Spider-Man let go of the webline he was using to swing through the concrete jungle of Manhattan, and gracefully somersaulted once or twice before sticking out a hand and shooting off a fresh line that quickly anchored itself to the corner of the nearest building. It caused a jarring sensation in his shoulder, but no great extent – Peter was used to the sensation by now and paid it no heed, really. He was too busy basking in the sunshine and the cloudless sky – and the very definite lack of bank robberies or car chases that usually conspired to destroy his enjoyment of these sorts of occasions. It wasn't often that he got to websling purely because he felt like it, but when he did, he always made sure that he made the most of it.
Pity MJ couldn't enjoy it with me, he thought. She'd have loved to be this high up – and it would have stopped me looking like a clown in that ridiculous get-up she had me modeling. He stopped and snickered to himself as he flipped over and over, landing on the side of a building and clinging there next to a wide-mouthed gargoyle. Says the man in skin-tight spandex – it's not like I can talk about ridiculous get-ups, considering who I like to spend most of my social time with. Heck, even the Shocker's outfit actually looks pretty swell next to what MJ had me wearing. Still… it made her happy. Maybe now I can convince her to dress more like Jessica Alba… He sighed beneath his mask as he patted the grotesque gargoyle on the head. Ahh, who am I kidding? MJ'd never agree to wear that much leather – not unless I waited on her hand and foot for about three weeks straight. He sighed again. Hey – I'm a liberated man, I can do that. His smile widened underneath his mask. Ain't married life grand?
The northern city limits were cold, swept by a biting easterly breeze that chilled the bones and set the teeth on edge. Wilson Fisk seemed untroubled by it, though, and neither did the muscular woman standing by his side, despite the fact that she was sparsely clothed, and what clothes she did wear were designed to display her body rather than shield it from the elements. Behind the Kingpin were several suited thugs who carried machine pistols and surly looks. About five meters away from the brutal ensemble, there stood an almost exact mirror image – except at the head of this assembly of men was Fortunato, and his son, Jimmy 6. Fortunato wheezed quietly in the wind, and leaned on a cane that had an elegant ivory handle, his thin shoulders covered by a thick coat. If his face had not been ruined by the large eyepatch that obscured his left eye, he could have easily been taken for an ordinary, run-of-the-mill eccentric businessman. As it was, however, the patch leant him a look of brutal efficiency and viciousness that would have made lesser men afraid. Fisk, however, was not intimidated. Ever since he had snapped the neck of the previous Don in order to ascend to the highest echelons of power, he had not been afraid of anything – save losing that power. Fortunato was little more than an annoyance to be rubbed out.
"Fisk," Fortunato said in a dry wheeze.
"Fortunato." Fisk kept his voice impassive. "Well, it would seem we are all here. Why don't we get right to the nub of the matter? I'm assuming you don't want to waste any more time on pointless small talk?"
Fortunato's grizzled face twisted upwards into a slight smile. "Very astute, Fisk. Very astute. Let's get this over with, then, shall we?"
The Kingpin smiled. Yes indeed. Let's...
The explosion immediately ruined Peter's mood. I knew today was too good to be true, he thought miserably, as he heard the sound of glass popping and shattering from the intense heat. Squinting in the direction of the noise, he saw that the source of the belching black smoke and long orange tongues of flame was a Kingsley International building – from the look of it an office block. Half of the building's façade had been ripped away by the explosion, and Peter tried hard not to look at some of the twisted remains of people that were sprawled underneath large, sharp pieces of concrete. Spraying some webbing onto his hands he fashioned a makeshift pair of gloves so that he could try to shift the larger pieces out of his path without slicing his hands to ribbons. He coughed as some of the thick greasy smoke filling the building got in under his mask, and lifted it to wipe away some spittle before securing it in place again.
"Come on, fella," he said, offering his hand to a man whose legs were pinned underneath a fallen roof support. "Let's get you out of here." The man shook his balding head, his few strands of remaining hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and his eyes filled with pain.
"I – I can't," he said, his voice shaky and hesitant. "My ankle's broken –" He stopped and screamed with shock as the support shifted slightly. Quickly, Spidey moved in closer and got his hands underneath the support, and heaved. It shifted enough for the man to move his leg out of the way. It was pretty mashed up, but Peter was sure that if he splinted it with some webbing it would be okay. There were bound to be some EMTs on the scene soon who'd be able to give him some better, more lasting treatment, he reasoned.
"You want me to take a look at that?" said a voice that Spidey had not heard in a really, really long time, from over Peter's shoulder. "I am a qualified doctor, you know."
"Yeah, I know," he replied, before turning and standing to come face to blue-and-white face with Dr. Elias Wirtham – who, unknown to Peter, was also the superhuman entity known simply as Cardiac. "What are you doing here, Cardiac?"
"Saving lives, like you," Cardiac replied, kneeling down to check the man's leg. "You'll live," he told the startled man. "Here," and he handed him a powerful sedative capsule. "Take this – it ought to make it hurt a lot less. Tell the paramedics to get you to an emergency room as quickly as they can, though – I can't fix that with what I've got on me right now. You need that in plaster as soon as possible, or it's going to have to come off." The man nodded, and watched Cardiac stand again with wide, saucer-shaped eyes.
"It's okay," Peter said softly. "This is one of the good guys. Last time I checked, anyway. You want to reassure him too, Cardiac?" Cardiac sighed, and spread his hands out to either side.
"He's right. I'm just here to help." His armor glinted in the light of the fire, and Spidey felt the heat approaching more quickly than he would have liked.
"There are still more people trapped in here, let's get to them." Cardiac nodded, all thoughts of verbal sparring put away for the moment, and he picked up the man and stowed him across his shoulder, sprinting away towards the makeshift entrance the explosion had created. Watching him go for a moment, Spidey quickly put his mind on the task in hand. He found an unconscious woman underneath her desk and put her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry after giving her CPR in order to get her breathing again. He then did the same for a startled-looking but conscious man, who had been just across the way from where Peter was presently stood, his arm cut deeply by a thick shard of glass. Carrying the two of them effortlessly, even if the man did wriggle a little too much for his liking, he deposited them outside the building. "Watch her!" he told the man hurriedly. "If she stops breathing again, do what I just did!" The man was too shocked to do anything else except sink back onto his haunches and nod dumbly as Spidey hopped back towards the building's ripped-up shell.
The fire fighters arrived more quickly than Peter had thought they would, but he was grateful nonetheless as the flames died down, and the building was made as safe as it could be again. As the EMTs attended to those people that he had managed to get out of the building, he saw Cardiac trying to make an unobtrusive exit, and despite his misgivings, he decided that it was probably a better course of action to let Cardiac – for now, at least. He had not, after all, endangered any lives, and he had not tried to wrap that staff of his around anybody's neck, either, so until he could figure out what Cardiac's game plan was, he really had no choice.
Besides, he thought, he needs to show his face without those white stripes, otherwise he'll have no civilian identity to hide behind. He sighed. He'd tried that before, and it hadn't been much fun. Better to let Cardiac keep that particular luxury. He sighed. Better get going – I expect MJ will be wanting me to model some more sooner or later, and I've got to pick up some groceries too – at least I have money to pay for them right now, which is always a good thing.
Seeing that there was nothing more he could really do that the fire-fighters and paramedics could do better, Peter shot a thick line of webbing towards the corner of the highest building he could see, and took a running leap in order to get himself airborne again.
Mad Jack watched from the shadows, his eerie orange flame illuminating the air around him just slightly. "Right on time, lad," he crowed softly. "Right on time." He moved out of the darkness and hovered noiselessly after Spider-Man, his odd flyer making no noise as he did so. "Don't be mindin' me now, will ye?"
Roderick Kingsley felt just a little uneasy, despite his suit – filled with technology that Mad Jack had "graciously" offered to gift him with; the Rose had had to virtually drag the man's secrets out of him – making him invisible to the cameras that lined the walls. Ravencroft was not somewhere he planned to stay for long – the place made him feel extremely ill at ease. He did not feel comfortable knowing that Cletus Kasady and his ilk were here in all their psychotic glory and he felt hemmed in by the walls to a great degree. He supposed it was due to some minor childhood trauma or something similar, but for the life of him he couldn't remember anything that approximated to this. A straitjacketed Typhoid Mary filled the air with twisted laughter and hooted with glee at some private thought as Kingsley passed her cell.
"I can see yoo-oou," she cackled, licking her lips with her long, slender pink tongue. Kingsley felt a shudder go down his spine, until he realized that she wasn't looking directly at him, but rather straight at the wall, her eyes filled with a crazed inhuman light. "I can see you… Daredevil…" she cooed. Kingsley stifled a shudder and moved forwards as quickly as he could, until he reached the cell he'd been looking for.
Inscribed on a metal plate next to the door was the legend Osborn, Norman.
Kingsley grinned, all former uneasiness rinsed from his system. "Hello, Norman," he said softly.
The Kingpin felt his fists clenching as the stubborn old mobster refused to give any ground in their so-far-quite-civil discussion. Gritting his teeth, he spread his hands wide and said "My apologies if I haven't made myself completely clear, Don Fortunato. Some elements of my territory are under your control at present – some areas of Manhattan and Harlem, for instance. I would like them back. I am prepared to meet any price you would like to offer me." Jimmy Six raised an eyebrow.
"Any price?" he asked. "Howsabout you an' I do a little negotiatin', here?" Fisk was about to open his mouth to reply again, when Fortunato cut him off with an angry gesture.
"No deal, Fisk. Those territories are mine now," he snapped. Pointing at Jimmy, he continued "Ignore my son. He sometimes gets a little… overzealous." His eyes narrowed. "I think that will make him a fine heir… one day." He raised a hand to his mouth and began to wheeze again, his lungs stuttering and struggling for breath for a moment or two. Then the coughing became a little more serious, liquid gurgles echoing in Fortunato's chest and twisting his grizzled face into paroxysms of pain.
"Dad? You okay?" Jimmy put a hand on his father's arm, his face betraying his concern for his father, but Fortunato shrugged him off angrily.
"I'm all right, boy. I've survived worse." He straightened a little uncertainly, and then smoothed out the creases in his long coat, wiping at his mouth with the back of a gloved hand. Delilah smiled to herself silently when she noticed that it was flecked with pink spittle and some tiny drops of blood.
"You look… unwell, Don," the Kingpin said, with a small smile on his face. "Perhaps we should adjourn until another day?" His smile deepened, his eyes still cold and flinty. "Or perhaps you ought just to give me what I want."
Fortunato shook his head again, a little more decisively this time. "You're stubborn, Fisk, I'll give you that," he said weakly. "My lands are my lands. I want you to respect them and keep out of my way. Those are my terms for any peace. They're not going to change." He put a hand to his mouth again, and a thin line of blood dribbled out of the corner of his lips. He glanced at it, and his eyes widened. He was about to say something when his body was seized by another fit of coughing, this time a lot fiercer than the last. His legs seemed to fold underneath him, and his body curled in on itself, until he suddenly screamed in pain and his limbs seemed to thrash of their own accord. Pain slashed itself across the old man's face again, but this time a lot more virulently. Jimmy 6 knelt down beside his father as the old man's struggles grew weaker and weaker, until they stopped abruptly and Fortunato's body went limp. Jimmy 6 looked up at the Kingpin, whose expression had changed from one of consternation to one of immense satisfaction.
"I take what I want, Don Fortunato," he said, although he seemed to be addressing Jimmy 6 more than Fortunato's corpse. "You would do well to remember that."
Jimmy's face twisted in pain and anguish. "That's it? You think you can just order me about now my dad's dead? There ain't gonna be any peace no more, Fisk – not now you did this." He rose from his crouch next to Fortunato's body and stomped towards the Kingpin, waving back his men. "This ends here. You're goin' down, fat man."
Delilah stepped in front of her boss, smiling seductively at the prospect of fighting someone worthy of her skills, and cracked her knuckles. "Don't bet on it, punk," she said huskily, and licked her lips in anticipation, but then the Kingpin pushed her aside.
"Enough," he said. "This is an annoyance I will deal with personally." He closed with Jimmy and delivered a meaty punch to the younger man's jaw, Jimmy's head snapping sideways uncomfortably. Jimmy staggered backwards and then hurled himself at the Kingpin again, his fists flailing in an untrained rage. Coolly, the Kingpin gripped him around the waist and pivoted so that Jimmy was slammed into the ground. Barely out of breath, Fisk sneered at the younger man. "You amateur. I was trained by the finest martial artists money could buy. But you? You're just an untrained thug." Jimmy reached into his jacket and pulled out a long, thin knife, slashing at the Kingpin's leg with it. With a disdainful expression, Fisk moved backwards with a deceptive speed and aimed a powerful kick at Jimmy's torso with one tree-trunk-like leg. There was a crunch of bone and Jimmy screamed. Fisk sneered again. "Idiot." But before he could deliver another crushing blow to Six's body, the younger man had managed to get to his feet and close with the Kingpin again. He would be severely hampered with his injury, but Fisk did not doubt that that would in any way make him less of a threat. Jimmy Six, as if to confirm that analysis, pulled out a gun from the inner pocket of his jacket and trained it on the Kingpin.
"Don't move," he said, as he staggered to his feet. "Don't you even blink. Now let's us talk about what you're going to give me for killin' my dad, shall we?"
Fisk was acutely aware that he was all-too-vulnerable to the bullets that were in Six's gun, but he knew that Delilah was not. He was gratified to see her sprinting towards the other man and gripping him by the lapels even as he unloaded his gun's full magazine wildly into the air, throwing him into the wall of a nearby building. His henchmen took that as a sign to open fire, and Delilah flipped away gracefully, twisting and vaulting towards them and laying into the nearest thug with her bare hands and a pair of sai that she had had strapped to her legs. Her graceful but deadly movements carved apart the man with ease, and the rest of them were not much more of an impediment, Delilah's knives, throwing blades and tear-gas capsules making short work of the non-powered men. As soon as Jimmy Six began to rise, Delilah made sure that the first thing he saw was the thoroughly beaten remains of his troops.
The Kingpin was about to present Jimmy Six with the reality of his defeat, when a car drove up to the meeting place at great speed, its tires squealing as it came to an abrupt halt. The door opened and out stepped a man in a leather mask, and Delilah's jaw dropped. The Kingpin noted that, since it was extremely hard to surprise her, he should take this man seriously. Still, he would have to test the waters a little, and find out if this was truly who he thought it was.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said cordially. "I am the Rose, and I have come to – if you will pardon the expression – make you an offer you can't refuse."
The Kingpin snorted with contempt. "The last I heard, the Rose was a pathetic sham created to make a washed-up newspaper journalist look good. Why should we deal with you, Conover?"
"Yeah – what makes you think you got what we don't?" Jimmy Six added, sensing that perhaps the devil he knew was an altogether better bet than the devil he did not. The Rose tilted his head.
"Jacob Conover was indeed a pathetic sham. But then again, who says I'm Jacob Conover?" He laughed humorlessly as the two large men and Delilah looked nonplussed. "Now, then. I have a suggestion I would like to put to you. I can end this gang war, once and for all – if you agree to add me to the table, theoretical as it may be. What do you say?"
The Kingpin pondered the point. Having two enemies was no better than only having one, but at least he had the measure of Jimmy Six. This man was an unknown, and that disconcerted him. Perhaps if he could get under that mask, he might learn something that could unseat this unknown quantity and weaken the Maggia to boot. He smiled thinly. "You have a deal. Don Fortunato?"
Jimmy Six sighed. The Kingpin could see that he had been going through much the same kind of thought process, and that did him credit – had he not been, the Kingpin would have been dissecting his properties almost immediately. "Yeah. You got a deal."
Spider-Man swung up onto the rooftop of the Daily Bugle on his way home – he needed a rest and to change his web cartridges, and he figured this particular landmark was the best place to do so, seeing as it was on his route home. He sat down and rolled his costume's sleeves up, unclipping the empty web cartridges and slipping them into a pocket on his belt, before replacing them with new full ones. The small indicator lights on his web-shooters blinked green and he rolled his sleeves up again. As he stood up to get moving again, he looked down at the city, and saw the bustling crowd below moving about its daily business. His thoughts started to wander a little as his tired mind began to focus on other things. He wondered if May was really alive or not, and if Kaine was really being as magnanimous as his mysterious friend claimed. For that matter, he wondered if his "friend" was really acting in his best interests at all. He wondered if perhaps he would ever see his daughter again, or if this was just another cruel ruse perpetrated by Norman Osborn. He gazed out at the city again, and then…
… something weird happened. He looked down, and noticed his feet were resting on absolutely nothing. He panicked for a moment, but then realized that he was… floating?
What's going on? Peter thought, even though he had a sick notion of who it might be that was causing this whole situation.
As if to answer his fears, the world suddenly spun crazily and before his eyes, Peter saw a giant pumpkin head appear as if from nowhere, the huge head accompanied by the Jack O'Lantern's mocking laughter. Spidey felt his vision blurring and twisting arbitrarily, strange shapes and colors flowing like water across his retinas. As his vision cleared, all that Peter could see was the Jack O'Lantern. The huge villain looked down on his tiny prey, seemingly suspended hundreds of feet above Manhattan, and crowed "I think we're missing something here, aren't we, lad?"