiring against his father.
But Norman rallied first. "Just… kill… Spider-Man. If it's Harry underneath the mask, and I still don't believe it, then he's no son of mine," Osborn rasped. Peter's fists clenched. So did Kraven's.
"I see hundreds of men like you in Russia, Osborn. Rich and brittle men. Men with stone faces and clay feet," Kraven spat, his smile vicious and mirthless. "I do not want your money," the Hunter growled.
Norman looked like he was about to leap at Kraven, and it was Octavius who intervened, placing a metallic tendril on Kraven's shoulder. "Sergei, we agreed we'd pursue our projects together, yes? That even if you personally did not wish to enact a job, you would still…"
Kraven brushed aside the tentacle gently, nodding his head in a mollifying gesture. "You did not let me finish. I do not want his money. But hunting this Spider-Man, whoever is underneath this mask, is good. It sounds like a good time. My fellow hunters can divide my share among them. But I do not want Osborn's money."
"…Very well Sergei," Octavius said with a sigh. "Your principles, though odd, are at least consistent. Please be assured, Mr. Osborn, that the rest of us still very much want your money. And that whoever is under that mask, whether it be Harry Osborn, or any one of your current or former friends, partners, or relatives, will be dealt with."
"That's all I ask, Doctor," Osborn said gently, with a final glare to Kraven. And Kraven glared back.
"We agreed on the price then, right?" the Vulture said doubtfully. "You're really paying us fifty million just to kill one punk in a costume? You're sure Fisk will laugh it off if you go behind his back on this?"
"Too good to be true?" Osborn sneered. "Yes, I remember Fisk's little sermon. The blackmailer demanded ten million from me, and I'm paying five times as much to have him killed. It's a matter of basic principle. Something that often eludes our dear Kingpin of crime." Norman's voice was now heavy with disdain.
Peter nodded his head in satisfaction. Norman did not disappoint and continued to act in the way that Peter knew he would. Fisk was a control freak and would not be happy to find out a business partner went behind his back to order a killing. But Norman was a control freak too, and he couldn't abide being insulted by something like Spider-Man. A power struggle was already taking shape. Rifts were forming in his partnership with Fisk.
"He doesn't seem like a mere blackmailer," Black Tarantula said carefully.
Norman slammed his hands on the table. "Why are you people CONSTANTLY questioning me and nitpicking one of the most SIMPLE and DIRECT contracts that I could possibly pay a king's ransom for, to you UNGRATEFUL idiots…" Osborn could no longer maintain his composure, as he vented all his frustrations towards Spider-Man to Black Tarantula. Octavius saw this and frowned.
Very calmly, very politely, and very civilly, Dr. Octopus simply reared back on his two lower tentacles and loomed over Norman Osborn, speaking in a gentle voice that was as sharp as needles. "Mr. Osborn. My team and I take our work very, very seriously. If we feel there are misgivings or rooms for error in a contract, then it behooves us to point them out. In the interests of our client. But we shall not be talked down to. We are not your flunkies. We are not even Wilson Fisk's flunkies. We are here because your offer intrigues us, but we are perfectly willing to take our services elsewhere."
"My apologies… Doctor Octavius," Norman continued, his voice now tight, controlled, and calm.
"No need. But while Mr. LaMuerto is likely still getting a feel for whether the Six is to his liking, it behooves us to show him the same courtesy we would any member. Continue, Carlos," said Octavius, sounding again like a gentle schoolteacher.
Black Tarantula looked smug. So did Kraven. Peter frowned, because it seemed more appropriate than smiling because of misplaced nostalgia. Doom himself couldn't suppress a soft grunt of approval. Say what you wished about Otto Octavius, but he was always a good leader. Even before he'd reformed, back then.
Fighting him again would be difficult, in more ways than one.
"Simply put, Mr. Osborn," the Black Tarantula said, with the same unctuous and affected politeness as Dr. Octopus but with only half the sincerity, "I am not convinced that this man is simply trying to blackmail you. I think he is trying to kill you." Kraven nodded his head, looking at least somewhat impressed at Black Tarantula's reasoning. The Vulture carefully scratched his chin in a calculating gesture. Mysterio was inscrutable beneath his helmet, but his gaze was focused on Black Tarantula now. Only Electro looked lost, but that was normal for him, as he gave an uneasy look to Dr. Octopus and found himself quickly reassured by Otto's gentle grin.
Peter found himself feeling uneasy. Black Tarantula was already fitting into the Six's bizarre dynamic. "Explain," Norman irritably said.
"The man's fighting style is… well, suffice it to say, it was good that Octavius's team had consulted me. I am indeed the one most well suited to compete with this imitator of mine. And I cannot help but feel that his impersonation of me is very, very much a deliberate slight or signal," Black Tarantula said appraisingly.
Joe Fixit gave Peter a sympathetic look, as Peter himself tried not to let his displeasure show on his face.
Black Tarantula continued calmly, clearly liking the attention. "The man's style is based around K'un-Lun Orthodoxy. And while that doubtlessly means very little to those who are not as immersed in matters of martial arts as I am, it carries certain implications. Besides the Iron Fists themselves, Orthodoxy is otherwise only taught to members of K'un-Lun's secret police. This man is clearly a highly experienced wet works agent operating within the bounds of the Heavenly Cities, for whom a mere ten million dollars in blackmail would be beneath him. Such men care nothing for material concerns."
"What the hell are you saying?" Osborn said, now clearly taken aback. Even Peter was starting to feel a bit confused now.
"You believed he was involved with Mr. Negative, was he not? One of the Children of the Eighth City. This man, this Spider-Man, he deviates from K'un-Lun Orthodoxy in some very frightening ways. Ways that bear similarities to Shang-Chi, another Child of the Eighth City. But then there are his powers…" Black Tarantula murmured uneasily. "Powers very much like mine. This Spider-Man is very certainly one of the Children as well, and much like me, forged a pact with one of the Eighth City's Demon Lords to forcibly establish a connection with one of the Universal Totems. The Spider."
Joe and Annie both gave Peter confused looks, to which Peter could only mutely shrug. None of this made even the slightest sense to him either, other than the fact that he'd built his current fighting style through the joint efforts of his original timeline's Iron Fist and Shang-Chi. Which now seemed to be biting him in the ass, as he wondered what the hell Danny and Shang-Chi had actually been teaching him back then. Only Doom looked careful, and appraising as he considered Black Tarantula. It seemed that, at least on some level, Doom could parse LaMuerto's claims.
Victor simply gave a brief look to Peter, before focusing on the meeting again.
"Could you please explain this babbling?" Osborn implored Octavius.
"I'm afraid I'm a bit outside my area of expertise too, Norman. I try not to involve myself in matters of the Heavenly Cities and the Immortal Weapons. It's all very unscientific. But that's why we diversify and involve specialists. Carlos, what does this mean for us, precisely?" Octavius asked, with genuine curiosity in his voice.
"It means Osborn is being hunted," Kraven spat, to which Black Tarantula nodded his head in affirmation. "It is vendetta. You are not being blackmailed. You are being singled out and targeted in a deeply personal way. …Are you sure this Spider-Man is not somebody you know?" Kraven asked mockingly.
"Enough!" Osborn barked. "This man is a blackmailer! He's some discount mutie cobbled together at the last minute. He is not some sort of heavenly assassin! He is not some sort of demon lord from hell! HE IS NOT MY SON!" Norman screamed the last line, and everyone but Kraven and Black Tarantula flinched as he slammed his hands again against the table. His strength, already enhanced by the goblin serum, reduced the side he was seated against to flinders.
"He's going to be here in two days, on that rooftop over there, to demand MY money! And he says that if he doesn't get it, he'll crawl to the newspapers and try to blacken my name that way! The Osborn name!" He glared down at the six men, his expression low and dangerous. He was visibly trying to suppress a snarl, and an all too familiar smile. "Get me results! Get me his head!" he spat, now looking well and truly unhinged.
"Very well, very well," Octavius said with an uneasy chuckle, raising his hands in a gesture that almost seemed like surrender. "In two days, Spider-Man dies. And you'll have a lovely view of the proceedings from your office, right here. Doesn't that sound nice, er, Norman?" the man said, doubtlessly wondering if the Green Goblin was going to lash out at him right then and there.
But Osborn sucked in a deep breath, his expression now looking stony and carefully composed. "Good. Spider-Man's head, in exchange for fifty million dollars. Doesn't that sound simple, gentlemen? Now get the hell out of my office," he said with cool and incongruously sudden detachment.
"Then… I think we've wasted enough of our time. My team will begin our preparations, see this business settled, and then collect our fees," Otto said, looking as if he were all smiles again.
But there was an edge to that grin. Fear wasn't the same thing as respect, or trust. Otto never once took his eyes off Norman again, before Doom ended the spell.
'Well, it's always good to hear from Otto and his wacky friends,' Peter thought with a shrug, a part of him still wondering what, precisely, had happened to Sandman while he was gone. Had he already renounced his life of crime by now, as he had alongside Octavius in Peter's original timeline?
He doubted it.
"So," Joe Fixit began, sounding just slightly hesitant. "You got them all sorted out, Peter? Or do you need me to…"
Peter shook his head. "The mess at Fisk's lab had a silver lining for us. Kingpin's crews are out hunting for a big green man, not a big gray man. Keep doing what you're doing and be the friendly ear for us back at that mob bar. We'll need that intel, once I sort through this. Victor, just focus on getting your armor up to par again as best you can. I don't need back up." Doom only inclined his head in acknowledgement, while Joe Fixit only shrugged. He'd simply offered to take out the trash for a friend, as he saw it, and was told to focus his energy elsewhere.
Only the last member of the Legion of Doom had any objections. "That's so stupid," Annie glowered, her arms crossed and her nostrils flaring.
The three men regarded the teenager silently. The normally confident girl suddenly seemed self-conscious, so she focused her ire on the one who frightened her the least. "They're the Sinister Six, dumbass. I know you're new in town, but even I've heard of them," she said to Peter.
"They do seem like pretty scary guys," Peter said flatly.
Annie looked frustrated. And worried. "They're big enough problems to have gotten on the Avengers' shitlist, and even that couldn't keep them down! So, what the hell do you think your dumb ass is supposed to do?" Her shoulder trembled. "What was that big speech about you not dying even for? You ought to bail on this whole thing and get the hell out of here!"
Doom gave a low and mocking chuckle, redolent with contempt and disdain. But Peter knew Doom's malice wasn't directed at him, or at Annie. His laughter only came at the expense of the Sinister Six.
Victor seldom laughed, but Joe Fixit seemed to find it infectious despite his mutual antipathy with the man. The Gray Hulk's amusement was more sincere, but no less mocking, as he wheezed out great guffaws. Only Peter stood silent, and watchful, as Annie's shoulders slumped.
"That's enough," Peter chided them, as he realized Annie looked defeated. Tears were taking shape, at the edge of her eyes.
Doom lapsed into wary silence, while Fixit took off his tattered hat and placed it over his chest. "Awh, hell kid. We weren't laughin' at you. It's just… these guys ain't so scary for folks like us," the giant said, as he gently shook her by one of her shoulders, behaving more like a kindly uncle to her than Peter could ever manage. The Gray Hulk gave his best attempt at a reassuring grin as his broad features would allow, and Peter didn't doubt that it was uncomfortable for Joe.
A Hulk's face was not built to contort into something as unnatural and alien to them as a smile. But Joe always did his best.
"Hobo Pete here? He's going to eat these jokers for breakfast. Doesn't matter if they're the Sinister Six or the Terrible Twelve. He's been kicking bad guys' heads in for forever, kid. We're lucky there's six of 'em, cause it's the only way our guy here can get a workout." Joe's voice was confident, and soothing. Even Banner would have struggled to pull it off. But it wasn't quite enough, as Annie simply buried her face in Joe's massive arm and did her best not to break down.
She had already been embarrassed enough earlier, when Peter had last seen her cry. Doom looked away, averting his eyes from the scene. 'I have no business here,' Doom had signaled with the gesture. 'This matter is outside my area of expertise.'
"Are you scared of them?" Peter's voice was soft, and devoid of any reproach or judgment. Annie simply nodded her head from behind Joe's arms, unable to look him in the eyes.
Peter let a smile play on his features. It had been a long time since he'd felt so relaxed, or so confident. It had been years. But the words came to him naturally.
"Don't ever let them scare you again, Annie. Because I'm here now. And I promise, I'll make this look easy," he continued, as Annie finally looked at him again.
"Liar," she accused. But Peter's grin only widened in response to her challenge, which seemed to surprise Victor and Joe too.
"I'm going to crush them, Annie," Peter vowed, his voice unshakeable. Because he was fighting for something especially important now. Spider-Man had once meant a great deal, not just to him but to everyone he'd helped. For a time, because of him, the Kingpin and the Green Goblin were the butt of every joke, and never the nightmares spoken of only in hushed whispers like they were now. Felicia Hardy was being crippled by her fear of them. Annie was left paralyzed by the terror they inspired.
He wanted Annie and Felicia to go the rest of their lives without ever feeling frightened of men like Otto Octavius, or Norman Osborn, or Wilson Fisk. Because for the rest of their lives, they'd always have Spider-Man in their corner.
She gave him a hesitant glance, and what she found had left her mute for a moment. Peter wondered what she saw. Did he really look as self-assured as he thought he felt? Or was Peter only tricking himself too, with empty and baseless confidence? He hoped that, for once, he looked a bit more like an actual hero, instead of just a fool hiding behind his mask and his bravado.
But whatever she saw, it let her wipe those tears away. And that, for now, was all he could do for her.
Or else, it was only just what he could bring himself to do for her. He turned to his arms and legs.
"Three days, guys. I'll have Osborn wrapped up by then, so we need to figure out our next steps after that. And figure out our gameplan for Fisk." Peter wasn't used to taking a leadership role, at least not as Spider-Man, but somehow even Doom had found whatever passed for his authority to be palatable. He settled for simply summarizing what they already knew, reinforcing their objectives. Osborn was still only a speedbump. It was Fisk that needed sorting.
"Awh, get to it," Joe said, his voice good natured despite the clear dismissiveness in his tone. "You're looking more like yourself again, you know that?"
Peter shrugged at Joe in response. Unlike the Hulks, he was only ever himself. He couldn't possibly know what Joe meant by that.
Doom cocked his head, before finding that he agreed with Fixit yet again. "It's true, Peter. The grand irony of Doctor Octopus is that he can't help but bring out people's best, not just for his allies but also his enemies. Good hunting."
Peter only gave one last look at Annie, who sighed and simply waved him away, the fear now either gone from her, or at least suppressed. Hers was the only blessing he needed for now, as well as the Symbiote's.
'You ready for this? I might have overplayed our chances with her,' Peter warned. The Symbiote's life was at risk alongside his own now, he reminded himself. Fighting the Sinister Six was never a simple or straightforward matter. But Peter still liked his odds. Even without the Symbiote enhancing his strength and speed, he now had years more experience fighting his oldest enemies than they did with him. The gap between them would eventually close: Octavius was too canny, too perceptive, and most of all too adaptable to be on the back foot forever. But for now, they had no idea what was coming for them.
[We'll crush them,] the Symbiote vowed, alongside Peter. They had two days to prepare. To brazenly cheat and rig the odds in their favor as much as they wished. It was more than enough time.
It had been a long while since he'd relished a coming fight, rather than simply dread it.
Chapter 21: Fear
"So, I'll be the first to admit that some mistakes were made," Ricochet said anxiously, as the four Slingers listened in. Hornet, Edward McDonough, sighed and found himself unwilling to be disappointed in Ricochet for blathering about his Danger Sense. Being a mutant was awful, because other people took any excuse they could to make it awful.
Ricochet had every right to feel proud of the powers he was born with, instead of the gifts that the Black Marvel had bargained for them, from Mephisto of all entities. Johnny's mutation was a gift, instead of a curse. Too many mutants were born hideous, or couldn't live normal lives, or were too much like Eddie McDonough—
Hornet needed to stop obsessing over his useless right arm, because they were on the clock, and they needed to focus. His armor meant that his crippled right arm was just as good as his left, at least while he was in costume. Mephisto, it seemed, really knew what people wanted. Even if the Black Marvel still shouldn't have sold his soul to the demon for these stupid outfits.
They were spying on their fellow vigilantes, while those same vigilantes spied on the actual bad guys. But what could they do? Bugging Oscorp or Fisk Tower would have been impossible for them.
Spreading a few bugs here and there in FEAST before reading Martin Li's will was a much simpler prospect. Dusk was uncomfortable with the idea of spying on the three men, Spider-Man in particular, but Hornet felt it was elegant. It was a way to keep tabs on not just the far more dangerous and experienced trio, but also on the remnants of Martin Li's operations. Clever people didn't come up with complicated schemes that required an obnoxious number of moving parts, points of failure, and literal prescience to pull off. Some of the world's superhumans, whether they were the good guys or bad guys, could pull off such convoluted gambits because their brains amounted to supercomputers. But Eddie McDonough was merely a well-read human being. Even if he'd managed to be a bit sneaky on top of that.
"I kept telling you to work on your Op Sec," Prodigy chided, but he was still able to keep his anger buried. He was getting better about that. "Your enemies shouldn't know anything about you."
"We don't know anything about you, after all," Dusk said sourly to Prodigy. Hornet flinched, despite himself. Dusk still held a grudge, though thus far Prodigy only glared back. Hornet felt he should say something, but he couldn't find the words. He couldn't shake the fear that he'd make things worse.
But he'd never get anywhere in life if he'd kept on being a coward. So, despite his voice still being hoarse, it was also clear and strong.
"Who's Rista Galovic, Richie?" Hornet had broken Prodigy's rule on keeping things to code names, very clearly and very deliberately. Because it wasn't Prodigy that Dusk was worried for, or angry at. It was Richard Gilmore.
"Fine." Prodigy surprised them all as he took off his helmet, becoming Richard Gilmore again. "Fine," he said, a little more tightly, no longer quite so able to rein in his frustration.
"Gilmore is just what we put on the citizenship papers, after we came here. My family's name used to be Galovic. Rista Galovic is my grandmother," Richard said, his voice tense and uncomfortable.
"You have a grandma?" Ricochet suddenly blurted out.
Richard's frown deepened, transitioning into an ugly and joyless smirk. "For a few more months." He'd tried to make another bad joke. But Richard soon went back to frowning, as he seemed to realize that not even he found it funny. "She's in hospice. She's the only family I've got left. And I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"Why don't you want to talk about it, Richie?" Dusk asked softly, but Gilmore had already put on the mask again, letting his moment of vulnerability fade.
"Did you open the letter from your parents?" Prodigy fired back, his voice sounding steelier than usual from beneath his helm.
Dusk raised her hands in surrender. "Fine. I get it. We both seem to have some baggage we need to unpack before we can go around sharing it with others." She pulled off her shroud, looking like a normal, if pale and wan girl instead. "I'm sorry, Richie," she said, sounding genuinely contrite.
"Me too, Cass," he said. And it was clear to them that the apology was for much more than their current argument.
"If we're all apologizing, let me just add that I am also very sorry for my big mouth making life slightly harder for Prodigy's latest man-crush, the one and only Spider-Man," Ricochet said, half in mockery and half in self-deprecating but genuine sincerity.
"Shut up Ricochet," Prodigy said icily.
"Li told me the guy somehow travelled back in time. Boy, it's gonna be funny when we find out he's a future version of me, but with a cybernetic eye and a robot arm," Ricochet said, as Hornet sighed. Hornet became tight-lipped and quiet in response to social anxiety. Ricochet, by contrast, needed to keep running his mouth when he panicked.
"Shut up, Johnny," Dusk said, the usually gentle and soft-spoken girl sounding even more icy than Prodigy did.
Ricochet and Hornet exchanged glances. It seemed that Prodigy wasn't the only one who was developing a crush. Deciding to spare his team anymore awkwardness, he turned up the volume on the receiver as he noticed the topic of conversation in FEAST's breakroom was wandering back to Spider-Man, yet again. All four of the Slingers found themselves listening closely.
All four of them were developing a crush on the scary vigilante who grabbed bullets out of midair, Hornet thought, as he suppressed a laugh. But he still wasn't brave enough to say it out loud.
"Why's he got to be the one to do this crap?" a young girl's voice said glumly. Annie Byrnes, Hornet recalled. A teenage girl whose only noteworthy traits seemed to be having a rich and famous aunt, and an inexplicable rapport with Spider-Man.
Or maybe it was Spider-Man who had an inexplicable rapport with her, because even Dusk had seemed to find her hard to like.
"Because Osborn is his responsibility," came another man's cultured and urbane drawl. His voice would have almost sounded refined, if it wasn't distorted by a constant metallic echo. It was the one Dusk had called Doom. "I would not abide any man interfering in my feuds, either. Even a friend."
"He's never been the type to obsess about his grudges the way you do, Vic," came the accusatory voice from the third man, the gray giant. The one who went by the incredibly obvious alias of Joe Fixit. "He's always been more easygoing about his enemies than even me, if I'm being honest."
"Because he is driven by fear," Doom concluded.
"He's afraid?" Annie's voice was heavy with skepticism. "It's more like he's not afraid enough! If he were a coward, I wouldn't be so mad at him."
"I am not calling him a coward," Doom said in irritation. "He is dangerously unafraid of almost everything. But when it comes to the things he does fear, they consume him utterly. He drowns in it, like a fish swims in water. To the fish, the water is simply how the world is. He doesn't even know, can't even realize. But at the heart of him lies fear. It is no failing. Merely a source of needless suffering. "
Annie grumbled and held her tongue, so Joe spoke instead. "You never knew him all that well before, did you? Before his life went to hell I mean," he said, with an audible grimace.
"We travelled in similar circles," Doom said brusquely.
Joe Fixit halted, and then suddenly gave a brutal laugh. "That's a hell of a euphemism for all the supervillainy you used to get up to!"
Hornet suddenly got a bit more tense, and so did the rest of his team. Spider-Man was a cipher, and so were his friends. And a very large and inexplicable red flag had suddenly arisen.
"I found him to be an admirable foe, even in his earlier years. Usually, he'd find himself entangled with me through Richards and his ilk," Doom said, a touch mournfully. "We gave each other more than a few of our scars, fairly struck and won… though you'll hardly be able to tell underneath my mask," he said with grim and ugly sort of nostalgia.
He paused for a moment, before resuming. "I had no idea he was still just a boy of fifteen, when we first fought."
"He was what?" Annie blurted out, at the exact same time Dusk did. They both seemed outraged on his behalf. Even Hornet and Ricochet exchanged concerned looks. That was even younger than when they started, and that scared them too. Even the Black Marvel, in his failed bid to relive his glory days vicariously through the Slingers, still knew it was better to involve legal adults in his petty manipulations rather than actual children.
"It is beneath the dignity of a monarch to battle with a child. Knowingly, at least," came a metallic sigh. "At first, I blamed my enemies for involving him. But no. Even when he was a boy, he saw nothing unnatural about courting death by involving himself. Something else had already shattered him, before he even began."
Prodigy seemed to react the least to this news, as he simply crossed his arms and nodded his head, as if something had suddenly clicked for him. Which only made Hornet wonder what the hell Richard Gilmore had to go through when he was a boy.
"That's so fucked," Annie muttered, echoing the sentiments of the other three Slingers.
Joe gave a half-hearted and sympathetic murmur, but Doom's silence somehow seemed to echo throughout the breakroom. "When I was half the Arachnid's age, I saw my mother lynched by a mob of halfwits. When Mr. Fixit was of a similar age, his father murdered his mother. Tragedy is merely the price that power demands, Miss Byrnes. Take heart in that. Your griefs have hardened you too, as it has all three of us."
Joe Fixit all but growled at Doom. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Vic. Sooner or later, everyone on the superhero side of things eventually realizes they hate it. It's brutal, it's thankless, and it costs you. The ones that don't stop, they're the real thing. The dangerous ones. Daredevil does this because he's pissed off at how broken the world is, and believe me, anger is a hell of a motivator. Tony Stark puts on his little Iron Man suit because an addiction to adrenaline highs is still more palatable than alcohol or drugs. Captain America is doing it because as far as he's concerned, World War Two still isn't over. Point is, they all still get something out of it that's more meaningful to them than just the warm fuzzies from doing good deeds," Fixit said confidently. "He's not like you or me, so save the comparisons."
"The Arachnid is neither someone venting his impotent rage at the world, nor something as petty as a drunken thrill-seeker, nor someone fixated on a nearly century old war, Mr. Fixit. I'm not sure what motivates him, aside from his self-destructive commitment to blind altruism," Doom said, sounding rather ill at ease with the idea.
"He used to have a wife and three kids, Annie," Joe confided to her. Hornet froze, wondering if he should be listening to any of this.
"He used to?" Annie asked uneasily.
"That's right. It's one of the reasons this job is an absolute nightmare. Everyone, everyone who does this long enough loses somebody. And he's done it the longest out of any of us, because the rest either cracked or died or just had enough. You end up swimming in so much blood… and then you just drown in it," the man said casually.
Hornet moved to shut off the receiver, but Prodigy held his hand back before shaking his head. Their usually cold-blooded leader somehow found this fascinating.
"So why even do it?" Annie couldn't help but ask.
"Because you want all the loss you went through to mean something. Anyone can decide to curl up and die. Some people just want to fight back. They're the ones who decide that if it's really all meaningless, then they'll just do whatever makes sense to them," Fixit said.
"I suspect that you're projecting quite a bit of your own mindset onto Peter, Mr. Fixit," Doom said skeptically.
"Heh. Maybe. But y'know, Annie, one of his kids was a girl that was exactly your age. He's probably trying to see her in you. I think part of the reason he's doing this is because he's trying to do something for you that he can't for her anymore. It ain't fair to you, and it sure as hell ain't fair to him but it's another thing that makes him tick. It's one of the reasons he keeps putting on the stupid costume, because as long as you're happy and safe he feels like he got something out of it. Does that bother you, kid?" Joe asked.
"…I never had a dad," Annie said, her voice contemplative. "I'm probably doing the same thing to him. He's trying to see me as his kid, and I'm trying to see what it's like to have a father. So no, it doesn't bother me. I just…"
"Just what?" Joe asked.
"He reminds me of my mom. She was always sad, but she kept-" the girl's voice cut off, as Dusk reached from across the room and shut off the feed.
"We shouldn't be listening to this," Dusk said, her voice hard. And no one, not even Prodigy, dared to challenge her on that.
"…Right," Ricochet said, looking a bit uneasy. "So, what the hell do we do now? Because I hate to say this, but even after Sandman had his creative differences moment with Doc Ock and made his own crew, even the five of them were a bit too much for the four of us. And Black Tarantula alone nearly killed us all just by himself," Ricochet finished with a shudder.
"We're staying out of it," Prodigy conclusively decided.
"Like hell," Dusk spat, her hands balling up into fists. "I'm not letting him end up like Li!"
"That's not what I meant!" Prodigy barked. The whole room went still, and for a moment, Hornet was left wondering if Richie would storm out of the room again, like he was prone to do when they were just starting out.
But he didn't. His shoulders slumped, and he sounded tired. "We'd just get in the way."
Dusk opened her mouth, but Prodigy shook his head. "He's not the kind of person to go into things just because he wants to die. He's not a moron either. He's already made that clear. Going in half-assed like we always do, where we're not needed… we'll just make a mess of things and make ourselves look like idiots."
Hornet's face settled into an anxious and worried grimace. On the one hand, Prodigy lightening up on the rest of them and lowering his expectations for his fellow amateurs was a significant amount of growth on his part.
But on the other hand, Prodigy's self-deprecating tone seemed less like his usual blunt tactical assessments, and more like self-pity. They were all smarting, after Li snuck out on their watch to apparently get himself killed. Ricochet had taken it the hardest… but it was a blow to all of them. A blow to their collective confidence.
Prodigy was sounding too much like Eddie McDonough, and that just wouldn't do.
Once again, Hornet needed to open his mouth and suggest something constructive to get their team out of this slump. Somehow.
"So, then what the hell do we do?" Ricochet said, his voice echoing their frustrations.
Hornet looked thoughtful, as he considered the question seriously. "Well, what if, instead of going in half-assed right away, and screw everything up for Spider-Man… what if we go in half-assed a little later, and screw up whatever Ock's got brewing instead?"
"Huh," Prodigy muttered, as he listened attentively to Hornet's completely half-assed yet surprisingly straightforward idea.
---
It was all going to hell, thought Jean DeWolff. 'It's one of those goddamn things,' Captain Stacy would have said with a good-natured laugh; to try to hide just how angry he really was. She remembered that Captain Castle was different. Captain Castle would have only glared.
Jean DeWolff just sat at her laptop at home, glaring down at the official statement issued by NYPD. Martin Li's official cause of death was ruled to be pneumonia, something just fake enough for Wilson Fisk's liking, and thus also the mayor's liking and the chief of police's liking. It would raise eyebrows among those connected to the underworld, while those on the outside would shrug and never grasp just how blatant the lie was. The matter was considered closed.
And then Lieutenant DeWolff and Captain Valdez told their own lies in turn. Martin Li was most assuredly dead. Like Cassie Saint Commons, alias Dusk, Martin Li, alias Mr. Negative, had never disappeared from a mortuary slab. Bodies did not slip away on their own, quietly into the night without proclamation or fanfare. And fortunately for everyone, Martin Li had no next of kin and made no requests regarding the dispensation of his cadaver prior to the day of his death. The body was simply marked as 'disposed' in the paperwork. Martin Li, like Miss Saint Commons, was ruled dead. The matter was considered closed.
And then the office of Nelson, Murdock, and Walters started bullshitting too. There was no signed or sealed confession from Martin Li in their custody. That was only a matter of rumor, and the reputations of both Martin Li and FEAST were preserved. Martin Li's assets were apportioned per his last will and testament, and that was the end of their involvement. The matter was considered closed.
Vigilante activity had gone through the roof in the wake of Martin Li's seeming death, including Murdock's usual heroes for hire: Power Man, Iron Fist, and Daredevil. And yet the Inner Demons simply let Li's petty empire crumble around them, not even bothering to put up a fight. They were going to ground and waiting for when their marching orders came in again.
DeWolff couldn't afford to lose her composure. Not even Frank Castle ever lost his composure.
It was all lies, piled on even more lies. Everyone was covering each other's ass. NYPD, Martin Li, Wilson Fisk, they were all somehow one another's accomplices now, despite being ostensible enemies. She was a part of it too. The only one who was outside all of this, the only one tossing a wrench into this machine instead of spinning along like a good little cog, was him. Spider-Man.
Of the dozen or so Peter Parkers in their databases, none of them had the vigilante's face. Which meant that either he'd taunted her with a fake name, or else he really was a ghost. The SHIELD liaison was as unhelpful as usual. Aside from dwelling overlong on the surname Parker, and thoroughly reviewing what DeWolff could recall of the vigilante's appearance and estimated age, the liaison was tight-lipped. DeWolff didn't doubt that they knew more about this than she did. But she doubted it was much of anything useful, even then.
They would monitor the situation via the submitted police reports, they said. SHIELD was even more useless than NYPD.
A call had abruptly come to her cellphone, from FEAST. Which likely only meant one person. She hesitated, wondering if he somehow knew that she had been thinking of him. DeWolff scowled, realizing that she'd let a vagrant vigilante spook her, and make her paranoid. That just made her more stubborn, and irritable, her fingers nearly cracking the screen as she took the call.
"DeWolff. What is it now?" she barked harshly. If it wasn't Spider-Man, she'd be kicking herself for that one.
"Osborn's hiring the Sinister Six to kill me," Spider-Man said, his voice calm and serene.
Jean blanched, and her heart was racing. They were just a few days into this highly illegal partnership of theirs, and things were already spiraling out of control. "…I can't help," she said, spitting out the words. Wondering if the man would start pleading for some solution on her part to this unmitigated disaster.
"Uh," the man seemed confused for a moment, before letting out a laugh. As if he only just got the joke. As if he found the idea of asking her for help to be laughable. "No, no. I'll be fine."
"Then just tell me what the hell you actually need from me!" She was feeling defensive, and she didn't understand why. He didn't need the help that she couldn't even offer him.
It was funny. He should laugh.
"They'll be making their move in two days, right outside of Oscorp. I just need you to collect Octavius for me when I'm through," he said, as if bringing down a team of six supervillains was just another errand he was going to run.
And yet she still wasn't any help.
"We can't hold them. Not for long. Either someone with deep pockets will pull them out, or if not then they'll just break out themselves. Or just call in someone they know from the outside, like Rhino or the Tinkerer. We've tried this before." She thought back and realized that they'd never managed to hold a single member of the Sinister Six for more than a single month. SHIELD could hold these people, bury them so far deep that they'd never see the light of day. But the police simply couldn't.
"We've tried this a lot of times, actually." Her tongue felt heavy in her dry mouth.
"Oh." It was a simple phrase. As if he were remembering something. "I think we aren't on the same page yet. I don't mean that I want you to put them in jail. I just want you to collect Octavius for me."
"I don't think I want to know what you mean." She felt uneasy.
"I'm not after Doc Ock or the other five, right now. Osborn's still the target. The Six will be dealt with in their own time. But that doesn't mean we can't use them. I want to see if Otto's willing to let people know that it was Osborn who paid him to kill, in exchange for me letting him go."
Spider-Man, it seemed, hated Osborn far more than Octavius. It wasn't necessarily difficult to understand why. If Osborn really was the Green Goblin, and it was looking more and more likely, then he was someone who was flagrant and flamboyant in his acts of mass murder. Dr. Octopus was… comparatively discreet and mostly limited his violence to the unspoken rules that the underworld knew to follow. All the Sinister Six were like that, it seemed. While they'd sometimes provoked the Avengers' ire, now and again, they took pains to show just enough restraint to never truly be a threat in SHIELD's eyes. Which meant they were still criminals, not terrorists. A problem more than adequately handled by the local authorities. DeWolff ground her teeth.
She didn't know whether she hated Sandman and Hydro-Man more, or less, for finally crossing the line hard enough for SHIELD to step in. And if they'd just swept Electro away too when it happened, then…
"Jean?" Spider-Man asked, and she bristled at hearing her name. They weren't nearly friendly enough for that.
"I'm still here. And it's Lieutenant DeWolff, please." She phrased that 'please' harshly enough to understand it only had the barest pretentions of a request.
"Right." He gave another subdued chuckle, to another little joke she didn't quite grasp. But she was sure that this one came at his expense, rather than hers. "I forgot myself, Lieutenant. But in case you're worried, if Otto isn't willing to play ball, I'll just let him go. At least for now. I just need a place where I can talk to him discreetly, for an hour or two."
"…I know a place that can work. But, even if you get his harness off, his arms are still able to move, and-"
"He controls them telepathically. He can do it from up to… about a kilometer away, is my best guess. If you impound the arms behind enough lead and tin, he won't be able to move them until he's only about a dozen feet away. Even if we're letting him go, it'll take a while before he can build himself a fresh set of arms again."
It wasn't clear how he knew all this. He seemed to simply know everything.
She felt hopeful. Just a bit. "If you're right, that means we could arrest him. We really could hold him now."
"No. He's cleverer than that, Lieutenant. And he always has too many people on the outside who owe him favors. It's still too dangerous to hold him anywhere conventional. These things take time. But I promise you, as impossible as it sounds, I'll have Norman Osborn gift wrapped for you in three days. And this'll also be the start of me getting the ball rolling on Fisk, and Octavius."
It was complacent, to hang back and let the superhero do everything. Cowardly. It would have been something out of Valdez's book.
But Valdez, it seemed, had a better grasp of his own helplessness than Jean ever did.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help," she said, her voice firm. Only quavering just slightly, from guilt and shame.
He was silent for a moment, before speaking. "You're doing the best you can, Jean. You always do. I'll always be grateful for that."
He ended the call then, but it was fine. He'd said what he needed to. They were both professionals, and they both had work to do.
She could tolerate the fact that he couldn't help but call her Jean, at least.
---
Harry had dreaded making this call, and yet it had to be made. It wasn't like he hadn't been here before. But there was something too impersonal about getting chewed out over the phone.
He really screwed this one up, though.
He dialed the number that Peter, that Spider-Man, had given him. The dread building with every ring. He needed to calm down. 'I don't have a phone,' the homeless super-hero had proclaimed, as if it were something to be ashamed of instead of just further affirmation in Harry's eyes that he was some sort of terrifyingly driven vigilante boogeyman. 'I have a friend though, who won't mind it if you call him to get in touch with me. Joe Fixit.'
Harry needed to calm down. He didn't want to burn any bridges with the strange man's friends. He wanted Spider-Man's friends to like him.
He wanted Spider-Man to like him.
'And you probably already screwed that up!' Harry thought with a strained smile as a loud and chipper voice picked up the phone.
"Fixit here! Whaddya need?" The man's voice was vigorous. Harry could hear his smile.
"It's, uh, Harry Osborn? Sorry, I was—" he didn't know why he was already opening with apologies this soon, "Peter told me I could call you if I needed to. Sorry." The apologies came reflexively.
"Harry! Hah, hey buddy! Listen, no problemo. He's around, but if he ever isn't around, you just leave a message with me, and I'll get it to him. One sec!" Harry listened stoically as he heard the man, who he assumed must be someone very large with a voice like that, lurched up to his feet and started stumbling around.
"Vic! Vic, where's Peter?" he shouted, only to grumble again soon after. "Fat lot of good you are. Yeah, keep tinkering!"
Harry pursed his lips. "I uh, I could just call back…"
"No!" Joe Fixit said, somehow sounding both very friendly and very intimidating at the same time. "Naw, you're fine. It's no trouble. Just gimme a minute, I'll dig him out. Hey Nuke! Hey Frank, you goddamn sadsack! Where's Hobo Pete?"
Peter's social circle was likely more bizarre than the man himself, Harry concluded.
"Annie! Where's— oh, the roof. God, yeah. Goddamn Batman ass—" Joe Fixit grumbled, before suddenly shouting back on the phone, his voice all smiles again, "Okay, just a minute, I'll get you right to him. You take as long as you need, okay? Anybody needs to call me, they can just leave a message."
"Thank you?" Harry said, as somehow his mouth couldn't help but phrase it as a question.
He heard a door open, and the wind rustle through the speaker. It was getting cold, Harry mused. Snow would start to fall. Homeless men like him would start to be found frozen to death. Why would he be hanging out on a rooftop when it was already this cold?
"Peter, it's Harry!" Joe said cheerfully, and there was a brief shuffle as one set of hands pressed a smartphone into another set. There was a short laugh. Peter's laugh, not Joe's.
"Hey. How'd it go?" he asked, already moving straight to the conversation Harry didn't want to have.
Harry gritted his teeth, bracing himself against the wall. He had to tell him. "I screwed up, Peter. I told him about Spider-Man."
"Okay. No big deal," he said calmly. It wasn't the sort of icy calm his father would sometimes affect. It was detached. The man genuinely didn't seem to mind. "Did he say he'd publish the story about your dad and the Goblin?"
"Yeah, he did. But, Peter, he wouldn't do it until I mentioned you, so…"
"Makes sense. You did good, Harry."
He froze. These sorts of conversations usually never went like this. "You're… not upset about the fact that I told him about you?" After he specifically told Harry not to, no less.
"No. He'd find out sooner or later. Not a big deal."
Harry couldn't calm down. He was missing something. Something obvious, that he was once again too stupid to see.
"But I… even though you told me not to, I still told—"
"Harry… I'm not angry with you. I mean what I said. You did good. Great, even. Getting someone like Jonah to do what we want is tricky. I'm only surprised that you telling him about me convinced him, instead of scaring him off."
Harry blinked. Cowboy Jonah always seemed to love anyone who was a problem for Fisk. He was missing something yet again.
"No, he… he seemed to like the sound of you. He said if you were half as good as I said you were, then I'd probably be fine, so he'd publish."
"Wow," the man said, before letting out a bemused grunt. "I can't imagine what you had to string together, to make him like the sound of me."
Harry furrowed his brow. He was pretty sure all he said was the truth.
"Okay. That's your part done, Harry. Give yourself a pat on the back. The next few days are going to get crazy, but you just need to go to ground for a little bit and be somewhere your father won't be able to reach you. No further contact with your dad from here on out. And you're going to have Joe Fixit sticking to you like glue the whole time."
"I… okay? That sounds fine to me." Peter wasn't angry with him, despite Harry's mistake. Was Peter strange for not having any problems with this? Or was he strange for expecting to get into a shouting match over something apparently trivial?
Or, more disquietingly, was there something deeply wrong with every single relationship Harry ever had before this one?
"I'm going to give this phone over to Joe again now. He's done a lot of bodyguard work in the past. He's an expert, and I'm going to let him make the arrangements with you, okay?"
"Yeah, that's fine. It's just…"
"Harry?" Peter asked, a note of concern entering his voice.
"Thank you, Peter. For all your help." Harry didn't know what else to say aside from that.
"It's no big deal," he responded, somehow sounding just as guilty as Harry felt in that moment. "I'm the one who owes you something, Harry."
He wondered, had getting along with someone else ever been this easy? Nothing he'd tried before had ever been as straightforward as this. How could someone so forgiving ever possibly feel guilt towards the likes of Harry Osborn, of all people?
And then things clicked into place. Peter must be lonelier than Harry ever was.
"Yeah, so, it's Joe Fixit again! So, I figure, the way we're gonna do this, Harry is—"
"He's not doing okay, is he?" Harry couldn't help but ask. "Peter, I mean," Harry couldn't help but clarify.
He heard a sigh. Then a bitter bark of laughter. "No. No, he's not been doing okay for a long time now. It's just been so long that it seems normal to him and everyone else he hangs out with."
"I see," he said, only because he didn't know what else to say.
"So… you wanna help Joe fix it, Mr. Osborn?" Joe Fixit said, his voice almost relishing the pun. As if it was a catchphrase, one he'd been waiting years to say.
"Yes," was all Harry could say. But he was decisive. Because if someone like Peter couldn't be helped, then what chance did he even have?
"Beautiful. Good man. So, like he said, I'm gonna stick to you like glue for the next few days. And I figured, you know, maybe the two of us could workshop a few ideas together while we're at it. Because once this business with your dad is wrapped up, buddy, you're going to have some very deep pockets after that. And that… gives us a lot of directions we can take to help this pal of ours."
"Hmm," Harry mused, finding a small grin playing up on the edges of his face. Wondering, instead of dreading, at what was going to happen next.