The night air was thick and humid, a heavy blanket that smelled of rain that refused to fall and the distant, metallic tang of the city's industrial heart. Felicia walked down the sidewalk toward the apartment, her boots clicking against the pavement with a rhythmic, steady beat that belied the storm of irritation and adrenaline swirling in her chest.
She had taken the long way back from Ethan's lab. She'd needed the time to let the cold, clinical reality of his offer settle. Twenty million dollars. A seat at a table she hadn't even known existed. The head of Wilson Fisk delivered on a silver platter of resources and tactical support.
And all it cost was her soul, or at least the part of it that still wanted to believe she was her own woman.
She reached the door, keyed the lock, and stepped inside. The apartment was dim, lit only by the soft, ambient glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds and the tiny, blinking blue light of the router on the shelf. She didn't need to turn on the lights to know he was there. The air changed when Peter was in a room; it felt warmer, steadier, and heavy with a quiet sort of earnestness that usually made her smile.
Tonight, it just made her feel tired.
Peter was sitting on the couch, his silhouette hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees. He didn't look up when she entered, but his shoulders shifted.
"You took a while," he said. His voice wasn't accusing—Peter didn't really do 'accusing' well—but it was weighted with a knowing gravity. "I figured you stayed behind to talk to him. Ethan has a way of leaving doors open for people he thinks he can use."
Felicia tossed her keys onto the small table by the door with a sharp clack. She didn't bother with a coy greeting or a playful deflection. The time for games had ended the moment Ethan Kane had looked her in the eye and mapped out her trauma like a set of coordinates.
"He didn't just leave the door open, Peter. He practically rolled out a red carpet made of blood and money. Kid's getting worse," she said, peeling off her gloves.
She walked into the living room, flicking on a single lamp in the corner. The amber light spilled across Peter's face. He looked exhausted. There were dark circles under his eyes that hadn't been there a week ago, a physical manifestation of the 'Millions Dead' countdown Ethan had seared into his brain.
"What did he want, Felicia?" Peter asked, finally looking up.
"He wants me to go to war," she said simply. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest. "He wants me to take a woman, Madame Masque, and that girl you helped, Delilah, and systematically dismantle every major crime family and syndicate in New York. The Maggia, the remains of the Hood's crew, the street gangs—all of it. He wants the board cleared in the next few weeks so that when these 'Exemplars' arrive and the world starts ending, the city isn't also tearing itself apart from the inside out."
Peter let out a long, slow breath. He raised his hand, rubbing his face vigorously, his fingers dragging against his skin before coming to rest with his palm covering his eyes. He stayed like that for a long moment, a muffled groan escaping him.
"Of course," Peter muttered into his hand. "Of course he does. Because why just save the world from gods when you can also restructure the entire social order of the criminal underworld at the same time?" He dropped his hand and looked at her, his expression a mix of disbelief and weary resignation. "That kid… he never has either of us do anything the easy way, does he? It's always a grand design. It's always a 'Greater Good' that requires us to get our hands filthy."
"He's a manipulator, Peter," Felicia said, her voice tinged with a bitterness she couldn't quite mask. "Manipulators don't care about the dust created when they tear down a wall. They just want things to look the way they planned. I keep telling you he's dangerous."
Peter stood up slowly, his joints popping. He walked over to her, stopping just outside the circle of lamplight. He studied her face with that piercing, honest gaze that always made her feel like she was being x-rayed.
"I know why I'm doing this," Peter said softly. "I'm following his lead because if he's even half-right about the scale of this crisis, I can't afford not to. I'd follow a devil into hell if it meant saving the people I see on the street every morning. But you… you've always been the one to walk away when the bill gets too high, Felicia. You value your independence more than anything. So why are you saying yes to him?"
Felicia didn't answer immediately. She looked past him, staring at the shadows on the wall. She thought about the twenty million. She thought about Fisk grovelling at her feet. But mostly, she thought about a golden mask and a joke that had lasted a decade.
Peter's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her silence. The gears in his head—the ones that made him the world's greatest investigative journalist when he actually applied himself—began to turn.
"It's Fisk, isn't it?" he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Felicia let out a sharp, jagged sigh. The weight of the secret felt like lead in her lungs. She walked past him, her shoulder brushing his, and sat heavily on the edge of the couch. She patted the cushion beside her.
Peter followed, sitting down with a cautious grace.
"The kid knows what my buttons are, Pete," Felicia said, staring at her hands. "He didn't just offer me a job. He showed me that he knows everything. He knows about the 'joke' Fisk played on me with the bad luck powers. He knows how Fisk has been trying to bury me in debt, how he's used the fact that I know you to try and break me. He offered me a chance to stop being the one hunted. He's giving me the keys to the kingdom and the permission to burn Fisk's house down while he's still inside."
She turned her head to look at him, her green eyes shimmering with a dangerous, unstable light. "He knows how to use people's ghosts to make them march. It's disgusting, honestly. I hate him for it. I hate that he looked into my head and saw exactly what I wanted."
"He's manipulating you," Peter said, his hand reaching out to cover hers. "Felicia, you don't have to do this because he's pulling a string. We can find another way."
"There isn't another way to get to Fisk, Pete. Not like this," she countered. "Fisk is a mountain. You know that you've been fighting him for years, and he just grows more heads. Ethan is giving me a tactical nuke and telling me to aim for the foundation."
Peter squeezed her hand. "Then let me help. If you're going after the Kingpin, if you're going into the middle of a gang war with this Masque and the professional assassin, you shouldn't do it alone. We can coordinate. I can—"
"No," Felicia interrupted, her voice firm. She turned her hand over, interlacing her fingers with his. "No, Pete. If Ethan is telling the truth—and let's be honest, his track record is terrifyingly accurate so far—then you have a much bigger problem. You have to get the X-Men on our side. You have to find their Professor in that fortress in San Francisco. That's the mission that saves the 'millions.' My job… it's basically clean-up duty. I'm the janitor clearing the hallway so the heroes can run through it."
"You're not a janitor, Felicia. You're putting yourself in the crosshairs of the most dangerous man in the city."
"And I've been doing that since I was nineteen," she reminded him with a faint, tired smirk. "I'll be careful. I'll use his money, I'll use his people, and I'll play his game. But I'm doing this for me. To get that weight off my neck."
Peter looked like he wanted to argue. He opened his mouth, his brow furrowing as he prepared a speech about responsibility, about the dangers of working with people like Whitney Frost, about the soul-crushing cost of the 'Greater Good.'
But as he looked at her—really looked at her—he saw the exhaustion behind the mask. He saw the woman who had been running for so long that the prospect of finally standing her ground was the only thing keeping her upright.
He closed his mouth. The silence between them stretched, no longer heavy with secrets, but vibrating with the shared realization that their lives were no longer their own. They were pieces on a board being played by a sixteen-year-old boy who saw the world as a series of equations to be solved.
"I hate this," Peter whispered. "I hate that he's doing this to you."
"I know, I feel the same way about you," Felicia murmured.
She leaned in, closing the distance between them. Her lips met his in a kiss that started as a comfort—a quiet anchoring in the storm—but quickly shifted. It became desperate, a frantic attempt to reclaim something that was just theirs, something that Ethan Kane couldn't touch.
The passion intensified, fueled by the looming shadow of the two-month deadline. Peter's hands moved to her waist, pulling her closer, while Felicia's fingers tangled in his hair, her kiss becoming deeper, more demanding.
Felicia pulled back just enough to catch her breath, her eyes locked onto his. Without breaking gaze, she reached for the zipper of her leather jacket, sliding it down with a slow, deliberate sound that seemed to echo in the quiet room. She shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor in a heap of expensive hide.
Peter's breath hitched. He reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it aside, his muscles tensed under the amber light.
They moved together again, falling back against the cushions of the couch, their hands seeking the warmth of the other. For a moment, the 'millions' were forgotten. There was only the here and now, a temporary sanctuary from everything else.
The lamp flickered as the wind outside finally picked up, but inside, the only sound was the rhythmic pull of their breathing as the world waited outside the door.