3 weeks later, little after 8pm, in a storage warehouse in Brooklyn, Felicia was walking and observing a collection of loot she had recently stolen in the past weeks. She was looking over a painting she had stolen from Kingpin's penthouse. It was a painting of his late wife, Vanessa Fisk. Though Kingpin's penthouse had many other valuable items, she took the painting knowing the tremendous sentimental value it had could be traded for significant monetary value. She figured she'd wait a few months before ransoming it back to him. Though she had told Spiderman she'd traded her burglary days for heroism, it never gave her drive that stealing did. It wasn't long before she began staking out several places of interest. The heroism, she felt, was just a way of evening things out. That and she'd only rob people she felt deserved it. Tonight's mark was a wall street banker, by the name of James Stitz, who she learned was laundering money for several criminal organizations across the country. He was busy tonight attending a grand philanthropic event hosted for the City's richest residents. Perfect opportunity to break and enter. Though she felt a little under the weather, she knew there wouldn't be better opportunity than now for a while. She opened her duffel bag that she brought with her. Inside was all her gear, her uniform and her phone which had recently gone off. She reached for it and saw Spidey had texted her a few minutes prior:
"Going on patrol tonight, you in?"
"Not tonight, kitty needs her rest," she texted.
She threw her phone back in her bag and equipped her gear and uniform, before setting out for her heist. 20 minutes later she finished grappling her way up to the rooftop of an office tower adjacent to Stitz's apartment, which overlooked the southern end of Central Park. At the corner of the rooftop was her stakeout gear still where she had left it: a sleeping bag, a camera on a mounted tripod and a small cooler. She'd been staking this place for several days now, she'd had a good idea of the layout and plotted her point of entry. Her research into the apartments renovations showed that the apartment had an extensive climate controlled ventilation system installed on the second floor not long after Stitz had purchased the apartment. All the tell tale signs that the apartment had a vault that was holding a significant deposit of cash. She figured she'd reach the rooftop first and disable the security system with an rfid extender she had with her. Once the system was down she'd have about 10 mins before the system booted back up. She'd then swing down from rooftop and come in through the apartment's terrace. She'd then make her way to the vault, open it and help herself to whatever valuables it contained. She took a peek into the mounted camera she had and could see a guard sleeping on a couch in the living room and another in an adjacent room on the first floor.
"Can't make things too easy can we?" She thought.
She grabbed her stomach as a pang of nausea suddenly came over her.
"Ugh, ok no more waiting, let's do this."
She walked towards the edge of the building before leaping and launching her grappling hook at the apartment building. She quickly made her way to the rooftop where she went to work on the security system. Her RFID extender came in the form of a black cat doll she had made herself. Once she had it planted she tapped her goggles and activated the small onboard computer they had. She could see a bunch of frequency channels the doll had acquired and began cycling through them before finding the correct one and disabled it. She tapped her goggles again and activated a timer of 10 minutes. She swung down from the rooftop before landing on the terrace. She quietly opened the door and made her way to the living room, she needed to incapacitate the two guards posted. She crept towards the living room, before bracing herself against a wall when she heard footsteps. She peered over the corner to see the one guard in the other room approach his sleeping colleague before tapping him on the shoulder waking him up.
"Hey! I got a call downstairs there's somethings wrong with the security system. I'm gonna go check it out."
"Yeah sure," the guard mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. The one guard left while his other colleague rustled himself, trying to regain his composure. He seemed a little unsure of whether to finish his nap or keep a lookout as he was supposed to. A taser to the back of the head would make that decision for him.
"Sleep tight," Felicia said as she raced to the second floor. She had just over 7 minutes left on her timer. She raced through the hallways upstairs, peering through every aisle before seeing two large double doors at the end of a hallway.
"Bingo," she thought. Behind those doors she found the entrance to the vault. A metal circular door weighing over a ton secured the entrance. Affixed above the round door handle was a digital input pad where the door code could be inputted. She tapped her goggles activating their telescopic lens feature. It was four number combination lock with digits going from 0-9, so already there were 10,000 possible combinations. She looked closely at the wear of each number and saw every number was pristine except for the numbers 0, 1, 4 and 7. 100 plus possible combinations. She worked out in her head which combination was most probable and after a few seconds she came up with the combination "4107." She pressed the numbers in and buzz noise quickly echoed before the round door handle twisted slightly to the side, signaling it'd been unlocked. She'd look at the corner of her goggles display screen: 5 minutes left. She quickly turned the vault door open and entered the vault room. Inside were four large shelving units arranged parallel to each other. The first two units had stacks of 100 dollar bills wrapped in plastic, unmarked bills being completely separated from marked bills. The third unit held storage folders that held numerous documents that pertained to highly sensitive financial information. The last held a number of small lockboxes, each containing a variety of precious metals and jewelry. She wondered which would be her prize tonight: the unmarked bills she could enjoy and put to use much quicker. The financial information had the greatest potential value, but it'd take time to go through everything and find the exact value of the accounts. The jewelry she'd need to fence, another issue with time, but there were a number of pieces she saw that she actually wanted for herself.
"4 minutes."
Pressed for time , she went for the unmarked cash. She unzipped a folded duffel bag she brought with her. She filled the bag, an amount just over 10 million, and exited the vault door. She reached downstairs where she saw the unconscious guard still strewn across the couch where she had left him.
"Sorry I can't stay for a drink, but this Cat needs….Ugh, oh no."
It suddenly came over her, a severe bout of nausea that she couldn't brush off this time. She put her right hand over her mouth as she directed herself to the nearest bathroom. She found one just around the corner. It came out of her quickly as she fell to her knees and threw her head above the toilet seat rim. She barfed a consecutive three times, before feeling the nausea had vacated her system, at least temporarily. She pulled off her goggles and massaged the corners of her eyes with her hands.
"Ugh what the hell?"
She shook her head as she tried regaining her composure. It was when she put her goggles on did she realize how long the ordeal took.
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1."
"Oh crap!" She muttered as she raced out the bathroom door. As she headed towards the terrace, she encountered the guard ,who had previously left, now returned and accompanied with two other associates. The guard's eyes widened as he caught sight of Felicia.
"What the hell!?" He shouted as he reached for something in his chest pocket. He pulled out a remote and pressed a button. Sirens quickly filled the air as the now reactivated security system alerted the army of guards downstairs that there was an intruder. Felicia responded by throwing a smoke grenade in the vicinity of the present guards. A cloud of smoke violently erupted causing the guards to shield their eyes as they recoiled back disoriented. Felicia took no time heading for the terrace and leapt off the building. She launched her grappling hook , linking to the nearest building, but before she could swing herself to the next building the line unexpectedly snapped.
"Oh shit!" She screamed as she flailed her arms wildly in the air as she fell. As she plummeted, she lost hold of her bag and it separated from her, crashing in the street below while she ended up crashing through a pergola and landing on a table. She had landed on the terrace of a nearby building, right in the middle of a get together held by a small number of friends. The people turned their heads and gasped as Felicia crashed atop the table they had laden with food and beverages. Her uniform managed to absorb some of the impact, but her body was badly bruised and her left shoulder was definitely dislocated. She brushed off her face what were the remains of crushed grapes and slices of cheese as she stood up and headed for the nearest exit. The party guests could only look on in confusion as "the woman dressed in black," who had suddenly crashed in, stumbled her way out of sight. Before she exited the apartment, she saw a number of coats hung up by the door and pulled off a large fur coat. She made her way to the building's fire exit and raced downstairs. She stopped after a few flights and dropped her coat. She groaned as bent forward and lowered her left arm towards her feet, twisting it before popping her shoulder back in place. She quickly put on the fur coat, removing and tucking her goggles into its left pocket. She reached the lobby of the building and headed towards the exit, the attendants not minding her presence.
Her priority now was to get to her penthouse. She walked towards Columbus, keeping herself on guard for any trouble that might show up. As she got closer to Columbus circle, she saw a trio of cop cars, lights flashing as they headed in the direction of Stitz's apartment. She sighed heavily as she started massaging her left shoulder. She reached the station, and headed for the 1 Train entrance, the train arriving not long after she had arrived. She took her seat near the end of the cabin, sitting alone as the train headed north to it's next destination. She rested her head back and took another deep sigh.
"The hell happened tonight?" She thought. "I'm the Black Cat! I don't get bad luck, I give it to people."
She had failed other heists before, but never anything this bad. Even the heists she failed, she still managed to steal some goods, so they weren't a complete loss, but now all she had was a badly injured body. It was about 15 minutes later that the train finally reached her station. She exited and made her way to her penthouse nearby. She reached it quickly, making no effort to address the lobby attendants and headed straight for the elevator. She just wanted this streak of bad luck to end and go to bed. That streak would be extended a little longer, as she entered her apartment she noticed a figure with their back turned and arms crossed on her terrace: it was Spiderman. He turned his head towards her as he realized she had finally returned. He bit his teeth as he could see her bruised and dirty face meant she must have had a very interesting night.
"So rest well?" He said sarcastically.
"Trying to get some actually. Care to join?"
"No thanks."
"So what's up?"
"Oh you know, something on the police radio about a 'woman in black," crashing into a building and 10 million falling out of the sky? You know, typical criminal stuff?"
She shook her head. "Don't know anything about it." Spiderman put his foot forward.
"I- I thought you were going straight."
"Guess not."
"So all this, the patrols, the takedowns, what was it all for?"
She stepped forward towards, putting her hand on his cheek.
"For you, I did it for you. Making you happy makes me happy, but…I need more. You're the kind of good I can never be."
"So what? You help me with a few busts, I look the other way? I can't keep doing this."
He turned away, walking towards the terrace edge.
"I should have known, I guess I was just lying to myself that you'd change."
"I like you Spider, but this is what you get with me."
"Not anymore, I'm not giving you anymore chances! We're through. If I catch you stealing again, I'm taking you down."
He shot his webshooter and swung away into the night. As she saw him off, her lips quivered, a tear rolled down her cheek. She turned towards her bed, her body stiff with every step. As she laid face down she grabbed her pillow and cried herself to sleep.