by David Liss
It was ajar, so he was able to peer through. Fisk sat behind his desk talking to an attractive young woman in her early twenties. Her back was to him, and from what he could see she had high cheekbones and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“This is not a neutral topic for you,” Fisk was saying, “and it should not be. I would never advocate walking away from something like this. It is merely a matter of choosing the right time.”
“That’s not what you’re advocating,” the young woman responded. “You’re choosing the right time for me, without my input.”
Fisk summoned a tight little smile from somewhere. “I’m choosing the right time for both of us. Your father was my friend, and I haven’t forgotten what was done to him. The price will be paid, but only when it is safe for us to act.”
Without context, Spider-Man couldn’t make head or tail of their discussion. What was more interesting was the way Fisk was acting with this woman. He had never seen anyone push back against him, and have Fisk take it in stride. There was no anger, no temper tantrum. She was pretty, but they weren’t giving off any kind of romantic vibe. Even the worst monsters had a soft side, he supposed, and Fisk was touchingly devoted to his wife.
No, he wasn’t flirting here. There was something almost fatherly in his tone. Yet he’d mentioned her father…
“There’s still too much you haven’t explained to me.”
“Knowledge is power, Maya,” Fisk responded, “and whoever surrenders power is a fool.”
“You have to trust me if I am to aid you,” the woman answered.
“It’s not about trust, it’s about protection,” Fisk told her. “You win at chess not by charging ahead, but by outthinking your opponent. When you get to checkmate, there is no countermove. I’ve isolated you from some of the details because there are people involved, and people behave unpredictably. That is something I never do, by controlling the board in such a way that no one will be able to touch me.
“The press will present the facts the way we want them to,” he continued. “They won’t even think about criticizing me or suggesting I might be involved in anything improper.”
The woman laughed. “You’ll be too big to fail.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Fisk let out a short laugh. It was abrupt and violent. Spider-Man thought of a seal in pain.
“That’s exactly right,” he said. “Too big to fail. I like that analogy—it’s perfect. And once that becomes true, it will be checkmate, and we will have no reason to hold back.”
* * *
“SO then she’s like, ‘We’ll be too big to fail,’ and he’s like, ‘Ha ha ha’—evil laugh— ‘yes, that’s exactly right, my loyal minion.’ It was weird. There’s something big happening.”
Spider-Man was waving his arms around while talking, and decided to adopt a more composed posture. He leaned casually against an air-conditioning unit, the way dignified people did.
“Did you get the file?” Watanabe asked.
“Yes, I got the file,” he replied. “I’ve already sent the images to the email address you gave me. That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point,” Watanabe said. “That Fisk is up to something bad? That’s not news. Doing terrible things that hurt people and make him money is what gets him out of bed in the morning.”
“I know that, but this seemed to be of a different order.”
“Maybe.” Watanabe didn’t sound convinced. “It could just be bluster, or it might be he’s about to hatch some new plot. But something that could make him untouchable? Not likely, and it doesn’t matter, because we have to stay the course. Gather evidence we can use to force the issue, and get someone to prosecute the guy.
“We can’t let ourselves become distracted.”
Spider-Man nodded, because he knew it was true. Fisk wasn’t a costumed clown he could knock down and let some mysterious government agency cart away. They had to stop him legally, or they wouldn’t stop him at all. He knew she was right.
It still left him frustrated.
“The woman he was talking to,” Spider-Man said. “He called her Maya. Does that mean anything to you?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’ll look into it.” She paused, then added, “Hysterics aside, you did good work tonight. I know it’s not glamorous, but this is how we’ll get him. I promise you.”
“It just feels like drops in the bucket.”
“Give yourself a break,” Watanabe said. “You’re only one person. You can’t change the world by yourself. You’re part of an effort now, and that effort is going to succeed in the end.”
He hoped she was right. Turning, he dove off the roof and swung into the night, wondering what the city would look like if the Kingpin’s operation really did become too big to fail.
* * *
MR. Fisk received a call, then excused himself and left the office. His wife, Vanessa, was overseas, but she apparently had something she wanted to discuss. His devotion to her was one of the many things Maya admired about him.
She stood in the middle of the floor, looking at the oscillating cameras that were not oscillating. There was nothing to be done, not tonight, so she decided not to alarm him. She would tell security, and they would investigate.
They would find nothing.
She took a pen from one of the desks and poked at the substance around a camera. It was sticky.
Webbing.
Something would definitely have to be done. It would have to be done soon.
THE plan had been to meet Aunt May for breakfast, but Peter somehow managed to sleep through the alarm he’d set on his phone. When he called his aunt, she laughed and suggested he come to F.E.A.S.T., where she worked, and they could grab a quick coffee.
This was exactly the sort of thing that left Peter feeling vaguely uneasy. His aunt had grown so used to his being unreliable, it hardly even registered with her that her nephew, the boy she had raised and treated like a son, really ought to show up on time. She had long since decided he was flighty or distracted or a kooky science type. The truth was, Peter really wanted to be considered reliable. He wanted to be someone people trusted to honor his commitments. Unfortunately, when he didn’t blow those commitments to fight a villain or rescue someone, it was because he was exhausted from living two incredibly demanding lives.
It didn’t take long to get from his apartment to the F.E.A.S.T. shelter in Little Tokyo. When he walked through the door, he immediately heard his aunt’s voice, talking in soothing tones. Her work at F.E.A.S.T. was supposed to be administrative, but—as with all charitable organizations—there were always more tasks than there were staff members, which meant everyone had to do whatever was needed at any given moment.
In this case, Aunt May was talking down a homeless man in camouflage clothing and whose missing left leg meant he got around on crutches. They’d attracted a crowd, and several of the onlookers wore frightened expressions.
Peter resisted the urge to rush in and stayed back to watch her in action. In doing so, he was reminded just how awesome his aunt could be.
“Everyone has bad days, Steve,” she was saying in a firm voice. “Everyone gets frustrated, and we’re all tempted to take it out on the people who are trying to help us, but that doesn’t make it right. Now, you owe this young man an apology for yelling at him.”
The man in camouflage turned to Harris, a clerical worker who usually affected hipster nerdiness. At the moment, though, behind his impossibly chunky glasses, he wore an expression that combined fear of the man in camo with awe at Aunt May for taking control of the situation.
“I’m truly sorry, young fellow,” the man said in a rumbling bass voice. It practically rattled the windows, but it was still full of contrition. He leaned on one of his crutches and removed his hat. “I sometimes have a problem with my temper, but I ought not to have spoken to you as I did.”
The clerical worker nodded.
“Now,” Aunt May said, “let me show yo
u where you can get something to eat, and while you do that Harris here will review the paperwork and see if we can’t straighten out the problem with your benefits.”
“After I change my underwear,” Harris mumbled.
* * *
“YOU were pretty fearless in there,” Peter said, sitting at a nearby tea shop sipping a steaming bowl of matcha.
“What, with Steve?” Aunt May waved a hand. “He’s mostly bark, very little bite. I’ve dealt with his outbursts before. He gets emotional, and I can’t say I blame him, but he always feels bad afterward. If it were someone I didn’t know, I’d have taken a much more cautious tone.”
“It’s amazing the way you take the time to know the people who use the shelter.”
“A job at a place like F.E.A.S.T. is always about keeping the lights on. That’s pretty much what’s on everyone’s mind all day, every day—but we can’t forget why we’re there. The point is not just to keep going, but to help people. When I start letting the people we serve suffer because I want to get back to the job, then I might as well find something else to do.”
Peter took another sip of the green tea. He loved its earthy flavor, and wondered why he didn’t order it more often. Oh, that’s right. Because he was usually too busy to hang out in tea shops. The fact that he was only a few hours behind schedule with his aunt, instead of canceling entirely, meant that he was having a pretty good day so far.
“I’m really sorry about this morning.”
“I know you’re busy,” she said, “and you’ve always been easily distracted, but your heart is in the right place. I never doubt that, Peter. So how are things at the lab?”
Peter gave her the rundown of the work and the latest updates concerning MJ, whom she adored. She listened and smiled and took genuine pleasure in hearing about his life. He wished he had the time to be a better nephew, and far less irresponsible. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be as forgiving as Aunt May.
As they walked back to the homeless shelter, Peter realized this was exactly what he’d needed. He’d been feeling so unmoored in his own life, wondering about what mattered, about where he was putting his energy. Then she reminded him. People were what mattered. His family, his friends, and MJ. Aunt May got it intuitively. The little problems and frustrations never seemed to distract her from what was important.
He walked her back to her desk and was about to leave when a smiling man in an impeccably tailored suit approached them.
“This must be the nephew I’ve heard so much about,” the man said.
Aunt May seemed to glow with pride. “Peter, I’d like you to meet Martin Li, our benefactor.”
He’d heard a ton about Mr. Li, mostly from his aunt. He was a self-made man who’d become one of the city’s most successful businessmen. From what Aunt May had said, Martin Li was essentially the anti-Fisk. Rather than wanting to wring money from suffering and trying to pretend he was a philanthropist, Li was determined to give back to the city that had provided him with an opportunity to make something of himself.
“It’s great to meet you,” Peter said. If there were more Martin Lis in the world, he thought, then there might not have been the need for a Spider-Man. “What you do here is so important.”
“We wouldn’t do much of anything here without your aunt,” Mr. Li said. “She holds this place together.”
She waved her hand again and laughed, but her eyes crinkled with pleasure. Raising him must have felt like banging her head against a wall, Peter mused. Now she had an opportunity to work hard and see the results of her labors.
“Your aunt tells me you’re quite the scientist.”
“I’ve been very lucky,” Peter said. “I ended up working with a great innovator, and I’m learning an incredible amount from him.”
“Gratitude is an important component of success,” Mr. Li said. “I’m sure you must be busy, but if you have any free time, consider volunteering a few hours here and there. I think you’d find it rewarding, and it would give you even more insight into how remarkable a person your aunt is.”
“I’d like that,” Peter said. He wished he could commit right then and there, but he didn’t want to let yet another person down. They shook hands again, and Li walked into the back.
“He seems like a good guy,” he said to his aunt as he hugged her goodbye.
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” she agreed.
* * *
HE had just enough time to get to the West Village to make his appointment with Harry Osborn. It wouldn’t be long before Harry was off in Europe, and when he wasn’t around Peter would hate to think he’d missed the opportunity to spend time with his friend.
They were meeting at the Coffee Bean, a place on Bleecker Street where they’d hung out since high school. Peter passed by a creepy old mansion that had freaked him out when he was still young enough to wonder if a house might be haunted. Maybe he was still young enough, because there was no way to look at that place without wondering if something supernatural was going on inside.
Just as he reached the door, Peter checked his watch and saw he was still two minutes early. This was turning out to be a remarkable day. When he entered he saw Harry already seated at the table, waiting for him.
“I thought I’d finally beat you somewhere,” he said, shaking his friend’s hand.
“And here I was kicking myself for being punctual when meeting you,” Harry replied. “But you’re actually early. The end times are upon us.”
Peter smiled and sat down. He’d learned to act like his unreliability was just a goofy part of his personality, but there was no getting around the fact that Harry, like his aunt, thought of him as unreliable.
“You caught up with MJ the other night?”
“Yeah, and she got the job at the Bugle.”
“I know,” Harry said. “That’s great, right? You must be thrilled for her.”
“I am,” Peter said, “but, I don’t know, I get the feeling that there’s something off between us right now. She seems kind of distant, somehow?”
“Have you talked to her about it?”
“We were going to talk last night, but—” Peter stopped himself. “I haven’t, but you have, haven’t you. You totally know what’s going on, don’t you?”
Harry held up his hand, palm out. The three of them had been friends for years, and Harry had elevated third-wheeling to a sublime art. He could be friends with both MJ and Peter, and each could confide in him, but they’d learned to respect that he had to protect himself from becoming a go-between.
“Peter, if it were something you needed to hear from me, I would tell you,” he said, “but I’m not going to play couples counselor.”
“But I heard your rates are reasonable.” Peter made a conscious decision not to worry. Couples had disagreements all the time, and whatever was bothering MJ, they would work it through. He was determined to enjoy his time with his friend.
Asking Harry about his travel plans, he allowed himself to relax and listen. When he’d been younger it had been hard not to feel envious of Harry. Even now, the idea of picking up and spending months in Europe seemed like a fantasy. He couldn’t even consider something like that. It wasn’t because of the money—not that he had any—but because of the things that tied him down here in New York. He’d never consider walking away from his obligations, but the thought made for a nice daydream.
They’d eaten lunch and were on the second coffees when the atmosphere in the restaurant seemed to shift. All conversations stopped at the same time. There were several gasps. Peter felt himself tense. He knew from experience how people responded when something terrible was happening, but at the same time his Spider-Sense hadn’t so much as twitched.
Peter looked up and saw what had happened, and it was only with the greatest effort that he kept himself from groaning. Norman Osborn, the mayor of New York City, and Harry’s father, had just walked into the Coffee Bean.
HARRY made no effort to conceal his displeasure as the ma
yor slowly made his way over to their table. Slick as oil in his bespoke suit, Osborn had to stop to shake hands, pose for selfies, and sign autographs. That gave Harry plenty of time to put on his game face. He didn’t seem interested in doing so.
“So you had no idea he was going to show up here?”
“Are you serious?” Harry responded. “I don’t even know how he found out where I was going to be. Sometimes I think he’s having me followed.”
It wouldn’t be the first time, Peter knew. Norman had arranged surveillance for his son years ago, but that was when he was the son of a famously rich innovator and attending public school. Peter didn’t think Norman would have a good reason to keep an eye on his adult son, but at the same time he wouldn’t put anything past the man either.
Norman had a tendency to do what he wanted.
“Peter!” the mayor cried happily when he finally ran the gauntlet of constituents and reached the table. He embraced Peter in a hug. His son got a clap on the shoulder.
“How did you know where to find us?” Harry asked coldly.
“What makes you think I knew?” Norman shot back while they sat. “Just grabbing a cup of coffee. These kinds of coincidences happen in the big city every day.”
That was certainly true. New York was the world’s biggest small town. At the same time, the mayor hadn’t actually denied anything. He’d simply proposed an alternative theory.
“So, what’s new with you?” he asked Peter. “Still slaving away in that salt mine of a lab?”
“He’s working on a number of interesting things right now,” Peter replied, knowing that his mentor would want him to keep things vague. “It’s exciting stuff.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” Norman said, “but I’ve seen his funding, and I know he can’t afford to pay you what you’re worth. You could be making a fantastic salary if you wanted to come over to Oscorp.”
“Can you just leave him alone one time?” Harry put his hands to his face and groaned.
