Fisk walked past the three men and to his desk where he stopped with his back to them. He paused a moment, rested his hands on the desk and took a deep breath.
With a scream of rage he threw the telephone off his desk and back at the three men who parted. The phone shattered against the back wall.
Richard Fisk tugged on his suit coat and brushed off his shoulders.
"The plan has not changed?" said Oliver Turner, more as a statement than a question.
"Precisely," said Fisk as he attempted a smile. "And if my father is there, all the better, all the sweeter."
"Peter, think about this for a moment."
I was half way to being Spider-Man and MJ was pleading with me.
"You think Richard Fisk knows who you are and you think he leaked the Bugle story to the press, what's to stop him from leaking the Spidey link? And what are those reporters to think when Spider-Man leaps off the balcony of the suite of the woman he was seen with earlier this evening."
"Then I'll take the stairs and use the roof."
"Peter, please."
"Mary Jane..."
She was almost crying. On the verge of it. I was hurting her. Again.
"MJ, I have to do this," I said, raising my hand to touch her cheek.
She pulled away.
"I know," she said as the first tear fell.
She left the bedroom and me alone to finish dressing.
A dusty apartment exploded in a ball of flames.
Wilson Fisk entered the warehouse with the look of death on him. No one dared approach him or the two men who flanked him as they walked through the warehouse towards the office in the back.
The three men were surprised then the door opened and even more surprised at the man who entered.
"Good evening, gentlemen." Wilson Fisk stood in the doorway and smiled briefly, losing it as quickly as he had it. He stepped into the office, looking momentarily at the broken phone on the floor, and then walking past the three men and behind the desk where he sat. One of the two men who flanked him through the warehouse walked to a corner of the office while the other closed the door. "Imagine my surprise when I was informed that three of my favorite native sons had come home. Imagine my greater surprise when I found out it was at the invitation of my own flesh and blood."
The three men stood and stared at Wilson Fisk as he rocked back and forth in his chair.
"And then, oh what a feeling I had when I heard that they dared to plot to take what is rightfully mine. What a show of force that takeover was to have been."
The three men remained silent.
"I was so taken aback I had to come see this for myself."
He stood up.
"As I'm sure you all are painfully aware by now, you have failed. There will be a change of power in Washington D.C. but there will be no war."
Two silenced shots, one from each of the Kingpin's escorts, and Michael Asner and Howard Cummings fell to the ground, dead.
"Either I took your only good eye," said Wilson Fisk to Oliver Turner who glared at the Kingpin with his one good eye, "or your greed made you blind and sloppy."
"And yours will be the end of you."
Wilson Fisk reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box
"I have no need for this anymore," he said, handing the box to Turner. "Or this," he said, gesturing around. "Washington D.C. is a mess, it's a horrible town to do business in, and I tire of it. You can have it back, it and all of its headaches."
Turner looked to the box in his hands and back to Fisk, unsure what to say or do. Here was the man he hated, was willing to die fighting, and he was giving him the city he was about to die fighting for.
Giving him the city.
"I'd rather earn it," said Turner, holding the box out to Fisk, unsure what it was, but certain of it's symbolism as the passing of the torch.
"Keep it from my son," said Fisk, gently pushing Turner's hand back towards him, "and then you will have earned it."
Wilson Fisk left the office with his two men in tow. As they walked through the warehouse Turner came after them.
"There is a catch, Fisk, and I know it!" he shouted to the three men leaving.
"Nothing is free in our business, I've been around long enough to know that and it didn't take me losing an eye to figure it out. There's a catch, and I'll find it!"
He followed Fisk and his guards to the door.
"I'll find it and you will pay for it, Fisk, you will pay until you're dead and then your family and your empire will pay!"
Wilson Fisk stepped out the door and his two men followed.
"I WILL GET YOU IN THE END, WILSON FISK!" Turner shouted as he leapt out the door to yell at the three men.
Lights flashed on all around the warehouse, white spotlights, red and white sirens, men silhouetted by the blinding brilliance of a police bust.
It wasn't every cop Washington D.C. that surrounded that warehouse, but it was pretty close.
Oliver Turner raised his hands and dropped the box Wilson Fisk had given him as an officer announced for everyone in the building to come out with their hands up. Turner glanced at the ground and the box that had opened when it fell.
And he saw that Wilson Fisk had returned his eye as it stared up at him from the sidewalk.
Senator Lewis Young stepped into his home with a curse, wondering where his damn maid was and why she hadn't answered the door after he rang the doorbell five times. None of the lights were on in the house, which made it additionally awkward.
After a quick check of the downstairs Young went upstairs, all the while calling out her name, thinking that maybe she had fallen asleep.
"Maria?" he shouted as he reached the top of the stairs and looked into her room.
No one. He went towards the master bedroom and paused. Footprints to and away from the room, footprints the color of rust. He slowly opened the bedroom door and almost fainted at the sight.
Maria and two men laid tangled in his blood soaked bed, all dead. A gun was on the floor a few feet away.
Upon later inspection by Senator Young and the police drug paraphernalia was found on the bed stands, the floor, and in the bed, needles and bags.
A bloodied suit and shoes was found in a garbage bag in a dumpster a block and a half from the Senator's house, the clothing belonging to the Senator himself.
And the gun had his prints all over it.
Senator Lewis Young quickly learned the price he paid for betraying the Kingpin, but it was too late.
Richard Fisk screamed with rage as he threw the remote at the television. It uselessly bounced off the set and Fisk jumped to his feet, grabbing the television and tearing the cord from the wall, tossing the set through the sliding glass doors and with just enough force to get it over the balcony railing and send it falling to the sidewalk below.
Wilson Fisk had trumped him in all areas.
Asner and Cummings were dead, Turner and his army arrested, the D.C. police and the FBI content in believing they had removed the last remnants of organized crime from the streets of Washington D.C. But Richard knew they were all in his father's pockets.
Senator Lewis Young was arrested for murder, destroying Richard's only inroads into the Kingpin's political stranglehold.
But he had one last hope holding out.
The story that would break everything.
And more.
Richard Fisk turned and ambled to the mini-bar for what was not his first drink of the evening.
"You used me, Fisk," said a voice from behind him.
And he turned to see his last hope standing on the balcony.
"You're right," replied Richard Fisk, "I used you and you fell for it, hook, line and sinker. You did better than I could have imagined. Though, that's wrong, it did take a little manipulating. But I kinda like the route it's taken, don't you, Mr. Parker?"
He raised his glass to his lips and I shot webbing to stick it to his face. I leapt across the room and on top of him, knocking him down and pinning him while I leaned into his face.
"I couldn't care less what your father has done to you, if he beat you as a child, if he spit at you, if he shoved a broom up your ass or simply didn't buy you a pony when you wanted it, I DON'T CARE!" His eyes said he wanted to talk, but I continued. "You used me, you used me bad, and you used me hard. Now I have a dead coworker, a ruined career, a number of politicians ruined, an entire mob organization gunning for me and a woman I care very deeply about concerned about my well being more than usual. But most of all, you have put her at risk, and I swear to God, I swear with every fiber of my being, if any harm comes to any part of her body or any of her possessions or anything she even remotely thinks about, I will fuck you up so bad your dad will look like fucking Santa Claus."
I grabbed the webbing on his face and tore it off. Imagine duct tape only twenty times as sticky and then some.
"Speak."
"I own you."
"Do tell."
"I own you, Parker, I have you square in my pocket and there's nothing you can do to change that," said Fisk with a grin that looked evil with his lips bleeding from the webbing being torn off. "I own you, you dance when I tell you to, you do what I tell you to when I tell you to, and you won't complain or you'll have every damn network so far up your ass you'll be coughing up Larry King."
I stepped off of Fisk and picked him up, throwing him across the room, through the already broken glass door and onto the balcony.
He tried to stand up and fell as he pushed his hands onto the broken glass.
So I helped him up.
And over the rail.
"There was no assassination plot," I said shouted as I held him out, ten stories up, "WAS THERE!"
Fisk smiled. "You can't be so sure of that, can you?"
"It was a distraction, an attempt to put me out of the way or your little power play. YOU USED ME!"
Fisk continued to grin.
"Fisk," I said through clenched teeth as I held him out, ten stories up, "do not fuck with me."
"Where's the witty banter, Parker?" said Fisk with a grin. "Where's the jovial Spidey who's quick with the wit?
"Where's the responsible superhero?"
I held him there for a moment.
And then I threw him back into the apartment.
He landed by the bar where I had first leapt on him. He laughed through the winces as he pulled himself off the ground.
"And the story, oh, I'm not finished with it yet," he said, his sentences spattered with grunts of pain as he moved his cut hands. "That thing will go on and on, we'll have a scandal like no other. And you will play it out for me, all on the front pages."
"And you made sure of that, didn't you?"
"I had to pull some strings to counteract the Kingpin's meddling that initially killed the story, but it's going to run now. Your reputation, more importantly, the Bugle's reputation is riding on it. It will run, and run, and run until no one is untouched.
"I still win."
"And you were a fool to let that woman go, Parker." That got my attention. "Mary Jane is a fine looking woman, it'd be a pitty if something were to happen to her, given that you care about her so much.
"You're mine, Parker, you have been since I first set foot in your apartment. Everything you own, everything you have, everything you hold dear, it's because of me, because I do not take it away from you. And I can."
I shot webbing across the street and leapt off the balcony before I killed him.
"I OWN YOU!" he shouted after me as I swung away as fast as I could.
"I own you," said Richard Fisk in little over a whisper after shouting it once. And he laughed again.
And his laughter turned to tears.
He sank to the floor, his back pressed against the mini-bar, his stare out though the shattered door and onto the balcony.
Shattered.
It was so perfect. The perfect set up.
Washington D.C. would have been out of the Kingpin's pocket and become a thorn in his side.
It WAS so perfect.
"Looks like I missed the party," said a voice from the doorway of Fisk's apartment. He stiffened as he heard it, knew who it was, why he was here.
The man walked across the room and to the doorway to the balcony, looking around at the shattered door.
Anderson kicked a couple of shards of glass still hanging on off the doorframe and then turned to look at Richard Fisk.
"Quite a mess you've made, Richard." Anderson walked across to the mini-bar and stood in front of Richard. "I'm sure your father is very disappointed in you." He crouched down and leaned into Fisk's face. Fisk continued to start beyond Anderson. "If your father found out I was doing this he'd kill me. After everything you've done to him, he still refuses to have you offed. Must be some fatherly thing."
Anderson stood up and went to the bar and poured two glasses of bourbon. He dropped a tablet in one, turned and handed it to Fisk.
"One last drink, Richard," said Anderson as he raised his glass.
Fisk brought his focus back to the here and now, looking at the glass in his hand and then to Anderson.
"It will be painless?" asked Fisk, his eyes red with tears.
"They say is it," said Anderson, "but I've never been on the receiving end so I wouldn't know for sure."
Fisk lifted his glass and touched it to Andersons.
And the two men drank.
"How did he know," said Fisk to no one in particular as he tossed his empty glass to the side.
Anderson stared at the ice in his glass.
"There was an insider, Richard, there is always an insider."
"Lonnie," whispered Richard Fisk as his stare focused on something beyond the room.
And the two men sat in silence until Richard Fisk was dead.
DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
I held my head as I ran, the senses screaming. I leapt onto another building, stumbled as I landed and fell onto the roof and lay there.
And I cried.
Damn this power.
Damn this responsibility.
Damn the headaches and the heartaches and the suffering it brings me and everyone else.
The senses continued to scream, their calls turning into laughter, mocking me, beckoning me, grasping me, refusing to let me go.
A reactionary way of life is no way to live.
I have no control.
My senses control me, my job controls me, my enemies control me, everything that I want to be free of rules my life.
When what I want is right there something pulls me away.
All I want is right there, waiting.
Tug of war for the soul of Peter Parker.
One side is hated, feared, loathed, bashed, hunted, all of that for simply trying to do right in the world.
One side is loved, comforted, supported, happy, simply for being there for one person and enjoying themselves.
Why is this decision so hard?
With great power...
"I DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE!" I shouted into the night. "I don't want it..."
Wilson Fisk smiled at the man in his hotel suite.
"That's big responsibility," said the man as he exhaled cigar smoke.
"It's a big city with big men and big ideas," said Fisk, "but it's too big for me to carry with New York. I need someone who's trustworthy and who knows what they're doing. You've proven to be trustworthy, but can you do it?"
"Mr. Fisk," said the man with a wide grin, "I believe I can do this for you."
"Very good, Mr. Lincoln, very good indeed." Wilson Fisk stood up and extended his hand. "Welcome to the family."
And Tombstone shook Fisk's hand and became the King of D.C.
She answered the door when I was in mid-knock, her eyes red from crying and being up all night.
"Peter?"
I grabbed her, pulled her close, and kissed her harder than I had kissed her in over five years.
And she didn't push away.
Our lips pulled apart and I rested my forehead on hers, my eyes remaining closed, my thoughts trying to clear.
"MJ," I said and then swallowed and opened my eyes, looking deeply into hers, "I'm tired."
Richard Fisk's apartment exploded in a ball of flames.
The Daily Bugle decided to go with the story, but not before it was heavily edited by the board. The final result was an article that exposed possible campaign finance abuses by the Concerned Americans for a Better America and the politicians with the knowledge of these abuses, but any and all ties with the Kingpin were conveniently overlooked.
When asked why the story wasn't run before, publisher J. Jonah Jameson was quoted as saying, "The Daily Bugle takes great pains to assure the quality of it's reporting. We strive to give the public the straight facts it deserves and up until yesterday we were not completely sure of the facts presented to us. So, we did not drag our feet as some of you would like to think, but we double and triple checked our facts. So go cover a real news story."
And they had one soon enough.
The President was scheduled to give a speech at ten thirty in the morning in downtown Washington D.C. to promote his new proposal to help the homeless. Why he chose a random park in downtown D.C. is up in the air. The Secret Service tried to advise him against it, the DC Police tried to advise him against it, but he wanted it, so it happened.
On a Friday morning, that was going to do wonders for traffic.
The crowd started forming at eight, gathering around the dais and podium set up for the big speech. Protestors stood across the street from the park with their pickets and slogans, most of them completely unassociated with the issue at hand, simply there because there was a ready made audience waiting for their cause.
Secret Service agents were poised on the rooftops surrounding the park and stood on the dais and along the edge of the crowd. Others mingled in the crowd dressed as spectators. D.C. Police stood around the crowd, ready for anything.
At ten thirty a motorcade approached and stopped along the park behind the dais where a path led to the stage. The Secret Service and police tensed as the door to the presidential limousine opened and the President stepped out, waiving to the crowd as he approached the dais.
"We got someone on a roof," screamed a Secret Service agent through their earpieces as the President climbed the dais. "Northwest, he's in red and running."
A few sharpshooters turned their attention from the crowd to the man on the roof as he sprinted toward the edge of the building and leapt off.
"GUN GUN GUN!"
"Someone in the crowd's got a gun, front of dais."
The other sharpshooters searched for the man in the crowd as the others watched the man in red falling to the ground.
The man in red seemed to reach toward the building across the park and something shot from his hand, grabbing the building and pulling the man through the air over the park. His other hand pointed at the man in the crowd with the gun, shooting something at him as well.
The man with the gun attempted to pull the trigger as the webbing encased his hand and the gun. The backfire caused him to scream and the panic made him run.
Spider-Man leapt on the man and knocked him to the ground as the crowd parted, bending close to the man's face.
"You should never point a loaded gun at anyone," I said to the would be assassin. He tried to spit at me but I simply stood up and watched the loogie move up and then back down onto the man's face. "Good aim."
"FREEZE!" Police and Secret Service agents surrounded the two of us with their guns drawn.
"Could you do me a favor?" I asked the man I was standing on as the police closed in on us. "Say, 'I think I do need a maid' for me. Pleeeeeaaasse?"
The man's wide eyes said it for me.
"Yeah, I thought so." I lifted up my arms and the approaching law enforcement folks stopped dead in their tracks. I leaned forward again. "Which Fisk are you working for?"
The man smiled.
"Which one's still alive?" he whispered.
Alive?
My spidey-sense was screaming to look out, but it had been doing that all week. At a certain point you just take it for granted, you know? But I should have been watching his other hand but I was too intent on grilling him. I didn't pay it any attention until a gunshot tore into the man's head. I jumped up as blood sprayed me and I looked around.
The man's free hand fell to the ground, dropping the knife it had gripped.
I looked up and saw the police with their guns still drawn.
"Um, guys, I just, you know, saved the President's life."
They kept their guns drawn. A Secret Service agent stepped forward and put his gun away. He stopped about three feet from me and put one hand to his ear, listening in on something no one else could pick up.
"Sir, if you could please come with me."
He turned from me and started to walk away. The police looked like they had no idea what was going on while the other Secret Service agents formed up around me, trying to herd me after the first guy.
So I followed.
The first agent was stopped by a police officer and they exchanged a few words which I did hear.
"This... thing is wanted in connection to numerous break ins and criminal activities througout this city," shouted the cop, pointing at me, so I assume I was the 'thing' he was discussing.
"Sir, an attempt on the President's life has been made, this is now in our jurisdiction and we are taking this gentleman into custody," said the agent, and he turned from the cop and walked on as if that was the end of the argument.
And I followed.
The agent stepped into a sedan and I approached it as well.
My spider sense screamed and I was listening this time.
Instinct took over and I shot webbing and was off the ground before they could react. One more shot to the side and I was swinging.
No one dared to shoot at me.
And I was gone.
"I TOLD YOU!" screamed the cop at the Secret Service agents who only watched Spider-Man swing away.
The first agent remained in the sedan and nodded, showing no signs of any emotion. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
The man on the other end picked up on the first ring.
"Sir," said the agent, "I'm afraid he got away."
The man on the other line sighed.
"While I am disappointed, I supposed it will do."
"My apologies sir," said the agent, "though, I do believe the operation was a complete success."
"Complete success? No, probably not, but hopefully the fear of God has been put into the President and he'll prove more cooperative in the future.
"Good day, Agent Nichols."
And Wilson Fisk hung up the phone.
"You have a greater responsibility to them than you do to me," she had said to me the night before as we lay in each other's arms. "You have been given something so great and so good, that I couldn't possibly ask for it to be only for me."
"What if I wanted to give it to only you?" I said, looking into her eyes.
"You're better than that, Peter," she said with a smile that couldn't hide the pain in that truth. "You couldn't do that even if you wanted."
"And I do want to."
"I know you do. But, Peter, I knew about this before we were married. I knew the commitment I was making was not only to you but to your power and responsibility as well. I just didn't realize that I couldn't be there for you as much as you needed."
"MJ, don't..."
She pressed a finger to my lips.
"Peter, you didn't fail me, I failed you. I tried to change you and keep you for myself, I was selfish."
"No, MJ, that's not selfish, that's what a normal relationship is."
"But people aren't normal," she said, kissing my cheek, "we aren't normal."
"I'm not normal."
"No, you're not, you're better than them, all of them. And you can't let them control you."
"Then why can't I give this up?"
"Because they want you to, Peter. And even if you didn't have these powers, you'd be trying to save the world, and you know it. It's not them controlling you, it's not the powers controlling you, it's not the costume controlling you, it's your heart.
And we lay there until the sun came up and with it the new day, the day I had been anticipating since an envelope was opened in my apartment.
"Go save the world, Tiger, but only if you want to."
And I did.
Three days after two envelopes were left for me.
The President was still alive.
The police were after me.
The Secret Service was after me.
The Daily Bugle loved Peter Parker.
The Daily Bugle loved to hate Spider-Man.
And Richard Fisk was dead.
A bunch of mobsters were under arrest while two big names from other cities were found dead.
Wilson Fisk was back in New York.
Someone new was running his operations for him here in D.C., or so I'd heard.
What's that old saying? The more things change they more they stay the same.
Though, there was one significant change, as short lived as it may have been.
Mary Jane.
After saving the leader of the free world and running from those that thought I was trying to kill him, I made a quick swing by the Bugle and dropped off a roll of film that had all of my joyous exploits of the morning ready and waiting for the paper. I knew Jameson was going to have a field day with them and I knew Spider-Man was going to get more grief because of it, but a man's got to put food on the table and swinging around in tights doesn't cut it.
And then it was back to Mary Jane's suite for a little rest and relaxation.
"You know I have to leave for London Sunday night," she said as I picked her up and carried her towards the bedroom.
"Then let's not waste any time."
And for almost three days I had her back. For three days we were the couple I remembered us being, and there was nothing but us. No Spider-Man, no Bugle, no villains, no assassination attempts, none of that.
Just MJ and me.
And then Sunday night.
"You know I love you, right?" she said as an announcement came that her plane was boarding.
I nodded. "I'm pretty sure," I said with a smirk.
And she pulled me too her and kissed me, stronger than we had kissed all weekend.
"How about now?"
"I feel like I've hit the jackpot."
She smiled. "You have, Tiger. See you when I get back stateside?"
"I'll be here."
And she turned away and boarded her plane.
There is a costume in my closet screaming for me like it always does. Beckoning me. Mocking me.
It takes the powerful words of a man who I cared for so much and distorts them, tortures me with them, taunts me with them.
Creates an excuse for its existence.
With great power comes great responsibility.
But responsibility for whom? The world or simply those I care about? What good is saving the world if I lose sight of what I need to keep myself sane and stable?
A spider bit me and its venom should have killed me but instead it granted me powers beyond anything I could have ever hoped for.
Or wanted.
A spider bit me and blessed me with the ability to make a difference.
And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't hate that damn thing.
And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't hate myself.
Or my other half.
Or the decisions I've made.
And there isn't a day that I don't think of myself as the luckiest guy in the world, even if it is for just a brief moment.
I can make a difference.
I have the responsibility to make a difference.
It has been almost three days since the President was saved. For almost three days the hero who saved him has been crucified by the press and the public. For almost three days Spider-Man has been suspiciously absent from the streets of Washington D.C.
It's Sunday night and I'm tired of brooding.
Once again, the mask wins.
And as I swing though the night sky, it laughs.
I laugh.
"...It's not the costume controlling you, it's your heart."
And in the end, nothing's changed.
What a waste of a week.
Spider-Man Issue 5 "Sinker" by Jason Kenney