"Art is an Explosion."
Deidara. Just a good person.
Walter Mayer. Slightly Calmer.
****************
The first impulse faded quickly. You learn from your mistakes, and I'd already stepped on this particular rake once: charging into an enemy stronghold without preparation or gathering even the bare minimum of useful information. The result had been that I'd nearly ruined the entire operation, while Laura had lost the only person close to her at the time (I flatter myself with the hope that she has such a person again now). No. This time I needed to act more carefully.
First: no raids or assaults without reconnaissance. And I didn't particularly want to drag the Nazgûl into this either. Walter Mayer had a friend for dealing with Fisk and company: a freelance mercenary. And the northern furry apocalypse descending on the local criminal underworld would fit the mood nicely. Right.
What next? Secure the rear. I doubted Kurt would refuse to work in von Doom's laboratories for a while. It also made sense to move his family somewhere protected. Victor had exactly that kind of territory, along with corporate apartments. Alice... What should I do with her? And no dirty thoughts. I know myself. Definitely not send her to Doom. I didn't trust her, not with a father like hers. Hmm.
Why did I need to do anything with her at all? I'd never planned to save everyone. Her father was already on the hook. Which meant she could take care of herself. Not my problem. My thoughts were interrupted by Spider-Man returning to the room.
Good thing he'd waited until the guards had left. Otherwise things might have become awkward. One look at him told the story: scorch marks on the suit, an overall battered appearance, and no Tablet. The robot had caught up with him after all. Not that I'd expected anything else. At least he was alive.
While Kurt engaged in self-flagellation—'Ah, how will we ever uncover the secrets of the ancients without the Tablet,' and so on in the same spirit; even Peter had gone gloomy and guilt was coming off him in waves—I continued my improvised brainstorming.
Fine. Suppose I found their laboratory. Suppose I went there and beat the bad men over the head. Then what? I doubted Fisk was insane enough to keep some incomprehensible radioactive thing in his own lair. More likely, a clandestine laboratory had already been set up somewhere else. The marker was leading toward the outskirts of the city anyway, not the business district. And why the hell was our security so useless? Slow, too.
By the time that giant humanoid combat robot finished chasing Spidey and took the Tablet away from him, I was still explaining to our 'valiant' guards—for the third time—what exactly had happened.
The predictable result: all I had were the coordinates of the 'garage' where the robot disappeared. Not much. I needed reconnaissance. But with my luck, if I went personally, the whole thing might end in another meat grinder. Not that the prospect upset me much, or would stop me if necessary. Still, it's better not to shit where you live. And a massacre wouldn't hurt Fisk all that badly anyway.
Still thinking over the situation, I called Victor and made arrangements concerning Dr. Connors and his family. At the same time I hinted that it might be useful if Kurt eventually moved to Doom's organization permanently rather than temporarily. 'Iron Man' saw the benefit of acquiring the Doc's very respectable brain immediately and promised to sound him out.
Then I spoke with Connors himself. To my relief, he assessed the situation quite sensibly and agreed that hiding his family for a while was a good idea. During all those conversations, a thought wandered into my unfortunate head. The thought could be expressed in one word: cockroaches.
What do cockroaches have to do with anything? Heh-heh. They're difficult to get rid of. They can crawl into the most inaccessible places. And I'd never met anyone paranoid enough to suspect he was being watched by cockroaches. Though at the rate this world was going, people like that would probably appear soon enough. Flies would have been better, but unfortunately it was the end of November. Cold weather. The little aviators had already hidden away somewhere. So cockroaches would have to do. Finding them was easy enough. Pet shops sold some species as food for reptiles and other animals.
And so I stood not far from a hardware store located almost exactly on the border between long-suffering Harlem and a more respectable district. If my senses were telling the truth—and I trusted them—the entrance to the laboratory was somewhere around here. I released my little cockroach saboteurs. Damn it. I'm Shino now. All that's left is to learn how to speak Yoda-style for complete authenticity. Then I began watching through them. A strange sensation, let me tell you. But one could adapt. Two hours later, I finally found the laboratory. The entrance was inside the very hardware store near which I'd settled. The lab itself was comparatively small. And its only staff member at the moment was Alistair himself.
The local genius was trying to decipher the writing on the Tablet while remembering his boss with 'quiet, kind words.'( Whoa.I hadn't known English was capable of producing such interesting grammatical constructions. Worth remembering.) His translation was going terribly, which clearly wasn't improving his mood. Hmm. What should I do with this? Sure, I could... mmm... neutralize Alistair and recover the Tablet. But why? Alistair could still prove useful. And the Tablet itself wasn't much use to me right now. Besides, that would barely hurt Kingpin at all. He'd lose a valuable employee, but not much else. How could I plant a larger pig under him? Preferably something the size of a tarrasque. Or at least an ancient red dragon.
Hmm. That man valued only power and reputation, and both were slowly but surely slipping from his grasp. Maybe I should help with the slipping? In canon, Fisk had fought Silvermane over the Tablet. But now the former old man had more important things to do than hunting an artifact with questionable properties. And he probably wouldn't need it for at least another hundred years. On the other hand, he was a very prudent man. I doubted he'd refuse to acquire such an item for future use—especially if doing so also allowed him to screw over Kingpin. As the saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or, if not a friend, then at least a very convenient tool. I smiled. Another 'Cunning Plan' began taking shape in my head. I'd have to change clothes, though. The evil Nazgûl would indeed make an appearance tonight. But Fisk wasn't the one receiving the visit.*
Silvermane.
*************
The former old man listened carefully to his daughter's story. Kingpin had completely lost his sense of restraint if he allowed himself to act this openly. Though what else could one expect from that young thug? Still, there were far too many blank spaces in the story.
"So you didn't actually see what happened in there?"
"No, Father. During the attack, the laboratory doors locked automatically. At the time, only Connors, Mayer, and Spider-Man were inside."
"Mayer..."
The man thoughtfully stroked his chin.
"Someone mentioned a man by that name to me not long ago... Could this be the same Mayer who recently bought almost half of Doom Incorporated for pennies? Only a week before its spectacular rise... I don't believe in coincidences like that, Alice. I don't. So I want you to keep him in your field of vision." Silvermane chuckled. "Or even closer than that. You'll figure it out yourself. You're not a little girl anymore."
"All right, Father." The girl nodded. "I'll take a closer look at him."
"What a touching family conversation."
A voice saturated with arctic cold made father and daughter flinch in perfect unison.
"You?"
Silvermane was clearly not pleased to see the creature. The man had tried to make inquiries, but all he had learned was a name: Nazgûl. Who it was, where it had come from—nothing. And the list of its abilities... One of America's crime lords simply couldn't reduce them to any common denominator. It seemed the creature merely did whatever it wanted, however it wanted, and considered things like physics, chemistry, and every other law of nature to be somebody else's problem. He did not understand the Nazgûl's goals or motivations. And people fear what they do not understand.
Alice, meanwhile, regarded the robed being with open curiosity.
"Me," the creature agreed. "Tell me, mortal, do you still desire revenge? I can see that you do. I can help you obtain it."
Silvermane tensed. Their previous deal had given him youth and health. But partners like this had to be treated carefully. Very, very carefully.
"But last time you said the wars of mortals did not interest you, Mr. Nazgûl. Have you changed your mind?"
"No. YOUR war merely amuses me. But Fisk dared to... let us say, lay hands on something that belongs to me."
The Nazgûl paused meaningfully.
"Oh."
That was all the former old man managed to say. He had suspected Kingpin was a complete thug. But this much? Then again, who knew what this creature considered its property? Perhaps the fat man or one of his people had accidentally trampled its favorite lawn. But Silvermane would not have survived as long as he had without trying to extract the maximum benefit from any situation.
"And what form will your assistance take?"
"Information. Fisk recently seized an ancient artifact you call the Tablet of Time. I can tell you where it is now, who guards it, and the layout of the facility. Taking away his toy in exchange for his attempt to break mine... pleases me. As payment, you keep the Tablet. You have plenty of time to study it now."
The crime lord thought he heard faint mockery in the Nazgûl's voice. Although with a voice like that it was difficult to distinguish much of anything.
"What say you, mortal?"
Silvermane considered. To strike a painful blow against Fisk... Very tempting. But relying on information from the Nazgûl... The man hesitated. In the end, his desire to hurt Kingpin proved stronger than his paranoia. After all, if this creature had wanted him destroyed, it could have killed him right here without ever revealing its presence. It wouldn't have negotiated.
"I agree." Silvermane nodded.
"Then look."
The visitor swept the edge of its robe across the desk. A model of some facility began growing out of the tabletop in front of the Nazgûl. Several seconds later, it was complete. An extraordinarily detailed model of a laboratory stood before the criminal authority. His unexpected ally began explaining where everything was located.
Walter Mayer. Nazgûl.
*********
Convincing the 'old man' wasn't easy. He was cautious by nature, so I had to give him a little confidence and remove some excessive doubts. But the result was worth it. Silvermane's people would know the laboratory as well as their own homes. I would merely sit back, enjoy the show, and eat popcorn. I wasn't worried about Alistair . If anyone could escape in time, it was him.
While persuading our paranoid friend, I quietly removed some of my cells from his body and replaced them with fresh ones. As expected, the little cells brought back several very interesting memories from the 'old man's' brain. It turned out that he'd once studied the Tablet quite seriously. He had even planned to build an exact copy of the pyramid in which it had been kept, though he hadn't fully believed in its effectiveness. The construction plans had been interrupted by his meeting with the Nazgûl and subsequent rejuvenation. Even so, he'd already gathered a tremendous amount of information. And since his own life had depended on the matter, he had studied it with exceptional care.
But the tastiest part was this: he'd deciphered the inscriptions. Not those on the Tablet itself. Those on the walls of the pyramid. Incidentally, those natives had been called Toltecs. In their language, that meant something like 'guards' or 'keepers.' Interesting coincidence, isn't it? More importantly, he'd compiled something resembling a dictionary and the basics of the grammar.
I still couldn't translate the symbols on the Tablet myself. The old man's brain contained only the fundamentals, and incomplete ones at that—not a ready-made textbook. Sad. I'd been hoping. But some linguist should be able to figure it out without too much trouble. I hoped. Still, one thing was already clear. I'd been wrong. The Tablet's properties had far less in common with Rogue's abilities than I'd hoped. The artifact did not fill a body with energy. It genuinely returned youth by 'rolling back' the years a person had lived, while preserving memories and experience.
Don't even ask me how that was possible. I was shocked too. The Tablet drew the energy for the process from the surrounding world. Its mechanism was suspiciously similar to Symby's abilities. There was only one difference: I could regulate my absorption rate. The artifact always drank at the same speed unless exposed to some irritating stimulus. Then it went completely vampiric.
All that remained was to determine how the device was switched into its 'correct' operating mode. Although I already had a couple of ideas. Not that it mattered much anymore. The Tablet was useless to me. I could rejuvenate people without it. So let Kingpin and Silvermane entertain themselves while I watched.
Right. The old fellow had his assignment. Fisk was going to receive a respectable kick in the teeth. I wouldn't have to dirty my own hands. And I'd learned a great deal about the Tablet in the bargain. Definitely a good day. Or night, rather. Details.
Satisfied with myself, I said goodbye to the honored veteran of the criminal front—more than forty years of service already, impressive—and left his hospitable home.
Oh. A free night. Nothing to do. Felicia was still buried in foundation work. Lately I could only see her at the university, and not even every day. Laura was probably deep into her fifth dream by now. The Brotherhood's Council was still selecting candidates for deputies, cell leaders, and so on. Damn it. I'd have to initiate all of them. And with different sets of abilities too. Right. Let's not think sad thoughts. Maybe I'd go practice psionics. There were still plenty of 'volunteers' wandering dark alleys. Local thugs got lucky that night. My thoughts were interrupted by my phone buzzing.
Hmm. Who could be calling me in the middle of the night? Though why guess? Just look at the number. Oh! Rogue's long-awaited call. Good timing. Still... I'd thought—or hoped?—she would call earlier. I pressed the green button and raised the phone to my ear.
"I'm listening."
I'd already changed my voice. No hissing. No graveyard cold. Silence from the other end. The quiet breathing made it clear the connection was fine. And then it happened.
"Um... Mister Nazgûl?"
No. When Silvermane called me that, I'd somehow managed to keep a straight face. But now? With that voice and those intonations? To this day, I don't understand how I avoided flying into a wall and dissolving into giggles. 'Mister Nazgûl.' Mister. No, really. Heh-heh. Magnificent. All right. Pull yourself together and answer something. Get a grip, Mister Nazgûl. Damn it. Now it was stuck in my head.
"Yes, it's me, Anna. Did you want something?"
Hmm. How should I behave around her? For some reason, in her presence I wanted to be a young irresponsible idiot. As if you're particularly old or particularly wise. Hmm. Why not? It was amusing, in a way: the grim figure in black turns out to be a reasonably nice guy underneath. With his own infestation of cockroaches in his head, naturally. Still.
"We... could we meet?"
There was so much hope in her voice. How could anyone refuse?
"Why not? When?"
"Could we do it right now?"
Hmm. I barely remembered Rogue's canonical personality. But what I was seeing now could probably be described as forceful kawaii with a few highly specific features. Still, I liked the determination.
"All right. I'll wait for you on the roof of the building Landon was climbing when we first met."
After making sure she'd understood me correctly, I ended the call and headed for the designated place. Well then. We'd wait. Twenty minutes later I began to suspect a trap. Damn it. Xavier's school was five minutes away by direct flight. Fine. Wait a little longer. Might as well change my face into that of the white-haired aristocrat while I was at it.
Another fifteen minutes later, the girl finally arrived. Hmm. Now I understood the delay. Hair. Makeup. Even earrings. Everything had been done with great care. Though one could tell she didn't have much experience with 'war paint' yet. It didn't really match the outfit either. A dress would have suited the look better than a leather jacket and leather pants. Then again, flying in a dress wasn't terribly practical. It was chilly these days. Especially at altitude. Still, she looked very attractive.
"Good evening, beautiful." I threw back my hood, revealing a pale face with a faint smile. "I see you've already gotten used to the gift."
"Yes. Flying is wonderful. Up in the sky, all the worries and problems on the ground stay behind. Though I didn't expect it to be so cold up there."
Rogue finished a little awkwardly.
"Yeah. I had to find myself a heated robe. Quite a hassle. But why are we standing on a rooftop exposed to every wind? Would you perhaps agree to a small date with one charming Nazgûl?"
There it was again. Blushing. Hmm. Forceful and aggressive on the outside, but rather shy and modest underneath. Interesting combination. I offered her my hand. That energy-draining contact again. I really had to do something about it. Sure, I could isolate myself behind a layer of dead cells. But that felt... mmm... wrong, somehow. It would be no different from the gloves. No. Better to endure it for a while and gradually adjust my cells so Rogue's body would recognize them as 'self.'
"Tell me, what's your name? Nazgûl can't be your real name, can it?"
We drifted slowly toward the park, hand in hand. If some outsider had seen us, he'd probably have gone straight to make an appointment with a psychiatrist. The picture was genuinely psychedelic. We filled the flight with conversation.
"Everyone calls me Nazgûl. But if you want, you can choose a name for me. I won't object." After a moment's hesitation, I added: "Unless it's completely unpronounceable."
Now she started thinking.
"How about Alex? I mean Alexander. It's a serious name, and it suits you."
"Really? Alexander..." I rolled the name around on my tongue. "...Sounds good. Why not."
The important thing was that it wasn't Alexander Mikhailovich Hell. (I was never much of a fan of Qwaser and its Stigmata.)
Overall, the improvised date went extremely well. We walked around the park and talked about random things. I asked her about life at the school. In return, I told stories from my student days. The robe became a leather jacket, making me look like a classic alternative-rock type. The clothing transformation trick impressed Anna too. We even found a café that was still open. There we spent several hours stimulating conversation with cups of coffee and reinforcing ourselves with local sandwiches.
Hmm. What could be nicer than a heart-to-heart conversation with a pretty girl? Romantic atmosphere. The rustle of wind. The sound of explosions somewhere in the city... Wait. What explosions? Hmm. Wasn't Fisk's underground laboratory in that direction? Or rather... hadn't it been? Well then. Silvermane had made full use of the information I gave him. Quick old bastard. Very quick. But never mind that.
At the moment I had something much more pleasant to do than think about a crime lord. And I gladly devoted the rest of the evening to that pleasant occupation. What can I say? Rogue didn't know how to kiss. But she learned very quickly. And compensated for inexperience with tremendous enthusiasm. Heh-heh. Eventually, the darkness began to thin. Predawn twilight. The girl in my arms was already sleeping peacefully.
What was I doing? I loved Felicia. But damn it... I seemed to be falling in love with this 'kawaii hedgehog,' as I'd privately nicknamed Rogue, too. And I had absolutely no desire to hide either girl from the other. Oh, I had a feeling my life was about to become very entertaining. For now, though, I needed to get her home. Hmm. We'd spent a long time together. When she woke up, she'd probably discover another gift.
I had a rough idea where her room was in the school. From there I could follow the scent. Thank you, Comrade Logan, for our magnificent nose. I thought she lived there with her friend—what was her name? Jubilee Lee? Or did her friend simply occupy Rogue's room all the time? Hmm. I'd missed that detail somehow. No matter.
Getting into the school turned out to be easy. The grounds were probably stuffed with sensors, detectors, and traps. But they failed to detect a small object traveling at extremely low altitude. I found Anna's room fairly quickly as well. Her scent drifted distinctly from a slightly open window, mixed with the scent of another girl. A minor detail.
Before entering, I carefully pricked Rogue's finger and collected a little blood. Perhaps outside her body it would be more cooperative for analysis. The girl didn't wake up. She didn't even move. Yep. Definitely a coma while digesting a new ability.
Of the 'quickly assimilateble' abilities, I still had regeneration and Kimura's 'armor.' I wondered which one Rogue had acquired. I'd find out during the blood analysis. All right. Holding such a lovely person in my arms was certainly pleasant. But hovering over potentially hostile territory longer than necessary wasn't wise.
Forward— to storm the women's bedroom. Hmm. My thoughts were drifting in the wrong direction again. Inside the room waited a girl— no, more like a young woman— about fourteen or fifteen. And what enormous eyes she suddenly had when a black-robed figure flew through the window carrying her roommate. I'd restored the outfit to its original form by then.
I gently laid Rogue on the bed and turned toward the stunned girl. Then I placed one finger against the place where my lips ought to have been, using the international sign for 'keep quiet.' Without saying another word, I stepped back out through the window. Yes. Today had definitely gone well.
Anna, Also Known as Rouge. Morning.
**************************
The girl opened her eyes and saw the familiar ceiling of her room at Xavier's school. A dream. Only a dream. But such a realistic one. What a shame. She remembered what had happened after Mayer gave her the phone. Before calling the Nazgûl, she'd decided to explore the unexpected gift. Eternal female curiosity. What could you do?
She found songs. A huge number of songs. Most were in an unfamiliar language, though there were plenty in English too. The albums were very different from one another, but a large portion consisted of fairly gloomy, though beautiful, music. Eventually identified the unknown language as Russian.
There happened to be one Russian mutant among Xavier's students. But Rogue had no idea how to approach him and asked Jubilee for help. That was when poor Piotr Rasputin's personal nightmare began. Within two hours, the usually withdrawn and unsociable boy was ready to do literally anything if somebody would only remove 'that monster' from his vicinity.
So getting the songs translated wasn't difficult. The translations were clumsy, of course, but the general meaning was understandable. And the lyrics were even darker. Walter Mayer was strange. Very strange. Rogue became so absorbed in the music that she failed to notice the phone battery reaching zero. And she still hadn't written the Nazgûl's number down anywhere.
No charger came with the phone either. Where to find one was completely unclear. For two days the girls shook the entire school upside down looking for a compatible charger. On the third day, luck finally smiled upon them. They found one. Then came the call. The short conversation. And frantic preparation for the first date of Rogue's life. Never mind that, at the time, the Nazgûl had technically only agreed to a business meeting.
Rogue shivered. Everything fit together so clearly and logically... Could it really not have been a dream? Her doubts were answered by the dissatisfied voice of her best friend.
"Wow. I'm impressed." Jubilee's voice held admiration mixed with a certain amount of envy. "I've spent two years trying to inject the necessary amount of chaos into this stagnant swamp, but you... One night, and the entire school is standing on its ears. Cyclops is rebuilding security again, and Wolverine is threatening to 'tan the hide of that lover of nighttime walks so badly she'll sleep on her stomach for a month.' So please accept my sincere admiration. Now tell me—how did it go with that scary monster of yours?"
"Alex is not a scary monster!"
Rogue snapped back.
"So he's Aaaalex now." The younger girl drew the word out delightedly. "How interesting. Come on, spill it. Logan will be here soon, and who knows if I'll ever see you again. You wouldn't want me to die of curiosity, would you?"
Sarcasm, optimism, and boiling energy—commonly known as having an awl permanently stuck in one place—were the defining features of Jubilation Lee's personality. Rogue sighed sadly and began telling the story. She had no intention of hiding anything from her only real friend. Well... except for a couple of insignificant details that were somewhat personal. And she didn't mention the black ring with strange writing on the Nazgûl's finger either. After all, Jubilee had played an active part in arranging the meeting.
"Mmm. Kissing under the moon. How romantic. I wish somebody would do that with me."
That was the young mutant's verdict.
"You mentioned some kind of commotion. What happened?"
"Oh, right. You don't know. Somebody saw you flying away in the middle of the night and told Logan. Or maybe he saw you himself. I'm not sure." Jubilee looked genuinely distressed by the fact that there was something about life at the school she didn't know. "And considering Wolverine has been walking around like a thundercloud for days already... well, brace yourself. You're in for a full interrogation."
The interrogation never really happened. Logan honestly tried. He even yelled at Rogue, something he'd never allowed himself to do before. He tried to convince her such trips could be dangerous. He didn't ask where she'd gone. Her scent answered that question clearly enough.
But Rogue dug in her heels and very politely asked her mentor not to interfere in her private life. They never reached complete understanding. But they did manage a few agreements. Anna agreed to at least inform him when she left and to remain reachable. She had a phone now, after all.
The second condition was another medical examination. Just in case. The examination produced some difficulties. Poor Dr. Hank broke five needles on her skin before admitting he couldn't reach the girl's blood. Even Logan didn't help. They wanted to use his claws to make a tiny incision. It took nearly ten minutes to persuade him.
But even adamantium, supposedly capable of cutting anything, failed to leave so much as a scratch on her skin. That triggered another round of questions, this time from Beast. Logan simply walked away looking deeply thoughtful. He definitely didn't like what was happening. But there was nothing he could do about it. Not without completely destroying his relationship with his student. And he very much did not want that.
"Hmm. Maybe it isn't so bad after all. And this Nazgûl is a good fighter. He can protect her."
Rogue overheard her mentor muttering quietly and nearly inhaled her own tongue. This really was the best day of her life.
Fisk. Also Known as Kingpin. Morning.
******************
The giant reviewed reports on the previous night's incident. 'Incident,' his ass. The event had cost him a laboratory equipped with the latest technology. At least Alistair had managed to evacuate through an escape route built for exactly such an occasion. It was also fortunate that he hadn't moved Dr. Octavius into that laboratory yet. It wasn't exactly his specialization.
But consultation from a man who had devoted his life to working with energy could have been useful. Alas. It hadn't worked out. What bothered Fisk even more was how easily and confidently Silvermane's people had navigated the complex.
That could mean only one thing. Someone was feeding information to the suddenly youthful old man. And someone positioned fairly high up.
Of course, there was always the possibility that this had been the work of some hacker or professional thief who could quietly open a safe containing blueprints, photograph everything necessary, and leave without being noticed.
But specialists of that quality could be counted on the fingers of one hand worldwide. The only such man Fisk knew personally, a certain Cat, was currently somewhere unknown. It might be worth locating him. Rumor had it that his head contained one very interesting formula. But that could wait.
Silvermane's move, however, demanded an answer. And today's visitor would help provide one. Fisk shifted an irritated gaze toward the man lounging in the chair opposite him. The figure wore a black-and-red suit and had two swords crossed on his back. He created an intimidating impression... right up until he opened his mouth.
"Yo, fatty. Why'd you call me? I met this absolute babe, and then the phone rings. Had to drop everything and come running here. Look, I understand bad guys in comics never let honest heroes relax, but a conscience isn't just something you're supposed to own. Sometimes you're meant to use it for its intended purpose!"
Kingpin closed his eyes in suffering. Yes. There it was. The facepalm. This creature was a professional. One of the best mercenaries in the business. He had already worked for Fisk a couple of times. But communicating with this lunatic was exhausting. Unfortunately, nobody better— or rather, nobody more mentally stable— was available at the moment. And an insult like Silvermane's had to be answered as quickly as possible.
"Let us discuss the problems of my conscience another time. At present, I am interested in hiring you for a particular job."
"Cap, you've really put on weight. Or are you swelling up from starvation? What else would you invite me here for? Everybody calls poor little me only when they need some dirty job done. Nobody ever invites me just to hang out, drink beer with barbecue, maybe visit some girls."
Fisk could hear his own teeth grinding. Anyone else in this man's place would already have been strangled personally. But with this mercenary, even point-blank machine-gun fire wouldn't solve the problem. So he had to clench his jaw and keep talking to this... this... Well. Him.
"Your task is to eliminate or capture several people working for my competitor. Here are photographs and names."
A folder slid across the desk. The guest opened it and began studying the contents with unexpected attention.
"Well, this all looks simple. Almost boring. Where's the action? Where are the mega-badass dudes I'm supposed to fight while losing liters of blood? This is a comic book, man. There should be someone big and fat..." The mercenary raised both hands in reconciliation. "Uh, no offense."
He looked down again.
"Oh, now this chick is something else. I'd let her kidnap me. Five or six times... dozen times. Fine, boss, any whim for your money. Speaking of money, I'm burning with desire to socialize with the great presidents of the past."
"How much?"
Fisk was almost growling now. The endless references to his weight were seriously irritating the giant.
"Enough to party for a couple months on some tropical island with this kitty."
The mercenary jabbed a finger at one of the photographs.
"Agreed. Now get out of my office!"
"Easy, easy, I'm leaving. But you really shouldn't get so worked up. Heavy people can have heart problems, and you're straining yourself. What if you have a heart attack? Where am I supposed to collect my paycheck then?"
With a theatrical bow, the mercenary disappeared through the door. Kingpin closed his eyes in relief and reached for the bottle of whiskey. Right now he desperately needed a drink.