Felicia started her journey the next morning.
The trip from Upper Manhattan took over an hour and involved four different buses, and when she finally stepped off the Q100 bus onto Rikers island, she still had to walk ten minutes down the concrete path to the wharf, where the waters of the East River met the shore.
The only way for civilians to get to the Raft was by ferry, after all.
She was the only visitor on board, and she spent the ride being silently scrutinized by two security guards. Felicia met their gazes evenly, but said nothing, and if the guards were wondering why someone like her – young, petite, and very much alone – had been waved aboard by the guard at the dock with few questions and was now sailing with them to one of the most secure prisons in the world, they kept it to themselves.
The guards standing over her held rifles, and Felicia couldn't help but find her eyes drawn to the weapons every few seconds. The last time she'd been this close to the things - they had been used to perforate her partner half a dozen times.
The memory was a glass splinter in her chest, slicing deeper with each breath; digging further to her core every time she thought about it.
She didn't know if she'd ever get over what happened that night. Spider-Man, for his part, appeared to be doing his best to seem unbothered about the whole 'dying' thing, and the few times that it had come up between them, he'd brushed it off or made some awful joke that sent her blood boiling.
Trying to get him to take his temporary death seriously was a lost cause though. The best she could do was keep her eye on him, let him know she was there for him, and hope that he took her advice seriously and got a therapist.
When Spider-Man had turned the tables and asked her if she had a shrink, Black Cat lied and said 'yes'.
But in the grand scheme of things, and in the face of her lengthy list of other, more damning, lies – she figured pretending to have a therapist of her own wasn't that bad.
No, there was always a bigger lie.
As was often the case, her thoughts lingered on Spider-Man as she and the guards sailed deeper into the East River and soon enough their destination bloomed out of the morning fog to cast their ferry into shadow. The prison was a foreboding place, a lopsided mass of unforgiving steel and black rock. Six lofty watchtowers stood like fence posts around the perimeter of the island, their spotlights dim, but still pointed vigilantly outwards over the surrounding river.
The visible portion of the prison was only a fraction of what made up The Raft. Felicia knew most of the facility was underground, beneath the choppy waves that lapped at jagged rocks near where the ferry pulled in to dock.
She had never been down to the lower levels, but Spider-Man had, at least once. It was maximum, maximum security, reserved for the types of super-criminals who could shoot lightning from their fingertips, move things with their mind, or kill with a single word. Spider-Man had described his visit as one of the most depressing experiences in his life and left it at that. Felicia hadn't pressed him for more info. She could just imagine the type of security measures they had, and her morbid curiosity had its limits.
Spider-Man was much more willing to discuss his visits to the upper-levels, the days where he caught up with Edward Whelan and the other, somewhat amicable villains they had put away, the ones who were actually allowed to have visitors.
As far as Spider-Man knew, Black Cat had never been to the Raft and had no plans to. In truth, she got more than her fill of this place as Felicia Hardy.
She hadn't made an appointment, but she knew the prison's calendar, and knew they could accommodate her today. Still, she had to loiter in a stark waiting room for over two hours before they were ready for her.
Another guard she was familiar with, Sargent Walker with the pieced ears, his lobes always empty, led her into a private room that was bisected by reinforced glass. Felicia sat on a metal stool that was uncomfortable by design and waited. Eventually, the door on the other side of the glass was opened and, despite having seen him like this a dozen times, Felicia couldn't help but suck in an involuntary, sharp breath, as he was lead in.
Walter Hardy gave her a wink and a small smile, but stayed silent – neither of them said anything, not until her father's cuffs were shackled to the booth on his side of the window and the officer that had accompanied him had left the room.
Several seconds passed, a moment where they simply took each other in, before Walter broke the silence first, he always did.
"Don't you have school today?"
It was Sunday, but Felicia kept that fact to herself.
"No, not today."
"Ah… All your friends busy then?"
"I wanted to see you."
He let out a short laugh, a single hah, and he scratched at the stubble on his chin, the chains on his wrists rattling.
"You see me all the time." It had been four months since they'd last talked. "Not much going on in here anyways... Unless you count what I'm making in the shop." He added.
"Have you graduated past doorstops and cutting boards yet?" She asked.
"I'll have you know that I made several lovely birdhouses just this week, believe it or not. Nearly all of them stand up on their own too."
"Very impressive." She smiled at him and he smiled back, a genuine, roguish grin that for a heartbeat made her forget he was wearing a gaudy orange jumpsuit and somehow looking thinner and greyer than ever. "I'll have to commission one from you."
"Sure, if you've got money to burn. You can foster some city pigeons." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the steel door behind him and the guards no-doubt waiting outside. "My lovely assistants can deliver your order when it's ready. Fair warning though, they tend to lose things. So, 'sorry' if it never gets to you."
"I'll just have to come pick it up myself then." She countered.
"Yeah..." He scratched at his chin again, eyes slanting off to the side. "Yeah, maybe. I, uh… don't really like you making this trip, to be honest."
She knew that. He had told her as such many times, more times than she could count, and she had her own response at the ready.
"I know, but I still want to see you." Felicia repeated.
Walter Hardy didn't reply, other than giving a small, practiced shrug, a gesture that wordlessly said 'here I am'. Felicia wasn't expecting anything more and she held no hope that he'd return the sentiment. She decided it was time to get to the point.
"There's a reason I'm here today anyways." She said, shifting so she could retrieve the folded stack of photos shoved into her back pocket. "I wanted to get your thoughts on this."
Walter Hardy leaned forward in his seat, testing the limits of his restraints as he tried to get a closer look. There wasn't an opening in the glass between them for her to pass him to photos, so she pressed each one up against the divider in turn. First were the pictures Spider-Man took of the robot, starting with the widest shot, then progressing to the more up-close and detailed ones. Next were a series of photos she'd taken herself of the severed demon horn.
Her cell phone (along with her keys, credit cards, spare change, chap-stick, and whatever else she'd had in her pockets) was being held in a plastic bin behind a desk in the prison's guest reception. They would have taken the photos from her too if she hadn't insisted, putting a little bit of extra wobble in her voice and moistening her eyes just so, explaining that she just wanted to show her poor old father a school project she was working on. A few 'yes sir's and 'yes officer's later and she'd been allowed to bring the pictures in.
They were harmless enough anyway, and Felicia would be damned if she had broken into the campus library to print them all last night for nothing.
She got through most of her impromptu slide-show before her father hummed, almost to himself, and she stopped. He jutted his chin up at the photo she was holding.
"Looks like Beck's work."
"Beck?"
"Yeah, he and I did some gigs together back in the day. You remember Beck, right?"
She didn't. But the flat they'd had in Chelsea when she was growing up, leased and furnished by the surrounding luxury apartments and bank vaults, had been a revolving door of strange men and women. Walter Hardy had kept a lot of friends with whom he had pulled many gigs over the years. Until, of course, his luck ran out.
The super-criminal known only as The Cat was unmasked. Walter Hardy went to prison.
And Felicia Hardy went into foster care.
"Beck could build anything, and I mean anything." He father continued. "Gadgets, cars, robots, drones… stuff that you didn't even think could exist. We pulled off the most wild stunts because of him. You remember that Met job in the 90's that I told you that about? Well that only worked because of him. He built a winch system the size of your fist."
He held up his hand to illustrate, his eyes, amber like hers, gleaming in a way that Felicia hadn't seen in so long. "Beck lowered me right down into the exhibit and up again, with about a thousand pounds of loot along with me. He was good guy. He had a daughter too – just a little older than you, now that I think about it. You remember her? I think you girls hung out a few times."
Felicia wracked her brains, but it was like trying to recall pieces of a dream. Seeing the horn and Spider-Man's photos of the robot had tickled something in the back of her brain, a memory so faint it almost felt like it belonged to someone else…
She could picture their old apartment, with her father's office door ajar and the drafting table inside that was covered with blueprints and half-empty coffee cups. She couldn't be older than ten and was so short that neither her father nor his guests noticed at first when she slipped into the room. A faceless man in a long coat had been talking to the assembly, brandishing a blinking metal wand the size of a flashlight, which cast green lights on one of the wide, blank walls.
She remembered the dancing light and the shrewd glares of her father's "coworkers" when she'd finally been spotted. She remembered staring, wide eyed, at the complex drawing of a bipedal robot pinned to the table, and she remembered her dad taking her by the hand and leading her away to wait in an adjacent bedroom with another girl – a willowy, rude girl that didn't want anything to do with Felicia.
"Where is Beck now?" She asked, bringing herself back to the present.
"Couldn't say. Haven't spoken to him in years."
"Any idea where he could be now? Where did you see him last?"
Walter answered her questions with one of his own.
"What is this about, Felicia?" The wistful gleam was gone from his eyes now, replaced with a more serious look that she rarely saw.
She had planned out what she would tell him ahead of time, so she was ready.
"This robot attacked an awards ceremony last night hosted by the Hammond Institute. They were giving an award to Curt Connors, who works at Oscorp." She explained. "This robot tried to kidnap Norman Osborn's son - Harry."
Walter frowned, a deep crease appearing between his brows. He mulled over this information for nearly half a minute before speaking.
"And this concerns you because…"
"Harry and I go to school together." She supplied, then, after a moment of thought, added: "He's a friend of mine."
"Ah."
It wasn't technically a lie, not really. Felicia and Harry were friendly enough. He was her lab partner's best friend and spent nearly as much time at their work table in Marconi's classroom as he did at his own. Regardless, she definitely didn't want him to be kidnapped or hurt, and she knew that if she wanted to get the maximum amount of intel out of her father, she was going to have to lay it on thick. He'd always wanted her to have friends of her own.
"Well, kidnapping was never Beck's MO, but I'd recognize his work anywhere. Those tiny bulbs there," He continued, nodding to a photo that Felicia had set aside, which featured the severed horn. "He would set up rigs that could project anything he wanted, make you invisible, make you see things that weren't there, stuff like that. And…" He trailed off, considering his next words. "Yeah, I suppose Beck would have a reason to want to hurt Norman Osborn."
"Why's that?"
"Beck tried to go straight a few times. Last time I remember, he took some of his designs around to see if he could get himself cushy little job in a lab somewhere. Osborn took him in and then took him for everything he had. You know how the story goes, Beck's ideas became Osborn's ideas, then Osborn's products, then Osborn's money." Walter gave a dry chuckle. "Not sure what he expected, but last time I talked to him, Beck made it sound like Osborn was bleeding him dry. He really hated the bastard."
It made sense – a disgruntled employee of Oscorp out for revenge, using his super-human mechanical skills for evil and sending robots to kidnap their boss's son. It was pretty simple, as far as super-villains went, and as much as protecting Norman Osborn put a sour taste in her mouth, Felicia knew Beck's plans for revenge needed to be stopped before someone got hurt. All she and Spider-Man had to down now was track him down.
Unfortunately, her father didn't have much more to say. Although, he did clarify that the last time he saw Beck was around ten years ago, when they met for the last time at their Chelsea apartment, but that only raised more questions – if he hated Osborn back then, why wait so long before making a move? - and Felicia was further thrown for a loop when Walter explained that he didn't even know Beck's full name.
"He went by a pseudo, we all did." Walter explained plainly. "He went by Mysterio while we were on this job. He was dramatic like that. Any other time, he would just give out fake names. He bounced between Wolfgang Beck, Johann Beck, Igor Beck, and so on. Always Beck though. I think it was a family name. Last I remember he was going around calling himself Ludwig."
Felicia thought this Ludwig Beck sounded like a piece of work, but she kept that critique to herself. There was a fondness in her father's voice that she wished she could bottle and stash somewhere safe.
"That's not much to go off of, but I guess it's a start." She stacked her photos and folded them back into her pocket. A clock on the wall said their visit was almost over. "I'll be back if more questions come to me, but no matter what I'll come visit for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks-"
"Felicia," Walter interrupted her, his face turned serious once more. "I feel like I would be shirking my parental duties more than usual if I didn't ask you not to go after Beck."
He said the words quickly, as if worried she would interrupt him in turn. She just looked at him calmly though and after a beat, he continued. "The Beck I knew wasn't dangerous, but that was a long, long time ago now. Sending in a robot to crash a party head-on like you're saying, is new for him."
"Any chance that wasn't Beck's robot?"
"Maybe... I don't know. Unless there's some tech-wiz out there as smart as he was - it's unlikely." He shifted uncomfortably on his chair. "You're a smart kid, and you got skills, but I think going after Beck might be biting off more than you can chew."
The diamond-shaped pendant that hung around her neck rested very lightly on her chest, but she could still feel it, pulsing like a living thing right next to her heart. Her father had always been a man of many secrets, and now Felicia had some of her own.
She gave him another small smile.
"I think I'll be okay. I promise not to do anything dangerous." She tried to lighten his mood. "Besides, if I find Beck, I'll just phone in the cops. Wouldn't it be nice to have a familiar face in here with you?"
"Ha." It was a fake laugh, but a real smirk on his face. "Who would have thought? My own daughter, heading out to bring my old partner to justice. I don't know whether to be heartbroken or proud."
Felicia didn't voice her opinion on the matter, but secretly, she couldn't help but hope it was the latter.
Spider-Man listened patiently as she explained to him what she'd learned. She had to be cagey about her sources, of course. Explaining how she'd gotten her intel from Walter Hardy would be one step too close to revealing her identity – and they'd both agreed to hold off on that (no matter how painful it was).
Black Cat could tell her coyness irritated him though, but just barely. You had to pay attention to the subtleties, the way he folded his arms, or tilted his head, or how the apertures around his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He didn't have any comments about her secretiveness, or perhaps he was just willing to let her think that he actually believed her explanation that she was just "really good at research".
But she knew better.
And regardless, her punishment, whether intentional on his part or not, soon came in the form of a midnight visit to a place she'd so far avoided to the best of her substantial ability – 1 Police Plaza.
"Let's see here… Ludwig Beck… L-U-D-W-I-G." Corporal DeWolff typed carefully into her keyboard, eyes trained on her fingers as she hunted and pecked. "B-E-C-K."
They were on the eleventh floor of the NYPD headquarters, tucked into very the corner, inside a cubicle that struggled to fit the oddly assembled crew. The only light source was the blue-ish glow of DeWolff's computer screen, but with Black Cat's enhanced vision, the deserted floor looked like it was bathed in sunlight.
Despite DeWolff's assurances that they wouldn't be disturbed, Cat kept her eyes trained on the doors that lead to the elevator, distantly listening at Spider-Man and DeWolff chatted.
"Thanks for doing this, Corporal." Spider-Man leaned over DeWolff's shoulder as her database processed her search request. "This should hopefully save us a lot of time."
"This is the least I could do after you saved New York for the tenth time." DeWolff replied. "And after you… saved me."
"You can thank Cat for saving New York." He shot Black Cat a quick look, the white lenses of his mask conveying none of the warmth his voice did. "And as for saving you, I would describe that as more of an 'attempted rescue'. Vermin still got you sick in the end."
"That he did." DeWolff shuddered at the memory. "But still, I'll never forget what it was like seeing you dive in front of me like that. You were... incredible."
The police corporal turned then and looked up into Spider-Man's face, the light from her monitor staining her eyeglasses brilliant white, while her cheeks took on a tinge of pink. It was all very unprofessional as far as Black Cat was concerned.
"Does it usually take this long?" Cat asked, slipping around DeWolff's other side and pulling their attention forward again. "It's been spinning a while."
The small "loading" icon had indeed been spinning for longer than she thought was necessary (How many Ludwig Beck's could there be in New York?) and she had to resist the urge to poke at the screen as her keen eyes traced the cursors looping progress. Her claws would no doubt puncture the monitor like paper.
"We'll give it another minute." DeWolff answered, fiddling with her computer mouse idly.
Cat huffed and took a step back, folding her arms. The search lag was only compounding on her anxiety. Standing around and waiting went against everything she knew about breaking and entering, which was a lot as a matter of fact. And while she had to admit that their research on Beck in public databases hadn't been fruitful so far, that didn't meant they had to give up and ask for help. If it were up to her, they would have broken into the NYPD headquarters and run this search on the police database themselves, alone.
But no, Spider-Man had insisted on calling in a favor from DeWolff. He had bet on his honor as a human arachnid that it would be faster this way.
Black Cat's eyes flicked towards the doors again. She could just picture a dozen police officers swarming in, guns drawn and pointed right at them, at him, not caring whether they were supposed to be heroes or not, only concerned about a couple of trespassers trying to dig through sensitive and confidential records. She could already picture Spider-Man taking a running dive in front of her, shielding her from a spray of bullets…
His hand settled on her shoulder and squeezed gently and Black Cat let loose a long breath, which she'd apparently been holding for quite some time. She didn't look at him, because if she did he'd ask her what was wrong, and she was not about to tell him in front of DeWolff, of all people.
"It finished!" DeWolff chirped, snapping Cat back into focus as if her brain was tethered on a rubber band. DeWolff clicked on the option to view the search results and started to read aloud. "We have a Mr. Ludwig Beck… taken into custody and processed a few years back for burglarizing… and with an address on the Upper East Side."
"Excellent!" Spider-Man pulled his phone out of his belt and took a photo of the address on screen. "We'll check it out."
Cat leaned forward, scrutinizing the search results for herself. There was a mugshot at the top of the screen, next to his name, and she felt an electric shock at the revelation that she truly did recognize the wide-faced, dark-haired man starring back at her.
The Ludwig Beck on screen was certainly older than the one in Black Cat's memory, but there was no doubt in her mind that they were one and the same. She recognized his heavy brow and the slight way the corners of his mouth were turned, like he had a perpetual smirk.
She and Spider-Man would be paying him a visit at his address that very night. She could just imagine the shock on his face when she and Spider-Man appeared at his window. They would question him about the robot he'd sent after Harry Osborn and very likely bring him into custody before sunrise. Walter Hardy and Ludwig Beck, former partners and crime, would soon be inmates at the Raft together…
"Wait. Hold on." Cat had just spotted a blurb of text beneath the picture, and on instinct she lurched forward to jab at the screen. Rainbow spiderwebs erupted from where her fingertip pressed into the monitor, but the text beneath the glitching pixels was still very readable. "Deceased?"
No. That couldn't be right.
"Careful!" DeWolff shoved Cat's arm away from her computer so she could look for herself. "Oh, yeah. Look at that – Deceased as of last year." Turning in her chair once more, DeWolff gave Spider-Man an apologetic look. "Sorry, Spider-Man, it looks like your Mr. Beck is dead."
