Wilson Fisk's voice booms across his penthouse, "I'm glad you could all make it." I roll my eyes behind my helmet. Kitty stands stiffly next to me in her new costume as we listen to Fisk talk. In addition to Katherine, King Pin, and I, there are two other people in the room. The first is a man who is easily taller than Fisk with an absurd amount of musculature; he wears a grey skintight costume in the likeness of a Rhino with a huge horn on his head. Standing next to him is a slightly smaller man still with huge muscles, wearing normal clothes, just a black and green striped shirt and a pair of pants. Fisk left out a small platter of food that the Rhino man is currently tearing through, the other man is sitting in an armchair facing the desk that Fisk is addressing us from. Other than Fisk no one has said a word. "I've got a job for the four of you. I have a feeling that you'll form a powerful team with your talents combined, especially with my coordination." Like a puppet master behind the screen but just what is Fisk after? "But first I believe introductions are in order."

Fisk gestures to the striped shirt man sitting on the couch. The man shifts in his chair so that he can see the rest of us, "Hey, name's Flint, but people have been calling me Sandman." To punctuate his words his fist seems to turn into sand and grow to twice it's size before it shrinks back down, interesting.

Being the next closest the Rhino man takes a second to clear his throat of the chicken wing I just saw him inhale. He nods towards the group, "Alex. Call me Rhino." Before going back to eating, by now he's nearly emptied the entire snack carousel.

I shift from leaning on the wall to standing up straight, I may not be as big as these guys but I need to show that I'm not also a coward. "I'm the Spider." My voice comes out confident and calm. Which is good considering that I'm sweating buckets. There's a pause like they're waiting for me to say my name, which is moronic. Honestly we're all criminals, the fact that Rhino and Sandman gave their names speaks volumes of their intelligence. I guess they could always be fake names but from what I see of Rhino I highly doubt it.

The silence is cleared when Katherine speaks up next to me. "Um hi." She gives a small wave. "Uh, you can call me Shadow Cat." Shadow cat? I like it, actually I'm a little jealous that she thought of such a cool name while I'm stuck with the Spider.

Finally done with his meal I notice the Rhino turning his full attention to the group. "You got a team now, so what's this job boss?" He's got a slight accent. Some sort of eastern European?

Fisk takes a sip of his wine, the bottle is next to him, Petrus, Pomerol, France, 1978. That's a two thousand dollar bottle, another show of power on his part. A way to show us that despite all the superpower in this room he's the one in charge. It's downright infuriating. "I said that you will become a powerful team. All I see in front of me is a group of super powered individuals. The actual job I need done is delicate, and we'll likely only get one shot. So before that we're going to undertake some teambuilding exercises."

"I'm not here to play around Kingpin!" It's Sandman who has the outburst. He stands from his chair, "You said that this was a job, I'm not going to mess around with games."

He stops speaking as Fisk raises a hand. "Calm yourself, Mr. Flint. Do not forget to whom you speak." There's a hard silence for a few seconds before Sandman sits back down. "As I was saying, you can think of these exercises as smaller jobs, each with it's own pay, and you will do them until I believe that you are ready for the mission. Any objections?"

The way he says it makes it obvious that objecting is not an option. I just want to get this over with. "So what's our first 'team building exercise'?" With how I say it I'm sure that Fisk can practically see my eyes rolling.

Fisk presses a button on a remote and the same screen that he showed me the police building schematic springs to life. This time on it is a high-end jewelry store in Manhattan. "We're going to start off simple. A simple robbery; you will fill several bag of jewels," he gestures to the counter where there are several bags, "and deliver them.." The screen pans west and zooms in on an area underneath a bridge nearby. "Here, although feel free to take some small baubles for yourselves at your own risk. Any questions?"

I'm about to question the timeframe of the assignment when Kitty beats me to it. "When is the due date for this, uh, job?"

As if amused Fisk takes a second and looks at his wristwatch, "How about in the next four hours. I'd get a move on if I were you."

To say I'm annoyed would be an understatement. This is asinine and Fisk's attitude is at best flippant. He's toying with us, moving us around as if this were a chess board, and the worst part? It's all for fun, he doesn't need jewelry or any more money, but of course I keep my thoughts to myself as we leave the room and our strange group rides the express elevator down to the loading bay I first entered this building through.

I hear talking and realize that Rhino and Sandman have been exchanging stories while I fumed in anger. "When the fuzz came I hid the money on the roof, turned into sand, and just drifted away with the wind."

Rhino answers back with enthusiasm, "Ha! Dumb cops, why did you not just go through them instead? Much more fun."

Flint shrugs and looks to me, "What about you Spider any close scrapes?"

I'd rather not indulge these idiots but seeing as I'm going to be forced to work with them it's better not to isolate myself so early. "Back when I first got my powers I would go around fighting thugs and stealing their haul. It worked out pretty well until Fisk got to me." They both get a chuckle out of that. Katherine doesn't make a sound and with that hood down I can't tell what she's thinking either. The elevator reaches the ground and we all walk out.

"What about you girl? I've even never heard of you."

Katherine freezes for a second at the accusatory tone of his voice before exhaling and walking confidently forward. "That's because I've never been caught." Technically not a lie, I like it.

She stalks forward ahead of the group and It unnerves me to see how our other two 'teammates' eyes follow her. I speak up if only to get their attention "So what's the plan?"

Rhino looks away from Katherine and at me confused. "Who needs a plan? This is just a jewelry store, easy compared to the bank I robbed last week."

From where we are we're only about a twenty-minute walk to the store, or a five-minute web swing. I could easily grab Kitty and get in and out before either of those idiots get there.

Shadow Cat speaks us before I have a chance to just leave, "I'm guessing that you're a big strong guy right?" Rhino nods his head with a goofy expression on his face. "And Sandman you look pretty tough too am I wrong?"

He smirks, "You know it toots." I think I want to gag.

Katherine turns her attention to me, "I saw you on the news Spider and you seem like the stealthy type." I don't know what she's going for so I just shrug and follow along. I trust her. She turns back to the other two, "So since you guys are sooo strong you can cause a distraction while Spider and I sneak in. Good plan right?" Rhino looks like he's about object when Katherine cuts him off. "I know that you probably can just bust in the front entrance cause you're so tough, but I think that you're even tough enough to take any cops that show up and get them off our trail right?" He smiles and nods dumbly. Who knew Katherine could be so manipulative. "Spider and I will fill all the bags and meet you at the drop off location."

It's a good plan. I would have had Katherine and I do everything while those two buffoons stand clear but I'll follow her lead. If she wants to be in charge of this team I'm fine with second in command. It puts me in a better position to watch her back. "Exactly what type of distraction did you have in mind?" Sandman smiles as he voices his question, cracking the knuckles on his fist.

I take a moment before putting in my two cents. "There's a bank about two blocks from the target location."

If possible his smile grows. I check the internal clock in my helmet's display, 12:35. "Can you two get into position by 12:50?" They both nod. "Then that's when we begin. When we hear sirens we'll start our part." Sandman nods and turns into fine grains of sand and starts floating in the general direction of the bank. I notice Rhino heading in the wrong direction. "Where are you going?"

He doesn't turn around as he walks away but I can hear his voice. "That bank your talkin bout is on the end of Mercer street. I'm gonna get a running start."

With the Rhino costume and the horn on his head it's not hard to imagine his plan. I'm glad that Katherine stepped in when she did. I hold my hand out to her. "Ready to go leader?" I say with no small amount of sarcasm.

She bat's my arm away and walks around to behind me and jumps on my back. "Shut up. I didn't see you doing anything about it, isn't it you who said we should avoid cops?" I shrug and she flicks the back of my helmet. "Shut up and swing."

[12:46]

Katherine and I are both crouched on the roof of the jewelry store when we hear police sirens heading in the direction of the bank. Seriously can these idiots not keep time? "They're early." Katherine seems to have similar thoughts as I hear her complain next to me.

I shrug, "Either way is seems that that's our queue." With a nod she grabs my shoulder and I'm overtaken by the same strange cold sensation as she fazes us through the roof.

When we land it's in near darkness. With my natural spider agility I touch down with barely a sound on the linoleum, Katherine takes advantage of her powers by fazing through the ground and then rising up to the floor to avoid making a sound. After standing still for a second to be sure that no one is coming we proceed with the job. I start filling my bag with all the display pieces While Katherine uses her powers to grab the locked away jewelry in just a few minutes we meet half our quota. When out of the corner of my eye I see a necklace fall through Katherine's hand onto the floor. Clang. We both freeze, luckily it's seems that we're still alone. Since we're still in the clea- "Did you hear that?" I can just barely make out a female voice coming from what must be the back office of the floor.

Katherine looks to me and I wave my hand in front of my face. She get's the message: Disappear, pressing a button on her sleeve her form shimmers as the light bends around her and she disappears from sight. I follow her example and jump up onto the ceiling sticking to it with all fours. I hear another voice come from the room, this one male. "Fine, fine, I'll go check it out." Damn it we still have a job to do. I see the necklace pick itself back up and find it's way to our haul. The door in the back opens and the lights flick on. A man with cleanly styled blond hair walks out wearing nothing but a pair of blue pants. Something seems familiar about him, with his looks he could probably be an actor. Now what the hell is he doing here? "See there's no one here every thing is-" he suddenly stops taking in the half emptied store.

I see the woman peek her head out of the door, from what I can tell she's also not wearing much. That explains it. "Is everything alright?"

He turns back to her, and I notice that when he does a set of rings disappears from the display case. "Stay back Sharon! Someone was here." With a squeak the woman disappears behind the door and closes it and Johnny turns back around. Unfortunately he sees the nearly full bags of jewelry . "Someone is still here." He starts stalking toward them, towards Katherine.

I drop down from the ceiling purposely making noise as I land. "Caught me red handed pretty boy."

He whips around quickly to face me. I expect him to freak out, to back pedal, to run for the phone to call the cops; after all popular rumor is that the Spider is an assassin not a jewel thief. I almost groan as I realize that now this is going to be apart of my reputation. However instead of reacting like a scared civilian he smiles. "Decide to face me like a man huh? Brave."

Behind him I see Kitty unloading more and more jewelry. If I can just keep this guy talking for another minute or so, she'll probably grab the stuff and faze out, which is good because I'm not exactly eager to beat some one up in front of her. She thinks poorly of me already. I cross my arms at this guy's attitude. "Big talk for a man whose half dressed. Tell you what why don't you go back to your girlfriend, get dressed, and when you come back I'll be out of your hair?"

He actually laughs. "You know what I like you. Not often you find a villain with a sense of humor. How about I cut you a deal? Take off the helmet and come quietly and I'll put in a good word for you."

The bag behind him is nearly full. Just a little bit longer and we're out of here. The more I look at this guy the more I feel like I recognize him, I don't keep up with celebrity gossip or any of that other crap. So for me to actually feel like I recognize him is pretty odd, he must be a big name. "Now that is a good deal. Just give me a second." I raise my hand to either side of my helmet before snapping my fingers. "Damn you know what? I just forgot that my mom made me promise not to show anybody. What a shame. Although, she didn't say anything about beating up pretty blond boys." I notice the bags start moving towards the door and crack my knuckles in anticipation.

The man chuckles again. "You really don't know who I am do you?"

The bags and I assume Katherine disappear through the wall. I scoff, "Your name doesn't matter, all the money in the world isn't going to protect you."

His smile lessens a bit, "and I was having such fun talking too." He turns his head sharply cracking his neck, "My name is Johnny storm." My eyes go wide behind the helmet. I remember where I've seen him before on news sites and all over the television. "Last chance to back out." From his eyes I can tell he wants nothing more than for me to turn that offer down. I don't disappoint. I crouch down in a comfortable stance my web shooters aimed at him. "Didn't think so. FLAME ON!"