by David Liss
While he pulled off his suit, he tried to focus his anger in the right direction. Fisk was famous for counter-punching, so it didn’t surprise Peter that—even after all these years—he’d be looking to get back at Spider-Man. Fisk didn’t know how to hurt the man, so he figured he could hurt the image. Peter couldn’t worry about reputation, though. He had to focus on doing what he could to help as many people as possible.
Uncle Ben had said it himself.
“With great power there must also come—great responsibility.”
It was something Peter hadn’t considered, the night he decided not to stop a thief—the thief who later killed his uncle. They were the words Peter tried to live by now. He had a responsibility to use his abilities the best way he could. He also had a habit of examining everything he did, picking over every move, every decision, to see if he could have done better.
Were there better choices he might have made tonight—choices that might have saved Andy’s life? Peter thought he’d done what seemed to be the right thing at the time, not knowing that he’d been set down onto the board of a bigger game. If Fisk was involved, though, he couldn’t afford to let his guard down—not again. Fisk was as corrupt as they came, and Peter couldn’t change that. He could, however, stop him, and that meant doing everything in his power to make it happen.
First things first, though.
What he needed more than anything else was to see MJ. She always talked him down, helped him feel better. She wasn’t answering her phone again, though, so he figured he should go out and look for her.
Turning on the shower, he took a cautionary sniff at his suit. There was a tear, a souvenir of the fight with his opponent. He’d need to fix that. It was starting to get a little rank, too, but cleaning it was complicated and time-consuming. It’d have to wait. Fortunately the outer layers were scent-proof, which meant that—for now—he’d be the only one who would have to live with the funk. When he took it off, however, the sweat seemed to rise from his body in undulating waves.
I, he thought, am gross.
* * *
EVEN if Peter had examined himself closely in a mirror, he wouldn’t have seen the tiny patch, no bigger than a thumbnail, stuck to his lower back. From the moment his attacker had torn through his suit and attached it to his skin, it had begun to blend in, matching itself to its surroundings in color and texture.
It didn’t come off in the shower, either. It had its limitations, though. It would dry up and peel off in a few days. In the meantime, it would transmit its data.
* * *
IT was 11:37, and Peter still hadn’t made contact with MJ. He knew it was foolish to worry, but he worried anyhow. That was part of the package, and MJ knew it. Peter had lost his parents when he was very young, and that had impressed upon him the fragility of the world. He’d lost his Uncle Ben because of his own foolish choices. That had only made the feelings more intense.
He did everything he could to keep his identity a secret. No matter what, he had to keep MJ, Aunt May, and all of his friends out of the crosshairs. The possibility haunted him every day, though. No matter how careful he was, someone might learn who he was, and use the people he cared about as leverage.
Or worse.
So of course he worried. More than that, he wanted to talk to the only person who knew his secret, telling her about the things that had happened that night.
MJ rented an apartment near Washington Square Park, and he had the key. He let himself in, but only to make sure that the legendary night owl hadn’t surprised him by going to sleep early. No luck there, though, so he considered his options.
He might call their mutual friend Harry Osborn. The three of them had been a team for years, and sometimes MJ told Harry things she didn’t tell Peter. She said it was because Peter tended to worry. Objectively he understood, yet it bothered him—mostly because he was a worrier. This, he knew, was a vicious cycle. Besides, if MJ was going to confide in anyone else, Peter wanted it to be Harry. He was smart, insightful, and an all-around good person.
He also had a lot more free time than Peter. Unlike some people, who, say, labored all day in a lab, and then swung around the city half the night as Spider-Man, Harry had the advantage of a rich father. It was an advantage, Peter knew, that Harry would have traded away in an instant.
Harry had long resisted working for Oscorp, his father’s company. He’d briefly been willing to work on a pet project for his mother, but that hadn’t satisfied Norman Osborn. Then again, he was never satisfied. Now Osborn was mayor of New York City, and that might have been a blessing. Running the city meant Norman didn’t have as much time to harangue his son, pressing Harry to do something with his life. He’d become a part-time thorn in his son’s side.
So growing up rich had to come with its own burdens—though Peter might’ve been willing to bear burdens like that. Still, he thought he understood. He’d always been hungry to achieve great things, to make his own way in the world. Often it felt like thrashing around in a storm-tossed sea, struggling just to survive. Yet, how did you motivate yourself when—no matter what happened—you knew you were going to be okay?
Again, problems Peter wouldn’t mind sampling.
But he knew Harry’s struggles were real.
His friend had scheduled an upcoming trip to Europe, and he hoped some time away would help him out. Harry “wanted to travel, to see the world, to consider his options,” he said. He’d be touring some of the European Oscorp facilities, but that was to placate his father. What Harry really wanted was some distance from his father, and to get his head together.
* * *
SURE enough, Harry was home. It just proved that he really had no idea what he wanted, or how to get it. Here he was, a good-looking 22-year-old heir to billions, alone in his apartment on a Saturday night—reading medical journals. Sure, he’d never really been a party boy, but this was dreary even by Harry’s standards.
“You thinking about medical school?” Peter asked as he took a seat. Harry’s apartment was four times the size of Peter’s and furnished with things people bought in actual stores. Truth be told, though, Peter had a certain fondness for New York’s curbside treasures. The thrill of the hunt and all. Harry shrugged as he poured Peter a glass of flavored seltzer.
“Just considering my options.”
Peter took the glass as Harry sat down across from him. It had to be hard, in its own way. Much of Peter’s life had been dictated by what he felt like he had to do—to use his abilities wisely, to learn as much as he could, to pay the rent, to avoid disappointing the people who cared about him. Perhaps it was paralyzing, having everything handed over on a silver platter.
“Maybe you could look at some med schools in Europe?”
“Maybe,” Harry replied noncommittally. Then he laughed. “Listen, Pete, stop pretending—I know perfectly well why you’re here,” he said. “We’ve been friends a long time, so you’re not going to hurt my feelings. You want to know where MJ is.”
“She’s not answering her phone,” Peter admitted sheepishly. “And it’s late.”
“Maybe for an old lady like you.”
“Says the guy who’s reading medical journals on a Saturday night.”
“Touché,” Harry replied. “Then again, what have you been up to that’s so interesting? Wherever MJ is, why aren’t you with her?”
There it was. Peter hated it. He’d considered many times telling Harry the truth, but he’d never been able to bring himself to do it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Harry. He trusted him completely. It always came down to the fact that he didn’t have to tell him. He could be friends with Harry and not tell him, and that kept both of them a little safer.
There was a part of him, as well, that worried that somehow if he told Harry, Norman Osborn might find out. Harry might let something slip, or talk in his sleep. Something. Anything. He might let out a fraction of the truth, and the relentlessly clever Norman Osborn would piece together the rest. It was
n’t that Peter thought Norman was bad, but he wasn’t exactly good, either. He liked power a little too much.
Why else would a guy at the helm of one of the most successful companies in the world decide he had to be mayor of one of the most important cities in the world? It was ego, Peter thought, pure and simple. If there was a prize out there, Norman Osborn couldn’t resist grabbing it—doing whatever he could to be the best, the most important, the most influential.
“I’ve been, uh, working at the lab,” Peter lied. “There were some time-sensitive experiments.” It was a classic from his bag of excuses. Harry never seemed to suspect, in part because there had been plenty of times when Peter really had gotten wrapped up in time-sensitive experiments. As the son of a scientist and inventor, Harry understood all too well.
“Yeah, you’re living the wild life,” Harry said. “How can I compete?”
“Look, if you’re teasing me this much, it means you know where MJ is and just want to make me suffer.”
“Maybe a little bit,” Harry admitted. “Plus I didn’t want you to go all protective when you found out that she’s in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“She’s what?” Peter said. “By herself? At night?”
“Easy, Lancelot,” Harry said, and he laughed. “She can take care of herself, and you know it.”
He did. If Peter hadn’t been augmented by spider-powers, MJ could have beaten him up while checking her email. She’d studied martial arts for years, and on a few harrowing occasions she’d proved she knew how to practice what she preached. Logically, Peter pitied the poor guy who tried to take her purse. Emotionally, he wanted to be there to keep it from happening.
“It’s an audition piece for the Bugle,” Harry said. “She’s doing some kind of feature on people who work late-night shifts. I forget the specifics.”
“That sounds interesting,” Peter replied, trying to play it cool. “Maybe I should pay her a visit, see if I can lend her a hand. Give her the benefit of my years of journalistic experience, you know.”
“As a photographer.” Harry smirked. “What sort of hand do you think you could lend her?”
Peter opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Relax, dude.” Harry laughed again. “She told me to let you know if you happened to drop by.”
“Then why didn’t she just tell me herself?”
“Because if she did, then she knew you’d have to check on her.” He gave Peter a look. “Maybe she knew about your ‘time-sensitive experiments,’ and didn’t want you to feel obligated.”
Trying not to seem too eager, Peter got Harry to give him the address. They talked a little longer—as little as he could manage—and said good night, agreeing to get together soon. Then Peter left.
* * *
HE wasn’t wearing his suit, so Peter took a cab he couldn’t afford, and found MJ right where Harry said she would be. It was an all-night grocery in Hell’s Kitchen, where she was finishing up an interview with the owner, a shy and polite man named Danilo Ocampo.
Ocampo was an immigrant from the Philippines. He’d been working eighteen-hour days for the past ten years and, in spite of owning his own business, was still having a hard time making ends meet. Like the other people she’d been interviewing, he’d won a lottery that would let him live in a new Fisk apartment complex at affordable rates. The piece she was writing was about how Fisk’s real estate ventures were going to change the lives of the ordinary New Yorkers.
“Fisk,” Peter snapped. “Are you kidding me?”
These days Fisk’s name was everywhere. The media loved his riches-to-rags-to-riches angle, though Peter suspected the Kingpin never lost his fortune—just did a good job of hiding it. Suddenly he was New York’s most benevolent businessman, putting up huge buildings full of luxury apartments mixed with equally spacious subsidized units, paying his workers well above standard wages, developing projects designed to attract jobs to the city.
In truth, the Fisk way was theft on a grand scale, drug dealing, human trafficking, extortion, and money laundering for some of the most dangerous criminals in the world. The Fisk way was power and corruption and acquisition at any cost.
“How can you agree to do a puff piece on that guy?” Peter asked.
“I know what Fisk is,” MJ whispered, “but this is a good story. It could get me the job at the Bugle, and then I’ll stick with it, because if I cover Fisk—even if it’s from a features perspective—I might dig up the proof that pokes a hole in his PR balloon.”
Peter thought back to what he’d learned from Lieutenant Watanabe—that Fisk was still developing high-end real estate, only hiding it behind shell corporations. A story like that could expose the hypocrisy of the “new” Fisk, but it might also risk Watanabe’s sources. Worse, it could put MJ in Fisk’s crosshairs, and there was no way he was going to do that.
Taking MJ by the arm, he gently led her outside. What he had to say next might elicit a loud reaction, and he didn’t want that to happen in front of the smiling Mr. Ocampo. They stepped off to one side, out of the pool of light that came from the grocery.
“You do not want to cross Fisk,” Peter said. “You don’t even want him to wonder if you might be thinking of crossing him. Best of all, you don’t want him to know you exist. A guy like that won’t hesitate to have a journalist killed.”
She glared at him for a moment before responding.
“What, you can take all the risks you want, but I can’t?” MJ asked. “Is this the way it works now? Because it’s the first I’ve heard about it.”
“I’m not saying that.” He groaned. “I’m just saying you could focus on other kinds of stories for the moment. That’s all.”
“Like dog shows,” she suggested, “and the latest app craze.”
“Come on, MJ.”
“No, you come on,” she said, poking him in the chest. She was so intense that he felt a buzzing in the back of his head. “I’m applying for the features job because that’s where there’s an opening, but my goal—my real goal—is investigative reporting. Once they see what I can do, I’ll have a shot at it. This is my calling, Peter. It’s what I want to do. It’s how I can make a difference. You, of all people, have to understand—and you can’t seriously tell me not to follow my dream.”
He sighed. “No, I can’t. I wouldn’t. I shan’t!”
That seemed to do it. She took a step back and smiled at him.
“Look, I know you worry,” she said. “I worry about you too, but I learned how to deal with it. Now you’re going to have to learn to live with it, too.”
Suddenly Peter realized that the buzzing hadn’t stopped. There was a scrape of shoe against pavement.
“What a sweet couple of lovebirds.”
They turned, and there was a man standing there. He looked like every other passerby—cotton shirt, jeans, a jacket… and a switchblade.
“Hand over your wallets,” he said. “Jewelry, too.”
“You don’t want to do this,” MJ said, smiling sweetly. “Just walk away, turn your life around.”
“Don’t tell me what I w—”
That was as far as he got, because MJ’s knee had made contact with his groin. Though it was hardly necessary, as he fell to the sidewalk she added a kick. Then she leaned over him as he squirmed on the ground.
“Remember, crime doesn’t pay,” she told him as she scooped up his knife, closed it, and dropped it into her purse. Then she looked over at Peter. “Good thing you were here to save me.”
Peter gave her a wry grin. “Point taken.”
SHE had a game on her phone where the point was to tap the screen along with the rhythm of a music video. Maya couldn’t hear the music, though. She had never heard anything, yet she always did well at the game—perhaps better than someone who could hear.
There were other cues. The rhythm of shapes and colors, the pulse of the vibrations. People who could hear had no need to pay attention, to be mindful of all the ways the world d
irects you without sound.
This fight was like that. It had a rhythm, a pulse, an anticipatory beat. There was a music that she couldn’t hear, that she could never know, and its absence put her at a disadvantage. It also freed her from its distractions. Her opponents were lost in the music, but she followed the rhythm.
She wore a simple black tank top and compression shorts. Her shoulder-length black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She sought to expose as much of her skin as possible without offending her sense of modesty. It was important to feel every movement, every change in the air. She’d learned all this when she studied dance. She did not need to hear the world to be in touch with it.
Her opponent—the one she couldn’t see—approached from behind. He knew she couldn’t hear him, so he wasn’t bothering to be subtle. She felt him, though, through the pulsing of his feet on the canvas beneath. She sensed the slight breeze as he raised his arm, preparing to bring down his cudgel. She’d seen his moves before, studied them, and memorized every detail. Whatever he did, she could anticipate it, and she could copy it.
Maya knew the arc of his swing. She knew how high he would reach and how he would stick out his right foot, pointed slightly outward. At the apogee he would pause for the tiniest fraction of a second.
The two men in front of her thought they could box her in, set her up for the ambush. She let them believe they had her trapped. That was how she would win.
Had this been out in the world, if it were a real assault, it would be over already. The three men would be on the ground, unconscious or in too much pain to put up a fight. Here in the gym she drew it out, because Mr. Fisk enjoyed the show. He liked watching her outsmart adversaries who ought to have every advantage. Even so, in his mind she was the poor little deaf girl he had saved.
Mr. Fisk had given her so much. It was true—he had saved her. There was no other way to put it. Rescued her from a misery so dark and terrible she rarely let herself remember. He hadn’t made her strong—that she had done for herself—but he allowed her to find her strength. Enabled her to become what she was. So if he wanted a show, then a show was the least she could give him.
