Chapter 8
Felicia Hardy felt afraid, and she wasn't sure that the feeling was necessarily unwelcome. Because whenever she wasn't afraid, she mostly felt apathetic. Or worse, sad.
That fear was always associated with her work, and while she loathed it, it also provided her relief from herself. It was a particularly mean-spirited irony. Her job was killing her inside, but the only time she didn't have to think about how much she hated being one of Wilson Fisk's paid murderers was when she was acting as one.
Perhaps 'job' or 'work' was the wrong way of thinking of things. Wilson paid her, of course, but only so he could have yet another hold on her. This was probably slavery, or perhaps just indenture. She would do this work for Wilson Fisk, or he would send someone to kill her. Probably Bullseye or Mary, as they'd delight in the chance in a way that Elektra was far too professional for.
She was stuck. She had no choice. Being alive meant she had to live this sort of life. She had no responsibility or agency here. So why did she always blame herself?
'Because Don Rigoletto's daughter was fourteen years old, you selfish bitch,' she reminded herself. Yet again.
She suppressed a sigh. She deserved to feel sad then, for Sandy Rigoletto's sake. Because nobody else here would.
Bullseye would have probably laughed. While she considered herself more wretched than Elektra, who was merely unfeeling, or Mary, who was insane… even at her lowest, she wasn't as awful as Bullseye. Daredevil was apparently too principled to kill him, which meant the law otherwise couldn't hold him for long with the Kingpin behind him. Because for some reason, being just about superhumanly good at mass murder while wearing a stupid black costume and an open-mouthed cowl with a target on his head meant that he was outside the scope of the police and the courts. They couldn't keep him in jail if they tried, so the cops mostly didn't bother. Just as long as he stayed quiet and only kept his killings to Fisk's underworld rivals from now on.
It was maddening. Maddening enough to have driven Frank Castle insane, and thus far Bullseye had narrowly avoided at least one attempted assassination by the Punisher that was only averted by Daredevil of all people. That was something that Bullseye could never forgive either of them for, as if he were the victimized party in their insane three-man feud.
Bullseye caught Felicia staring at him, and he just smiled. That's why he kept his mouth and chin exposed. Because then he could smile at people like that, before he killed them.
Felicia grimaced, as she shivered despite herself, and looked away. Somehow Mary Walker, or Typhoid Mary, or Bloody Mary, with her name and title changing depending on her whims and her psychoses, was the more stable and reliable of the two. If Bullseye belonged as a corpse, then at the very least Mary, a bona fide mutant, deserved a straitjacket and a padded cell for the rest of her days. But there was as little chance of Mary to end up in a mental institution as Bullseye was in a cell, for as long as Wilson Fisk was in play. Her hair was red, and the right half of her face was a garish white. Whether it was a deliberate affectation with makeup, or a side-effect of her mutation was something that Felicia never felt was worth asking.
Her outfits were equally as whimsical as her mental state, which tended to be variations on a theme of 'deranged stripper.' By comparison Felicia's outfit was much plainer and conservative compared to Bullseye's or Mary's, with just a gray blouse and matching slacks. Combine it with Felicia's prematurely gray hair from Oscorp's superpower experiments and from a distance she could pass as someone in their sixties, rather than in their twenties.
Only Elektra had a more business-like ensemble: a black martial artist's outfit and a bright red facemask. The pair of twin sais on her hips completed the standard ninja look. Elektra was not one for small-talk, or really of expressing herself in anyway, which meant that Felicia disliked her the least of Fisk's other full-time assassins.
It was rare for the four of them to be present in the same place. But Fisk was always adamant about providing a show of force when it came to cordial visits with Norman Osborn, his new business partner.
Felicia also loathed getting dragged back down to Norman's labs. She was not grateful for her powers, and really didn't think they were worth the cost. But Wilson Fisk thought they were worth it, and that bloated monster didn't care at all about any costs but the financial ones.
The four assassins shuffled silently behind Wilson Fisk's large shadow, and as her eyes wandered the labs Felicia couldn't help but consider what it took to make her into the Black Cat. There were cages, and while some of the people inside them could only just still pass for human… most no longer could. And then there were the fresh body bags shuffled off into the corner, awaiting collection and disposal. It was a Mengelian nightmare, beta-testing to eventually create stronger and stabler strains of monsters. Ones that could still pass for human.
Ones like Felicia.
Fisk had to duck his head as they passed through the reinforced automatic doors that periodically dotted the lab. The technicians, a hodgepodge of wannabe mad scientists who had too much by way of criminal records to ever reasonably expect employment at Oscorp proper, had to give the Kingpin a wide berth. Which is to say, they practically had to squeeze themselves against the walls of the narrower hallways for the wildly obese, nearly hairless, seven-foot-tall Fisk to make his way inside. The fat man's preference for white suits meant that he could be likened to a humanoid Moby Dick.
The people who voiced the comparison out loud usually died, though.
By the time they'd sunk to the very bottom of the underground facility, there was Norman Osborn. Billionaire, industrialist, scientist, and psychotic serial killer. Tall, muscular, square-jawed, and with a receding brown hair-line, Norman Osborn would have looked every inch like a stern patriarch if he wasn't wearing his silly goblin outfit too. Though mercifully he had forgone the green mask, which hung loosely draped over a chair. He was hunched over a table, silently reviewing a set of schematics that Felicia couldn't possibly make sense of, and hardly seemed to notice their presence until Wilson Fisk dramatically cleared his throat.
"Yes, yes, I saw you through the cameras," Norman muttered coldly as he continued to pore over the schematics. He was probably one of only a handful of people in New York who could get away with talking to the Kingpin like that.
Fisk knew it too, and it rankled him. For all that Felicia cared, both Osborn and Fisk could devour each other. As it was, it was a match made in Hell.
"Hit another roadblock, Norman?" Fisk's voice rumbled. Felicia could tell that he was deliberately trying to sound more curious and concerned rather than critical or accusatory.
Norman Osborn was nothing if not defensive.
"Our work down here is the sort of thing that sacrifices efficiency for expediency. We're plumbing depths that more cautious minds would be fearful of. We're bound to hit a few dead ends here and there, but the overall results still speak for themselves," Norman muttered testily.
"Our alliance has borne quite a bit of profitable fruit, yes," Fisk simply said, as he glanced briefly at Felicia. Which only made her skin crawl in response. "Since your upgrades to the Black Cat, anyone who even thinks about becoming a problem for me ends up coming to ruin. It's quite delightful."
Felicia scowled, but Mary and Bullseye were now glaring at her. Idiots. If they wanted the title of Wilson Fisk's favorite shiv, then they were welcome to it. Elektra, by contrast, noticed the sudden subtle increase in tension and took a step-in front of Felicia, giving their two fellow assassins a look to warn them away from the boss's current favorite monster.
It was like being in the company of sharks, Felicia thought. As soon as someone started to bleed, they'd all devour each other. Osborn and Fisk noted the behavior but didn't care enough to do anything about it.
Being Fisk's current favorite didn't mean much. Osborn could always make him another Black Cat, if it came down to it.
"So? Are you here to badger me for yet another breakthrough?" Osborn grimaced, finally looking Fisk in the eye. "If that's the case, then the most helpful thing you could do is get more test subjects. We're running low on dregs, so tell Mr. Negative to fetch me more."
"We're-" Fisk began, only to be cut off by sirens suddenly blaring in the lab. It wasn't the fire alarm that was ringing, and Felicia watched mutely as the lab technicians quickly shuffled off to their designated safe rooms, and a handful of security guards slung their rifles over their shoulders. Exactly as they drilled a dozen times before.
Fisk smiled, wryly. "Is it good luck or bad luck that this happened while I was here?"
"Bad luck, but not for you," Osborn responded, dryly. "At least, that's if our Cat knows what's good for her, right?" he said, fixing her with the same look Mary and Bullseye were giving her just moments before.
Those two psychopaths looked much more chipper, and Felicia felt her saliva burn as it passed down her suddenly dry throat.
She couldn't use this power on the people she feared. Norman Osborn was very deliberate about that, but it didn't stop Bullseye from threatening to gut her every time he had an unlucky break on his own.
Bullseye didn't need to worry. Because everyone in this room terrified her.
Norman gave a smile of satisfaction as he watched her shoulders tremble slightly. "Good, that's in order at least. This is a long-awaited break-in, and Otto and his little friends were getting bored. Octavius had the temerity to start acting as backseat driver for my work. I'd much prefer an imbecilic thug to an intellectual, Wilson. Your loan of Hammerhead to Dr. Octopus's now Sinister Five, formerly Six, is very able in that regard. He, at least, has been a superlative imbecile."
Fisk merely gave a snort of amusement. Hammerhead was doggedly loyal and terrifyingly persistent, but there were reasons he wasn't one of the Kingpin's hitmen. For example, Felicia knew that a Japanophile like Fisk couldn't abide any more or less than exactly four killers on permanent hire.
The cameras shifted to the entrance as a massive and over-muscled man in a ragged suit and hat, every bit as tall as Fisk but not nearly as wide, simply tore the lab's vault doors of its hinges. Bullseye let out a soft whistle, and even Fisk was raising an eyebrow. The other two were less physically impressive, but still odd. There was a man in a set of crude metal armor that seemed bolted on from scrap iron, like a discount Iron Man. And there was a man in a full-face mask and a jacket, with spider emblems on the front and back. Like a more subtle and modest version of the Black Tarantula.
Norman scoffed. "Discount muties. Someone's idea of a rush-job," he said dismissively, as he pulled out what appeared to be a small gas tank, connected to a face mask with an air-hose. Felicia grimaced, knowing that this meant Osborn was about to become a lot more tiresome than he usually was.
"Felicia," Fisk said coldly. The Black Cat snapped hastily to attention.
"Yes," she said, her voice tight and clipped as she watched them shuffle in through the vault doors. "They're close enough now. Everything that can go wrong for them, will now go wrong for them."
Bullseye sneered. "I'll be the one making sure of that, Housecat. Still not sure how much of your gimmick is placebo," he said disdainfully. He was very eager to dismiss the Black Cat when things went in his favor and just as quickly blame her when things went wrong. She felt compelled to defend herself. If any other human being disrespected her…Felicia didn't think she had it in her to do anything but passively accept it.
But Bullseye was an exception, because she barely considered him human. "Anything that's not a hundred percent guarantee for them is going to work against them," Felicia promised. "And that means if you screw this up, you never had a chance to begin with."
"If I feel you crawling up my spine, trying to make me look bad…" Bullseye threatened, causing Felicia's heart to spike in panic. The man could kill her with a flick of his wrist, she reminded herself again as she took a step back.
Was the thought of dying just becoming less and less frightening for her? Is that why she tempted fate like that?
It was Elektra that stepped in front of the Black Cat once again, while Fisk gave Bullseye a low and dangerous look. "Lester. Enough posturing. Just get to work," Fisk all but growled.
Bullseye was back to being the eager ass-kisser, as he backed away with a smile. "Easy kills. Even the big one. We'll get them sorted."
"Felicia, hang back. Just stacking the odds in our favor is more than sufficient," Fisk said, casually dismissing the three men on the cameras. "The fact that I was here in person when they broke in likely means your powers are surprisingly subtle and far-ranging. Or else, I'm just a very lucky man myself," he said smugly.
"You three," he said, motioning to Bullseye, Mary, and Elektra. "Get going. I'm going to give Mr. Hammerhead a call."
"We… don't play nice with Mr. Hammerhead," Mary warned with exacting and precise gentleness. The man always seethed in envy at the four of them being part of the Kingpin's inner circle.
Nobody working for Fisk liked each other, Felicia thought darkly. If they were all too busy struggling against each other, nobody would get any funny ideas about their boss.
Wilson only rolled his eyes. "So pick one or two of them off, and let Otto's Six handle whomever is left. Just have fun, Mary. We have all the cards in our deck. It's like the Black Cat said. Anything for them that can go wrong…"
"Will go wrong!" said the Green Goblin with a giggle. By this point Norman had finished huffing whatever inhalant was in that tank, and Felicia could swear the man's eyes were green. He gave a wide smile that didn't seem to belong on his face, and his voice was high pitched, almost child-like.
He pulled on the mask, completing the picture of a leering, giggling monster. He shouted, like a demented ringmaster, "Ladies! Gentlemen! It's showtiiiiiiime!"
Felicia scowled. He was clearly high and out of his mind on whatever he'd been huffing, but she'd already stacked the deck for the impulsive buffoon.
Three more deaths were going to be on her conscience. Hers, and hers alone, because none of her fellow monsters had any consciences left to speak of.
---
The moment Joe Fixit pried open the vault door, the three of them gave a sudden pause. They had all recognized the stylized 'O' of the Oscorp logo that greeted them at the entrance, even Doom. Norman Osborn was a man who always had ambitions that far outstripped his ability. He always wanted to shake the world and become one of the big players, like Dr. Doom or Namor. It was only ever enough to get him on their collective shitlists, before he was quickly beaten down and back to slumming it in New York with the likes of Spider-Man.
Doom wasn't any happier to see the logo than Peter was. "This complicates things," Doom said bluntly. "Did Osborn have any ties with your Kingpin… 'back then?' 'The first time around,' as you are wont to say?" he asked, deciding to use one of Peter's euphemisms their former timeline.
"Now and then," Peter said softly. "But nothing like this. They didn't trust each other enough to work this closely, from what I recall. And they both died before they could find themselves as strange bedfellows." He wasn't sure if what happened to the Green Goblin back then was an accident, or a deliberately engineered suicide on Norman's part. But Peter had been well past caring. Harry was already dead by then, and there was nobody left to give a damn.
And everyone had been fed up with Wilson Fisk too, by the time Daredevil snapped and killed him. There was no-one left to mourn the Kingpin by then, because Vanessa and Richard Fisk were both long gone.
'There's no-one left to mourn you now, for that matter,' he couldn't help but remind himself.
He clenched his fist. In the end, nobody cared that the Kingpin died. But Matthew Murdock breaking like that had left them all devastated.
And so, he wouldn't allow himself to break.
"Yeah, so what?" Joe said with a shrug. "You took down the Green Goblin a lot of times. And he doesn't know a damn thing about what you can do. Just stomp him into the dirt like you did Mr. Negative the other day."
Peter gave a low and narrow look at Joe Fixit, from beneath his mask. This was the sort of reunion he didn't want to just blunder into. What was he planning to do with Norman Osborn, with the Green Goblin, now that he was alive and well again in this current timeline? Peter didn't think he could stoop to murder, even after everything that happened to him. But there wasn't any question that life got better for everyone after Norman died the first time around, not just for Peter.
But would he end up killing Norman now, when he never had to resort to that before? When Harry was still alive?
Peter wanted to have the answers before he confronted the Green Goblin again. Now he'd just have to figure things out as he went along, as he realized that this complication wasn't enough to dissuade him, either.
"Narrow corridors," Peter noted as he glanced inside. "The Goblin won't be able to fly down here, so I can get him sorted. We'll bring this place down now, instead of later." The hairs on his arms were already standing on end. Danger was already descending on them, his Spider-Sense warned. He confidently stepped behind Joe Fixit, ignoring the blaring alarms. But Doom was still hesitating.
"Doc?" Joe Fixit said, eyeing Doom carefully. Usually, Victor von Doom would be the most confident.
"Arachnid, do you feel-?" Victor von Doom began, only for the lab's security to finally storm in. They looked paramilitary, with sophisticated body armor and rifles that looked to be US military surplus. Whether they were hired on Wilson Fisk's dime or Norman Osborn's, Peter didn't care. At least they weren't Sable International. He didn't need more pointless reunions.
"Hold that thought Doc," Joe Fixit said cheerily, before simply charging down the dozen or so men with rifles trained on him. It was the three men's preferred method of doing things: the Hulk was a big target, and therefore easy to hit. But unlike Doom or Peter, any sort of conventional arms couldn't hurt him in the slightest.
It took very unconventional and very advanced weaponry to kill the Hulk. And even killing the Hulk would only briefly slow him down, for that matter. Joe Fixit laughed triumphantly as their bullets simply bounced off him, before he bowled them over like a rambunctious child and hurled them about like toys. In the desperate confusion of a firefight, all eyes were on Joe Fixit.
The smiles and happy laughter of a Hulk in the heat of battle were terrifying for anyone on the receiving end.
Joe Fixit had the situation well in hand for now, so Peter turned to Doom. Now even he could feel that there was something off about the situation. The fight that was unfolding before their eyes was trivial, barely even a speedbump. But the hairs on Peter's arms were still standing on end. There was a subtle thrum of fear and anxiety from Spider-Sense that ran through his body, ratcheting up his sympathetic nervous system.
Doctor Doom was hesitating, and that could only mean this was a matter of life or death. "You feel it, yes?" Doom asked. "Your senses are screaming to you that something dangerous is happening."
Peter nodded, and Doom sighed. "The moment I crossed the threshold, multiple systems in my armor suddenly failed, all at once. While this armor is in desperate need of maintenance, the odds of this happening so quickly to several redundant systems simultaneously is… vanishingly improbable."
"We triggered something when we slipped in," Peter said conclusively. "Something way more dangerous than a bunch of hired goons with military surplus."
Doom nodded his head. "We ought to abort this operation. It's too high risk to simply blunder into this phenomenon…"
"Boys!" Joe Fixit shouted as he used one man as a club to hit another man over the head. "What're you two waiting for?!"
Doom snapped at Joe. "Fixit, stop being a distraction. We need to think and-"
"…Victor," Peter said uneasily, nudging Doom eyes towards Joe Fixit's direction. They both watched, dumbfounded, as Joe Fixit simply seemed to lock up in the middle of a wind-up to a punch. His muscles were still tensed and twitching, as if something had simply left him frozen. But the expression on his face was totally incongruent, with a tired and dull expression suddenly overtaking his features. As if his mind were miles and miles away from the fight in front of him.
"…Whatever is going on, it's already snared Joe," Peter grumbled, as the few still conscious paramilitary managed to gather their courage and fire a few more bullets at Joe Fixit. And while the Hulk remained impervious, he now also remained totally unreactive. Peter moved towards Joe, almost on reflex, only for Doom to place a death-grip on Peter's jacket.
"His eyes, Arachnid!" Doom hissed to Peter. "His eyes are turning green!"
Peter froze, and then tensed. It had been a while since they'd laid eyes on the Savage Hulk. The old, very angry and Green Hulk that everyone was so much more familiar with.
And if the Kid was overpowering Joe Fixit from the inside, that meant that Joe's stronger and greener self was particularly furious now.
Peter nodded, but still untangled himself from Doom. "If the Kid wakes up and finds himself being shot at, he might end up killing them," Peter said bluntly. He couldn't allow more senseless deaths be piled on to Bruce Banner's ragged conscience, at the very least.
"Ever the philanthropist," Doom muttered, with a roll of his eyes beneath his helm. "Very well. But be quick!"
Doom watched with anxiety as a single tear of frustration rolled down the Hulk's increasingly green eyes. The shade was eerie, with normal human eye pigments unable to produce such a unique color. The Hulk's eyes were becoming a glowing nuclear green, Peter realized.
And inside of them was all the pain in the world.
---
Four figures stood in the desolate landscape of Bruce Banner's mind. It was resembled the wastelands they all used to travel, with Dr. Doom and Spider-Man. Desolate, foreboding, lonely. And yet it was a familiar and reassuring sight to the four of them. Back then, the Earth had finally echoed the devastation inside of their own souls. And they were grateful, at least, that it hadn't been their fault.
If an outside observer were to describe the scene, they would see one man and three monsters sitting in a circle, in the center of this vast and trackless expanse. But Bruce Banner himself would not be so pretentious as to pretend at humanity. He was just one facet of their collective's broken psyche, rather than the original Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. That man died at the hands of his own bomb.
There were four monsters here, in their own way. Each one was their own kind of Hulk.
'Puny Hulk,' he chuckled to himself, before gritting his teeth and setting his face back into a frown.
"Why'd we freeze up?" he asked the Devil Hulk. Neither Joe Fixit, the Gray Hulk, or the Child, the Savage Green Hulk, were in any fit state to answer. The Devil Hulk, who was for lack of a better term the most 'senior' of their collective, gave a growl of frustration. The Devil resembled the green Savage, albeit somewhat taller and a fair bit thinner. He resembled a sort of musclebound scarecrow now, as far as Banner's broken psyche envisioned.
Which was better than the old way their mental collective envisioned him, which was something of a leering, serpentine reptile of a Hulk. Time, and a loss of fear, gave the Devil persona a far less terrifying appearance.
Which was to say, the Devil was only as frightening as any other Hulk, these days.
"The Kid's trying to grab the wheel from Joe," he said, pointing to the other two Hulks. Both Hulks had their eyes shut, but while Joe Fixit seemed to be visibly grimacing in pain, the Child's teeth were clenched in fury.
"…We aren't supposed to do that anymore," Banner said in frustration. "No more stealing control from each other without warning."
"Don't be mean to him," the Devil said sternly. "You know how impulsive the Kid can get when he's pissed off. All children act out, and break rules."
"He's endangering this whole thing," Bruce said with a bitter sigh.
"Eh. We'll be fine," the Devil said with a shrug.
"I know… none of us like Doom much. But we're all going to be upset if Peter gets killed. And the Child is going to take it the worst of all, because he'll know it was his fault," Bruce warned.
"Shit. The Kid really does adore that goddamn Spider-Man," Devil huffed in realization.
"What's got him so upset, anyways?" Bruce sighed.
"Maybe if you weren't so goddamned apathetic and bothered to pay attention to what's going on outside of our head…" the Devil said coldly, before shaking his head. "Look through their eyes and listen through their ears. Either Joe's or the Kid's will do. You need to know this, because I'm pretty sure you'll be just as angry about this one as the rest of us."
Bruce clenched his teeth and let his consciousness flow outward. Every time he looked out there, it was always something terrible. And he knew that this was going to be an especially bad moment for the four of them.
---
"Ah, there you are," a familiar voice crooned. "My little monster!"
Bruce furrowed his brow and gave himself over to rage and frustration yet again. The Devil was right, as he usually was. This did indeed piss him off.
Peter already had the situation well in hand on the surface, to Bruce's muted satisfaction. Over thirty of the mercenaries defending the lab were now either webbed up or else unconscious. Even a Hulk would struggle to see things done that quickly. And not even a Hulk could have handled things with such precision.
He always underrated himself, no matter what he accomplished. That was doubtless why the other three Hulks liked the man so much.
Bruce watched as Peter waved a hand in front of their collective's shared face, still unable to see why the Hulk was frozen and seemingly staring at nothing. But that's because they weren't staring at nothing. They were staring at someone that even Peter's uncanny senses couldn't see.
The four of them were looking down at the spirit of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner's father and tormentor, Brian Banner. An unstable, abusive mess of complexes, who resented his son for being too smart and his wife Becky for giving birth to him in the first place. And when his wife tried to flee with their son, he murdered her, and ended up in a straitjacket for his troubles. He died in a mental institution, with the madman still brilliant enough to take his own life despite being under constant supervision. When he died, he went somewhere worse than hell, and his insane spirit contacted something worse than the Devil. The One Below All, a senseless and almost mindless force of destruction that was intimately tied to the Gamma Ray experiments that Brian and later Bruce meddled in, marking them both and damning them to its attentions and manipulations.
It wanted a Gamma Bomb big enough to open a door that would let it rampage across the Universe. And for years after Brian's death, after Dr. Robert Bruce Banner's first death and the emergence of the Hulk, the One Below All used their father's spirit to pressure them, and torment them into opening the Green Door it was sealed behind. To finally end their own misery, along with the rest of reality.
And Joe Fixit was desperately trying to restrain the Child from hijacking their body and simply trying to rip Brian's ghost apart.
"My boy, you came back," Brian said to Bruce. The mocking sneer on Brian's face put the lie to his gentle words, and his eyes glowed an eerie… red? Curious. Bruce last remembered Brian's ghost having eyes that were a glowing green, reminiscent of the blast of the Gamma Bomb that had taken Bruce's life and destroyed his mind. The same green as the Green Door the One Below All so desperately wanted to throw open.
Those green eyes had suited Brian better. Because their father had somehow done more damage to Bruce than even the bomb.
"NOT YOUR BOY!" the Child howled at him, desperate to get out of Joe Fixit's grip.
"Well of course you aren't, you broken little dullard," Brian sneered contemptuously at the Child.
"He's TRYING to get you to rampage! He's trying to get you to hurt people! And trick you into hurting yourself!" Joe cried out, as the Gray Hulk desperately tried to push the Green one back. It was a struggle. The Child was always the strongest of the four, at least physically.
"JUST WANT TO HURT HIM!" the Child screamed.
Bruce sighed. If Brian wanted the Hulk to go on a rampage, then the last thing Bruce wanted was to oblige him.
He wasn't a frightened little boy anymore. That burden was instead stuck in the large, angry green one.
"You think you'd be happy that we weren't born this time around," Bruce simply mocked back, substituting physical aggression for passive aggression. That was a tendency that made his relationship with Betty so dysfunctional, even when he wasn't the Hulk. But it was still a healthier coping mechanism and Brian had it coming besides.
"Oh, you wound me," Brian simpered sarcastically. Bruce clicked his tongue. He'd gotten most of his passive-aggressive tendencies from Brian, he realized.
He wheeled on Bruce, practically face to face as he ignored the other three. "You should know by now that the scars you left behind aren't so trivial to erase. The things you did were remembered, you little monster."
"Stop improvising cheap poetry," Bruce said menacingly. "Didn't you always say that a man shouldn't waste words? You always pissed and moaned about that sort of thing. So, man up and get to the point." Brian and Bruce's loathing of one another was an intensely mutual thing, as Brian briefly stewed in impotent wrath as his own words were turned back on him, and even more that Bruce was able to work in a jibe about the poetry. Even in another timeline, it seemed that his father was sensitive about his failed attempts at literary work. Bruce felt a bit of satisfaction at that.
"Fine," Brian said coldly. "I'll simplify things for the gaggle of idiots that are unfortunate enough to share a head with you. Certain higher beings… are timeless. Reality is made and unmade for them all the time. History is routinely rewritten, even though to your limited mind it is only ever one singular timeline. When reality changed up on you, and you found yourself in a world you didn't recognize… your old life wasn't erased, boy. You simply scraped up against time and reality in the way that Gods and Demons see it. Mutable, and protean. Like you, higher beings have perfect recollection of your old timeline, as well as everything that occurred in this new timeline. And a trillion other varying branches of time and space besides. To them, it is routine."
"That was an awful attempt at simplification," Bruce said with coldly delivered sarcasm.
"Too bad!" Brian barked back. "The point is that the One Below All remembers you and your old world, even if you never existed as far as this new world is concerned. And as one of his avatars, I still remember you. You'll never be free of me, no matter where you are in space and time. For as long as you exist, I'll be there. A constant in your life," Brain said with a wide rictus grin.
"Get a hobby," Bruce spat back at Brian. But Brian just smiled all the wider.
"Poor monster. You thought this was a fresh start. Billions of people died, everyone you cared about was gone, and all you did was feel relief. No. You don't deserve that sort of thing, Robert," he said, using Bruce's given name instead of his middle name, as he was wont to do whenever they argued. "There's no such thing as a fresh start, or a past you can outrun. Every awful and wicked thing you've done still happened, and you still must pay the price."
"Shut. Up!" Bruce was already far too tired of Brian's solipsistic misanthropy. His aggrieved sense of entitlement and lack of responsibility. His hypocritical pretensions of justice.
But… Bruce just realized he wasn't the only one who was hearing all of Brian's bullshit. Joe Fixit seemed to weaken, as the Child finally began to overpower him.
"…Damn it," Fixit mumbled, his mind working to its own conclusions independently of Bruce.
"That's right, Mr. Fixit, you ridiculous little mafioso pastiche" Brian said, suddenly wheeling on Joe. "The genie's still out of the bottle! Robert's research hasn't been forgotten at all! I'm still out there, and I'm still whispering the secrets of Gamma into the right ears. This Norman Osborn character, he's cribbing off my work! He's cribbing off your work, which I've been feeding into especially sensitive and receptive minds, whether as dreams, or as delusional episodes, or audiovisual hallucinations. Some of the pitiful creatures in this lab are gamma mutates! Someday the right sort of scientist will recreate your Gamma Bomb, and thanks to you the door will open for the One Below All."
"God… damn it…" Joe Fixit said, in frustration as his grip on the Child weakened.
"Joe!" Bruce shouted. "Joe! He's not telling us the full story! He's just trying to bring you down! He's trying to make you weak!" But Bruce found his voice being drowned out by their father.
"We got… nothing. We got nobody now, but things are still as bad as ever…" Joe mumbled.
"As bad as ever!" Brian affirmed. "And it's going to get much, much worse."
"…It only gets worse," Joe wheezed, looking as if a bullet had lodged inside his guts.
"KILL YOU!" the Child screamed, as he slipped out of Joe Fixit's slack and numb hands. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
Bruce watched the dull gray of their body become an angry and vibrant green. He stared daggers down at Brian's specter, who only smiled mockingly back at him. Bruce was angry now. He was something beyond furious.
He watched impotently as the Child took control of their body, his only consolation being that Victor von Doom and Peter Parker had already seen this meltdown coming and rescued the mercenaries from the Hulk's line of fire. At least, there'd be fewer lives on his conscience. But he felt bitter and ashamed of his collective self in a way that only his father could manage.
He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. The Devil's hand. "Relax. Don't get mad," the Hulk said firmly. "We need our heads back on straight, as soon as we can get it. And you need to get this weight off your back and say some things, not just to that son of a bitch, but to yourself. And to the rest of you too."
"HULK SMASH!" their body cried out, as it simply hurled itself through a wall and rampaged down the lab. Bruce almost wanted to scream in frustration, every bit as loudly as the Child. But he held himself back.
Because just like how the Savage was the part of him that was a scared, sad, and tormented Child… the Devil was the part of him that was wiser. The part of him that was an adult who wasn't wholly defined by pain and bitterness.
"There you go," the Devil said gently. "Don't you worry about a thing out there. Focus on the fight in here. The web-head will come through for us. He always does."
"He always does," Bruce said with a nod.
Chapter 9
'It hasn't even been ten minutes, and everything has already gone horribly wrong,' Peter thought grimly to himself, as he watched the Hulk simply plow through a nearby wall and careen into the adjacent room. The Savage Hulk was furious at something Peter couldn't identify and was hellbent on chasing it down.
'I told Martin that Joe Fixit and Victor von Doom were my arms and legs,' he mused in consternation, as he watched his proverbial legs turn bright green and run off without the rest of him.
While Peter was merely frustrated with the situation, Doom was exuding a calm and patient fury. "He can sort this one out himself, Arachnid. Whatever is in store for the Hulk won't be capable of harming him."
"…He looked like he was hurting," Peter said, refraining from being judgmental or chiding to Victor. The Hulk's mental wounds were always far more damaging, and far more dangerous, than anything physical.
He could practically feel Doom frown from beneath his mask. "He's become a liability for us," Victor warned.
"I know. These things happen, in this line of work," Peter said with a shrug. "We still need each other. None of us can manage on our own, right now. And I'm tired of losing people."
"…You know that if I were in Banner's shoes, that he would tell you to abandon me as well," Doom said with a sigh.
Peter gave a mirthless laugh. "I know. But I'd tell him the same thing that I'm telling you now. We do this together, or we just make peace with the fact that we won't be able to do it at all. And… if I were the one in trouble, both of you wouldn't hesitate to go after me."
Doom grunted… and nodded his head. "Very well. Retrieve our errant arms. But we are in quite a trap, Peter, and the Hulk's least stable personality has dived headfirst into it. I diagnosed the problem. Through some means sorcerous or scientific, our enemies have found a way to manipulate probability. We must assume that random chance will always be acting against us. Fortune shall favor nothing we do."
"So what else is new?" Peter said bitterly.
Yet Doom chuckled and nodded his head, as if Peter's point was salient. "Precisely. We've overcome worse odds than this. Whatever is going on, it can only manipulate probability, not change objective reality. We must use our intellect, our skill, and our unique gifts to control the odds, and ensure that whatever we do, our chances of failure are nil."
Peter nodded; his fists were already clenched. "I'll go after the Hulk. Buy me as much time as you possibly can, Victor."
"Fixit had best be grateful," Doom drawled, as the two men parted ways. Neither one of them hesitated.
It was do or die, yet again.
---
Johnathan Gallo was on the clock again, and that meant he wasn't Johnny anymore. He was Ricochet, once again. The advantage the Slingers had of being a four-person team of college students meant that every semester, they could adjust their schedules to ensure that one of them would always be available to respond to an emergency at any time, and any day of the week. Prodigy was more than happy to choose the most punishing schedule possible for himself, though it was Dusk who generally preferred late nights and early mornings.
But of the four of them, Ricochet was the one who was most suited for bodyguard work. His Danger Sense meant that he'd see danger coming from a mile away, and until then he could relax and let his guard down instead of remaining high-strung and constantly on edge. He wouldn't wear himself down with stress, as his mutant powers told him he was perfectly safe and secure.
Safe and secure here, in a spartan office decorated only with a big Yin-Yang symbol, newspaper clippings, and certificates, with Mr. Negative. Mr. Negative, who was the closest thing the Slingers had to an archnemesis. Mr. Negative, who had two split personalities, one of whom was ruthless and almost totally amoral. Mr. Negative, who for almost two years apparently knew everything there was to know about Ricochet and the rest of his team already.
He tried to force himself to relax, and continued his intensely awkward conversation with Martin Li.
"I'm just saying, Johnathan. I don't think a business major is the right call for you. You don't want to be like your dad. Even if I were the kind of person to kidnap family, I'd have never even bothered to grab your dad," he said, between sips of coffee.
Ricochet really didn't know what was worse. The fact that Martin Li knew everything about him, including the classes he was taking at Empire State, or the fact that even the superpowered madman thought Johnny Gallo's dad was a loser.
"Can we please talk about a subject that doesn't plausibly double as a death threat?" Johnny said tightly.
Martin Li blushed a little as he looked down at his coffee mug, his expression regretful. "Sorry. Force of habit. That and… there were always a lot of things I wanted to say to you kids that the Demon didn't have much interest in," he said with a chuckle.
"What's the deal with you and Spider-Man, anyways?" Johnny asked Li, desperate for an interesting topic that wouldn't circle back to his almost total awareness of the Slingers' identities and personal lives.
Li's mouth set in a tight line. "Even I'm a bit confused on that," he said apologetically.
"Is he an old Kung Fu pal of yours or what?" Ricochet had to ask.
"…He's from an alternate future where the world ended. Now he's back to prevent it from occurring in our timeline," Martin said, in an entirely calm and casual way.
Fine. Ricochet could deal with the bizarre A-lister stuff like alternate timelines and evil twins and whatever the hell else the X-Men got up to. "So, like, he's the Terminator?" said Ricochet, deliberately affecting boredom.
"What? No, no. He's like Kyle Reese, okay?" Martin said, his tone of voice entirely too serious for such a ridiculous topic.
"And that's where he knows you from? An alternate timeline where you were a good guy?" Ricochet said, deciding that he'd just embrace this insanity and accept it as completely true and factual.
Ricochet always felt he would be a fantastic X-Man.
"…I wasn't as bad of a guy then as I am now, at least," Li muttered sadly.
Ricochet appraised Li silently. While he knew all about Mr. Negative, he knew nothing at all about Martin Li. The Slingers had all written FEAST off as a front, just like how Wilson Fisk would sometimes write comically large checks to charities and public libraries. But right now, Martin Li looked sincerely sad. He was genuinely ashamed of himself.
Ricochet knew that feeling too. "Hey. For what it's worth, I don't think you're that bad of a guy, right now."
Li's smile was gentle, and he looked a bit relieved. Ricochet had managed to ease his burdens, even if only slightly.
"I—" Li began, only for his hand to tremble and the coffee mug in his hands to slip out of his fingers. The coffee was going to ruin the carpet.
Li moved to stand up, only for Ricochet to grab a few paper napkins. "Relax, guy. I save carpets too," he said, wanting to give the increasingly nervous Li a break.
As Ricochet moved to clean the stains, he hardly noticed as Li stood up behind him. His Danger Sense, uncanny and preternatural, continued to reassure him that all was well, even as Martin Li's hands clasped around Ricochet's throat.
Ricochet panicked and struggled, but Li's grip was unbreakable. He noticed the monochrome aura coming off Li's hands and realized that enough time had passed since yesterday for Li to begin calling on the Darkforce again… even if his low reserves meant that it was only in brief fits and starts.
He'd been placed in a sleeper hold and couldn't fight his way out. He felt his vision already start to dim, as Richocet panicked. 'Why didn't my Danger Sense warn me that this was going to happen?' Ricochet wondered.
"It's all right," Li said calmly. This was still Li talking, and not the Demon, even though he was in the throes of the Darkforce. It seemed that both of Mr. Negative's personalities could call on his powers, not just the Demon.
"Rest now," Li said, his voice sorrowful.
'Why does he sound more like a dad, right now, than my actual father ever did?' He also wondered, a touch more bitterly. But he had no time to ponder either of his questions, as Ricochet's thoughts faded away.
He'd always felt so tired.
---
"Have you seen a friend of mine? About eight feet tall, but he can get up to ten when he's really upset. Sometimes gray, sometimes green?" Peter asked the stunned and shell-shocked laboratory technician as he pulled up the fridge that he was pinned under. The man only let out a little whimper as he hunched into a fetal position.
"No, no, that's okay. I'll just follow all the holes he's tearing in the walls. That and the screaming," Peter said, before firing off his webbing to pin the man to the floor. It was a bit cold, perhaps, but these were still people on the payroll of Wilson Fisk and Norman Osborn. He had to minimize the possibility of something going wrong, and he already had a lot of bitter experiences of being knifed in the back by the people he was trying to save.
And if nothing else, being trapped under Peter's webbing was a lot more comfortable than being trapped under a heavy metal fridge.
He stalked through the corridors, heedless of the blaring alarms and flickering of the damaged lights as he passed through one Hulk sized silhouette to the next. Peter's eyes were constantly scanning as he gave chase, and while he didn't see any signs of Bruce Banner or any of his various Hulks, he did note the cages, and the people inside them. The most human-looking ones appeared to be homeless transients who were simply grabbed off the streets and thrown into the labs. Dosed up on Mutant Growth Hormone, lethal doses of radiation, and all manner of twisted chemical cocktails, they all bore significant signs of deformity, ranging from extra appendages, random spurts of growth and atrophy, and a handful of stable mutations that wouldn't look out of place at Xavier's school.
These were the lucky ones.
The ones who were the worst off hardly looked human anymore, their bodies unable to bear the strain of such haphazard and careless genetic tampering. Peter noted the body-bags strewn carelessly in the corner of the labs, bound for the incinerators. Most of the people inside the cages were not long for this world. And they were grateful for it.
Peter's fists clenched. All of this was happening underneath his feet. Underneath his city. He couldn't possibly blame Joe Fixit for losing his temper. Peter felt like he was about to turn into a Hulk too, at that moment.
But Joe Fixit was made from sterner stuff than even Peter. Which begged the question: what had the Hulk seen that made him lose his temper like that? Joe was staring off at something, something that neither he nor Doom could perceive. Dr. Strange once told Peter that the Hulks had a great deal of supernatural sensitivity, on top of everything else. They could see ghosts. And they could see demons.
'If it's Mephisto messing around, then Doom and I will both want to have words,' Peter thought with bitter humor. He was chasing the Hulk, who was chasing down something particularly paranormal. And particularly aggravating.
'If it can go wrong, it will go wrong,' he mused. 'Business as usual, Peter. Always be on guard.'
It didn't take long for a material threat to justify his anxieties. He felt it before he saw it, a violent thrum of electricity running through him as Peter simply leapt up into the air and clung against the corner of the corridor's ceiling, between the walls and the roof. He watched with cool detachment as an assortment of knives impacted the wall, directly where his eyes, neck, heart, and lungs were positioned. Given how easily they plunged into the metal corridor, they were no doubt alloyed with Adamantium, Vibranium, or Uru-Metal for all that Peter knew. They were just as easily retracted too, as if they were pulled by an invisible tether before hovering in midair like a halo of blades around a redheaded woman, who had half her face painted white.
"Heya Tiger," Typhoid Mary said in a mocking sing-song voice. It was very likely a coincidence, and very likely Mary had no idea what the nickname actually meant for Peter. But it was enough to make Peter flinch for a moment and throw him off his game.
That was all the opening the next assassin needed, as a woman in a red mask and a black ninja ensemble leapt towards Peter with a pair of sais in hand. 'Elektra,' Peter thought with frustration as he raised his hands up in a defensive gesture, before the twin points could be driven into his eyes. But he was just a hair too sloppy. He'd deflected the strike with Hercules's gauntlets, as he intended, but the angle was just off enough that she was able to slash at Peter's wrists before she was hurled back by Peter's kick, tearing open Peter's web shooters. He avoided death or injury, but his best and only weapons were now rendered useless and his kick to Elektra's abdomen had only left her briefly winded.
The moment Elektra was clear was when the shot rang out, with Peter barely having enough time after fending her off to react. 'They'll aim for the Spider-' Peter thought hastily. He knew he didn't have enough time to dodge without something of his getting hit, so he desperately flung his hand outwards to catch the bullet.
Luck, however, was not on his side. It was a partial success, with him able to intercept the bullet as he intended. But rather than catch it cleanly between his fingers, like he did when he was attacking the Demon's stronghold, he instead caught the bullet in his palm. He had enough speed and momentum that the bullet didn't fully penetrate his right hand. But the slug was partially embedded in his palm, and his hand screamed with agony. His right hand wasn't much good for anything besides a fist at this moment. But he was ambidextrous ever since he was bitten by the spider, and he knew that once he removed the bullet that he'd heal without any long-term muscle or nerve damage.
Pain was rooted in the body's fear of injury. If there was no fear, then the pain didn't matter.
He'd been shot before. It wasn't anything special.
"Bullseye," Peter growled as the masked man stepped out of the shadows, smoke still trailing from his pistol.
He berated himself for his own sloppiness. From the moment Typhoid Mary had attacked him, he was only operating on reflex and blind instinct. He couldn't trust either of those right now. The more thoughtlessly he acted, the more he relied on blind chance, the worse things would go for him. He had to exhibit more foresight and consideration for this fight.
He would not allow his memories of his wife to be what killed him.
Bullseye had an ugly sneer on his face as he stepped behind Elektra and Mary. "Oh, you've heard of me?" the world's deadliest manchild said to Peter.
"Barely. It's a stupid name." He tapped the Spider symbol on the center of his chest with his left hand. "You missed," Peter said mockingly.
Bullseye's eyes narrowed as he motioned to the blood dripping from Peter's right hand. "You're fast. But you're not bulletproof," he spat. Peter grinned despite himself. He always remembered that Bullseye could never handle being laughed at. He'd be hellbent on hitting Peter's chest now, dead center at the spider symbol, as if doing so would prove some sort of point. Just like that, he'd removed a bit more randomness from this fight.
He needed more than that, though. He really could die here, Peter realized. On a normal day, or even a bad day, he could have taken down all three of them with effort. But now, they were playing with loaded decks. And Bullseye had the advantage of range, and Peter no longer had his webbing to rely on.
'Stop whining and think. Control the odds. Focus on what isn't up to chance. You know them. They don't know you. Throw them off.'
He had to do what he did best. Which was to come up with the most annoying quip possible.
"Am I seriously going to have to take down all three of Daredevil's girlfriends?" Peter said nonchalantly.
The reactions between all three of the assassins were interesting. Elektra's eyes widened in surprise. Her dysfunctional relationship with Matt Murdock was hardly well known. She was left wondering how much of a danger this stranger presented to her.
And how much of a danger was he to Matt?
Bullseye's right eye, meanwhile, twitched with rage. The assassin always found his prior defeats bitter pills to swallow, and Peter had no doubt that Bullseye had already been beaten down by both Daredevil and the Punisher at least several times by now. And yet the cockroach always managed to crawl back. "You fucking-" Bullseye growled, but that was nothing compared to Mary's reaction.
"YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" Bloody Mary screeched. Bloody Mary, not Typhoid Mary. The third and the most violent of Mary Walker's three personalities, Bloody Mary always came to the fore whenever Mary's frustrations came to a boil. Such frustrations included arrogant and cocky men, such as Peter, casual mockery and verbal barbs, which Peter was more than happy to provide, and any mention of her exes and failed relationships, which fortunately had never been one of Peter's problems. That was Daredevil's mess to figure out.
It had the desired effect. Compared to the casually cruel and clever Typhoid Mary, Bloody Mary was a ravening beast. She wasn't stupid; people who assumed that Bloody Mary was stupid would get themselves killed. But she wasn't nearly the team player that Typhoid was. It wasn't just Peter who was at risk now, as Bullseye and Elektra briefly exchanged concerned looks.
All three of them were in more danger.
Between Elektra, Mary, and Bullseye, he was pretty sure Murdock owed him money for couple's therapy.
---
Doom silently looked at the collection of two dozen men with outdated military hardware arranging themselves in a semicircle around him. He refrained from sighing. If his armor was in peak condition their feeble armaments would mean nothing to Doom. But enough time in the wasteland, and then the highly improbable failure of several key systems just moments ago, meant that his second skin was now nothing more than dead weight. A stifling burden to be borne in humility, rather than a mark of pride.
A man of less integrity would have simply shucked the steel plates, but Doom had no need to do so. He could bear the weight easily, and to gaze upon the horrifying visage of Victor von Doom was a privilege reserved only for his dearest allies and his greatest enemies. Doom simply raised his left arm into the air and then clenched his fist before a wave of sorcerous energy, in a suitably regal shade of purple, swept over the crowd of mercenaries.
While Reed Richards would always be the man who Doom most despised, his feelings towards Dr. Stephen Strange nearly rivaled that antipathy. The traditional elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water certainly had symbolic value in magic, but the so-called Sorcerer Supreme was incapable of realizing that they were outdated medieval atavisms. Electromagnetism. Gravity. Strong Force. Weak Force. These were the truly fundamental building blocks of the universe. Just as Richards was blind to the applications of sorcery, so was Strange oblivious to the potential of applying the scientific approach to his magic.
But what else could Doom expect from Strange's paltry medical degree?
It was gravity that he commanded now, as he used magic to invoke an artificial field that simply left the mercenaries pinned to the floor, only able to breathe and not much else. Artificial gravity, a mystery that befuddled all but the most advanced of humanity's scientific minds, was his to command with a simple application of sorcery.
He refrained from smiling in satisfaction as he stalked past the mercenaries. He was striding into danger on the behalf of someone he only reluctantly tolerated, but despite the lack of logic in such an action Doom would not allow himself to hesitate. Doom did not feel that it was a betrayal to abandon Bruce Banner to the physical manifestation of his own impotent anger and childishness. But the Arachnid had made this a matter of honor, and abandoning his own honor would mean that Doom was betraying himself.
An unforgivable crime.
So, he soldiered forth, on the behalf of a misanthropic ingrate who would not thank him for such an act. And yet, Doom felt oddly pleased that he was taking this course. If nothing else, he understood Peter far better now.
Martin Li was right. Spider-Man was a creature of ruthless self-abnegation.
That burgeoning feeling of calm died the moment two more figures approached him, however. Doom crossed his arms and gazed down the other end of the corridor at them. This was their first real meeting, regardless of the timeline. But Doom could recognize them, from the hushed campfire tales they would share back then, of their old enemies and their triumphs. It was a nightly ritual that they engaged in while trekking the wastelands, back before Hercules and Ben Reilly died.
The first man was tall, gaunt, and elderly. His bald head and long crooked nose already put one in mind of a buzzard, and that was even before one noted the green flight-suit that he wore, complete with expansive wings adorned with razor sharp metal pinions. Doom knew him from the Arachnid's tales. A petty purse snatcher, and yet a genius who could devise a means to soar through the air. A frail old man, who was fierce, ruthless, and spiteful enough to nearly kill the likes of Spider-Man or Daredevil. He was, in Doom's opinion, a terrifying mess of contradictions and juxtapositions.
The Vulture.
By comparison Doom could only dimly recognize the other man. Peter's campfire stories did not dwell overlong on this one, but fortunately what little description the Arachnid had spared for him were already sufficient clues. The comically flat top of the man's bulging head, along with the abundance of surgical scars adorning his scalp showed signs of the crude and clumsy surgery that replaced most of the bones of his skull with Adamantium. If that were not enough, the man's pinstripe suit, anachronistic to the point of being absurd, were more than sufficient clues.
Hammerhead, doubtlessly. It was like looking at Joe Fixit in miniature. 'Perhaps,' Doom thought, 'this excursion would prove therapeutic.'
Hammerhead, for his part, dared to sneer at Doom. It was an admittedly fair assessment of course. Doom's armor doubtlessly barely seemed to hold together at this point. Their only asset were the sigils he'd embedded into each plate, that would harmonize with his diminished magic.
They would more than suffice.
"Toomes," Hammerhead muttered to the Vulture. "You ready to earn your paycheck?"
Doom raised an eyebrow beneath his mask, glowering at the two men. "No. He is not," Victor said flatly.
The Vulture chuckled before smirking to Hammerhead. "He's right, I'm afraid. You're on your own for this one, Joseph," the old man rasped condescendingly.
"Toomes…" Hammerhead growled, his voice low and dangerous, before the Vulture scowled back in frustration.
"What am I supposed to do down here!?" the Vulture shouted. He raised both his arms, as far out as they could go, only to demonstrate that he could not fully extend his wingspan in the cramped corridor. The serrated pinions scraped uselessly against the walls. "If I try to fly down here, I'll be breaking my own neck!"
"Then what good are you, down here?" Hammerhead said in disgust.
Toomes didn't back down, and instead his face became a deep shade of red, bordering on purple. "I was the one who kept trying to point that out to you, you little putz! If you stopped trying to swing your dick around and actually bothered to listen to Otto—"
"Fuck Otto!" Hammerhead barked. "This is my job, and this is my team. I'm the one calling the shots, not Octavius!"
The Vulture sneered at Hammerhead, baring his aged and yellow teeth like fangs. "You're not our leader, just because you say so! You're barely even one of the Sinister Six! You're a last-minute substitute for the Sandman, because of whatever drama him and Electro have going on right now!"
"Gentlemen," Doom sighed, finding the whole thing tedious. He'd clearly stumbled on to some preexisting power struggle. It was clear that, whatever the method their enemies were using to manipulate luck and chance, that the odds of the Vulture and Hammerhead cooperating successfully were always virtually nil.
Hammerhead glowered at Doom and appeared to be almost pleased to remember that he had a far better target to vent his frustrations on. His response was predictable, and frankly cliché. He lowered his head, took an American football stance, and made ready to headbutt Doom as hard as he possibly could.
How absurd.
Doom called upon his magic, and Hammerhead swiftly found himself lifted into the air by his own Adamantium skull. "I am no Magneto," Doom said, with great humility. "But electromagnetism is among the simplest of forces for mortal men to manipulate. Considering this… I cannot help but wonder what possessed you to replace most of your skull with a ferromagnetic metal, you naive imbecile."
With a flick of his wrist, Doom simply magnetized the connection between Hammerhead's flat scalp and the metal in the ceiling, leaving his head practically glued to the roof above them. He pushed desperately against the ceiling but failed to free himself as his legs flailed helplessly in the air.
"Toomes! Get me down from here!" Hammerhead cried out from above.
"Oh sure, sure," the Vulture huffed. "Let me just fly up there and… oh, no, it looks like I'm still not able to fly down here. Gimme thirty minutes or so, Hammy. They've probably got a ladder somewhere down here."
"Kingpin's gonna hear about this, Toomes!" Hammerhead's voice rumbled from above them. The Vulture's eyes narrowed, as he glared up at Hammerhead. That, Doom could tell, was no empty threat. The old man was treating this very seriously.
Suddenly, a small radio at the Vulture's hip clattered to life, as a well-mannered and surprisingly serene voice emerged from the device. "It's all right, Adrian," the voice intoned. "I already pointed out to Mr. Hammerhead several times that you were out of your element down here. If Fisk raises any issue, you can be assured that I'll smooth things over." The voice's tone suddenly shifted, becoming venomous. "Instead, I think Joseph over there needs to be more worried about the consequences of his own frankly humiliating showing."
Doom recognized the voice. Victor was once a world leader, after all, and he'd heard it during at least one international incident. "Doctor Octopus, I presume?"
"You presume correctly," the voice responded tightly, almost peevishly. What remained of Doom's face set itself firmly into a frown. Things had become much more dangerous now. Of the most dangerous of the Arachnid's enemies, in Doom's estimation, either Electro or Sandman could bring down a city. The Green Goblin could ruin a country. And Dr. Octopus, if properly motivated, could potentially destroy the entire world.
Doom would have almost relished the challenge, if he wasn't so weak. Instead, he simply grabbed the Vulture by the collar, tore off the radio, and hurled the old man with contemptuous ease behind him. "I would reflect on your team's poor showing as well, Dr. Octavius. Of the Sinister Six, there are now Four, with barely any effort on my part. Do try not to embarrass yourselves further," Doom rasped coldly.
"…Consider us quite motivated," Octavius murmured from the other end of the radio.
Doom was weaker than he'd been in years. His armor had failed him. His magic was diminished. This would be a brutal fight. And yet, Doom was confident. The last few years had been nothing but increasingly brutal fights. And this time around, Otto Octavius had only second-rate vigilantes and callow teenagers to contend with, rather than anyone as dangerous as the Arachnid. Dr. Octopus would be far more complacent than the man Doom remembered.
That may prove sufficient in saving Doom's life.