With Great Power Comes Great Leverage

Chapter 5

"I do appreciate this, dear," May Parker said over the phone. "But you are helping us already, aren't you?"

"We hope to have everything completed by tomorrow," said Parker, "if everything goes well. But when your nephew showed such interest, how could we resist? He's such a nice kid."

From across the room, Peter smiled and rolled his eyes at her.

May said, "Oh, yes, he really is. He's such a fragile boy, though, that I can't help but worry. You aren't overworking him?"

"He's a whiz with a broom, Mrs. Parker, and he said he could use the money, and Mr. Spencer was tired of doing the sweeping himself," said Parker. "We will drop him back home later. We have a lot of cleaning for him, so don't worry. Okay?"

"I'm sure that will be fine, dear," said May. "Thank you again for all your help."

"You can thank us when we're done, Mrs. Parker. You have a good day now."

Parker hung up the phone. Peter said, in a high voice, "'He's such a nice kid.'"

"'Such a fragile boy,'" said Parker, mocking him back.

"She's my aunt," said Peter. "What can you do?"

Parker smiled. "Come on, kid, suit up."

Peter looked at the clothing they'd found for him—a form-fitting black leotard and a black mask with reflective eyes. "You really think this is a good idea?"

"You stick to walls," said Eliot. "Fisk will figure out you're Spider-Man, but this way it's harder to see you. Trust us—we're professionals."

"How did you all get into this line of work anyway?" asked Peter.

"Maybe we'll tell you later," said Hardison, "after it's all over."

"Sure," said Peter. He grabbed the clothing. "I'll get changed. But I still don't think a guy called Spider-Man would wear an all-black costume!"

"It'll work," said Parker.

Peter muttered, "I just hope the Black Widow doesn't sue me."

An hour later they were driving back to Fisk Tower.

"Ready?" asked Hardison, who was driving the van.

"You sure this will work?" said Peter.

Eliot nodded. "If the distractions go well, it will work. You remember how to get to the security servers?"

Peter nodded. "You all drilled it in to me enough times. Disable the A/C on the roof, down into the main vent. Bend the metal outward—which I hope isn't reinforced or something—and out into the crawlspace. Avoid the cameras. If there's a laser grid…."

"There will be," said Hardison.

Peter continued, "…use the mirrors. Disks go into the backpack, get back outside, down the side of the tower. You drive by, I leap onto the roof of the van, and we're gone. How many times are you gonna make me say it?"

"That's the last time," said Hardison. "We're driving by as soon as Eliot is in place."

"Get it done, kid," said Eliot. He opened the door and ran toward the bushes, in full view of at least three cameras.

"Your turn, Parker," said Hardison. "Be careful." He had already put the van in gear and was driving around to the loading dock side of the tower.

From the building next door, Parker said, "Ready. Firing the grapple."

"Nice comms," said Peter.

Hardison said, "better than money can buy. Hell, better than S.H.I.E.L.D. uses. I know, I stole their plans."

Peter smiled, and pulled his mask down. "See you in a half hour." He put his hand on the door handle.

Hardison tripped a switch, and let his jammers go to work. He knew Peter would only have seconds.

"Connecting… cameras reacting… they're down! Go go go!"

Peter flung the door open and leaped out, over the small wall, grass, and bushes and landed on the tower. He stuck in place for a moment, then started climbing.

Hardison backed out and drove away. "Good luck, Spider-Man."

"Eliot Spencer," said Fancy Dan, stepping out of the back door. Ox came out behind him. "I never thought you'd get caught on camera. Isn't it nice to work for a man who has the best equipment, Ox?"

"My best equipment is my fists," said Ox.

"Well said, my overlarge friend, well said," responded Fancy Dan.

"Had to be done," said Eliot. "You picked the wrong kingpin to work for."

"I think we did quite well," said Fancy Dan. "I liked you Eliot, I really did." He raised a gun. "Pity."

A shot rang out as Eliot jumped sideways. Fancy Dan anticipated that, however, and the bullet slammed into Eliot's chest. With a burst of blood, Eliot's body changed direction and landed hard on the grass. He twitched once.

"And thus ends the story of the late Eliot Spencer," said Fancy Dan. "Short, and of no consequence."

Parker landed on an upper balcony of Fisk Tower, disabling a camera with a taser-type gun that Hardison had made especially for her. She smiled. She liked it when he used his brains just for her.

She clamped the other device she was carrying to the railing. Hardison hadn't made this one. She'd purchased it with a great amount of money from a person who made it specifically for people in her line of work. She didn't care about overcharging. She only cared that the seller was reliable and trustworthy. She was betting her life that he was. She'd been betting her life that he was for years, even before meeting her team, and she knew it would work.

She'd just finished when the outdoor lights came on.

"Stay right there," a voice yelled from the other side of the glass. "Or we shoot."

She calmly clipped a carabiner to her belt, and pulled herself up to a sitting position on the railing.

"STOP!" demanded the voice.

Parker waved, and fell backwards. She heard the metal scream of the line feeding out, preventing her from falling too fast. She heard shots from above, and she knew falling glass would catch up to her before she hit the ground. Sure enough, she felt the fragments hit her back when she was about 15 feet away from the ground.

The device stopped her five feet up. She felt the line wobble — Fisk's security were trying to disable it, probably just so they could say they did something. She unhooked herself. She landed with a roll and ran away into the night. From up above she heard screams as her very expensive escape device started to melt down. No sense in letting Fisk trace it back to the man she bought it from. Archie, her mentor, had recommended him personally, and she didn't want to cause him trouble.

After all, she would need another one someday.

"Hello, Mr. Fisk? Wilson Fisk?"

"Who is this! How did you get this number!" Fisk demanded, screaming into the phone on his desk. None of his staff was there that late, so he was answering his own phone, and something happened that hadn't happened in years—a number he didn't recognize was on the display.

"I got the number the old-fashioned way, from your building's telephone exchange system," said Hardison, speaking from the van, from a burner phone, using a voice disguiser. The call was being bounced around the world, and the final link had come from a suspected warlord in Yemen. Fisk would never be able to trace it.

"And as for who I am," said Hardison, "I am the spirit of vengeance. I am here to make sure you pay for your sins, Mr. Fisk. You are rich and powerful, and you take what you want. We are stealing it back."

Hardison heard voices in the background. He smiled. Everything was right on schedule.

"I'm afraid that isn't going to happen, my mysterious friend," said Fisk. "My security has just informed me that your thief was repulsed from the building, and your hitter has been killed. I am already tracing this call."

There were more voices in the background.

"Good luck with that," said Hardison.

"We are having good luck," said Mr. Fisk. "I hire the best, and you are not it. Yemen? A pitiful attempt at distraction. Just stay were you are. A team is on the way."

Hardison's eyes grew big. He threw the phone out the window and started the van. He was already a block away when a group of men on foot ran up the block.

"Crap," he said. "Guys, he blew through my traces like they were nothing. I'm driving out, then I'll try to get close enough to pick up Peter."

Fancy Dan leaned over Eliot, and poked up with a gun. "Something's not right," he said.

Ox said, "What's not right?"

Eliot grabbed Dan's gun arm, and pulled. "This," he said, flipping Dan over him and into a tree. Eliot leaped to his feet, and gave Dan a hard kick. Fancy Dan went limp.

"What happened? He shot you!" said Ox.

"Ox, old pal," said Eliot, "even you must have heard of Kevlar." He rapped his knuckles on his chest.

Ox took a swing at Eliot, who dodged. One punch to the face drove Ox back a step, and a combination of another punch and a kick drove him to his knees. Eliot didn't press his luck, though. He ran before Ox could get back to his feet.

"I'll heading for the secondary rendezvous," he said.

"Meet you there," said Parker.

"I'll get you guys after I pick up Peter," said Hardison. He was randomly turning on each street, hoping that nobody was following him with a drone. He turned completely around in one city block, but saw nothing following him.

It was all up to Peter now.

Peter had made it inside without incident, even though it seemed nearly everything around him set off his newly-named spider-sense. He managed to dodge cameras, trip wires, and more than one laser beam. When he reached the security server room, he saw that Hardison was right—there was a laser grid across the vent. Fortunately, it looked just like the one that Hardison had made him practice on. Gingerly, nervously waiting for his spider-sense to go off again, he lowered the mirrors into place. No alarms went off, either internal or external. It was easy to remove the grate and crawl into the room, making sure to stay away from the cameras.

He took the backup disks out of their sorted boxes, and quickly put them into his backpack. The disks from today were still in the machines, and those were what he needed most.

I'll be in full view of the camera, he thought. But I'm wearing this black outfit, and nobody will know who I am.

He took a deep breath, then fell from the ceiling in front of the servers, and started ejecting the disks as fast as he could hit buttons. He could tell from the comms that everything wasn't going as well as Parker had hoped, but distractions were distractions, and he ought to be able to steal everything before security could reach him.

He was zipping up the backpack when his spider-sense flared and he saw the door knob turning. He jumped to the ceiling and crawled into the vent as fast as he could. Gunshots went off behind him. He crawled full speed, and managed to keep ahead of the shots until he was outside of the room.

"Guys," he said, "they're shooting at me! They're shooting at me!"

"Do you have the disks?" said Eliot.

"Yeah, I got today's disks and the older ones," said Peter. "But they're shooting at me!"

"Then get to the roof, and get out!" said Eliot.

Peter nodded, even though he knew Eliot couldn't see him do it. "I'm on my way."

Suddenly, alarms blared everywhere, and spikes erupted from the junction ahead of him.

"Spikes? Are you kidding me?" he said. "Guys, I'm cut off. I can't make it out of the vents."

"Kick the side of the shaft open, and try to make it to the roof," said Parker.

"Got it," said Peter, and did that. The crawlspace was wide enough, but the ceiling wasn't strong enough. His spider-sense flared, but everything he grabbed onto fell with him. He let out a cry of pain when he hit the floor of the office. The lights were off, but the city lights shone through the plate-glass window.

"They're going to find me," he whispered.

"Where are you?" demanded Parker.

"I fell through the ceiling into an office," said Peter. "There's no way out!"

"Is there a desk?" said Eliot.

"I'm not hiding under a desk," said Peter. He was starting to panic.

"Kid," said Eliot, "pick up the desk and throw it through the window as hard as you can. With your strength, the window will break easy."

Peter stopped. "I can do that," he said. The metal desk felt light with the combination of spider-strength and pure adrenaline, and he hurled it at the window. With a loud CRASH! the window broke, leaving a big hole. "It worked!" he said.

The door behind him opened. Peter turned to see Wilson Fisk step through.

"I think we should have a talk," the Kingpin said.