Profit and Loss
Spider-Man was hanging from the rafters of a warehouse, finding a gang of armed men beneath him, exactly where he expected them to be. Though there were no police sirens and there was no fanfare, he knew for a fact that the deal that was going down was one of the most important for the Kingpin in the entire quarter.
“There’s no one here boss. Confirmed it with the heat scanners. Blasted things; we never had to deal with this back home.”
The man’s British accent suggested he was a transplant from some organized criminal group overseas, because everyone else was domestic. Looking down on them, he waited for the sellers to produce the goods; the moment when everyone in the room would be the most distracted. There was a tall, strait-laced woman who opened a briefcase containing a set of capsules and he dropped from the ceiling from which he had been hanging by his feet. Webbing the three men with pistols on the way down, he figured the others would be wise enough not to draw, in such close quarters.
As he landed in the midst of them, the lights turned off right on schedule. An hour earlier, he had set a timed explosive on the electric transformer. With his great strength and with their weakness as normal humans, he could not simply punch them in the heads to knock them out; instead he aimed for the legs with low kicks, breaking their knees and making them scream in pain. The enemy was not only unable to see him, they were unable to communicate by shouted orders. Those he had targeted as the leaders of the respective gangs were still shouting, but unable to locate him.
Light flashed and the scene was briefly illuminated as a gunshot rang out. They were ignoring the danger of shooting in the dark because they had to reduce the danger to themselves as individuals, and they were less worried about causing problems for either gang, because they were starting to doubt that the gangs could save them while flailing around in the dark. Webbing the shooter and pulling her toward him, he pointed the gun at the ground and allowed her to fire so that everyone around them could briefly see him break her arm. It’s a woman’s voice. I can use this.
Jumping to the ceiling with her in his arms, he caught the metal rafters with his feet and her up and down screaming made it hard for the enemy to locate him. He dislocated the shoulder of the arm that was not broken and then tossed her down on some of the other enemies, and it was about then that he saw the flash of the doors opening. There were already people fleeing, and the rest would flee before long. The apparent chaos of the situation was more than any of the criminals were equipped to handle, but for him there was nothing that had happened that he had not anticipated. When he heard the police sirens, it was time to bow out. Unlike them, I came here with an escape route in mind.
Punching a hole in the ceiling, he ripped open a section of sheet metal and boarded his glider and took off at a steep angle. Of course, it’s best when an escape plan takes as little for granted as possible. Flying out of the range of the helicopters as they showed up, he estimated that the papers would probably wonder what he had been doing there, when he could have simply informed the police if he knew about their location the whole time. He was sure that Jameson would have a field day coming up with wild claims about how he was involved with the deal itself, but the criminals would figure it out. He was there to make them look over their shoulders every time they thought they were safe.
Parking the glider in the auto repair shop he had purchased after deceptively renting for a short time, he took off his costume and went to bed; there was nothing more that he needed to do that evening and he had a meeting in the morning. Yehuda could handle a lot of the business details and enjoyed having his name and face on various things, but there were other matters that needed his own attention.
When he woke up, he took stock of his current situation on one of his phones. He could have someone fabricate an identity and background for him, and that would transfer his concerns from one type of fraud charge to another, but he doubted that Parker would really want to keep up with all his different business interests if he ever resumed his identity as Spider-Man. It was for that purpose that he was going to the man’s childhood home, his aunt’s house in Queens.
“Hello, Madam,” he said as soon as she opened the door.
“Peter?” she asked.
“Oh, no, my name is Bruce. I owe your nephew a debt of gratitude and I would prefer to take care of things now rather than later.”
“Have you heard from him?” she asked. “Is he all right?”
“I cannot speak to his whereabouts at the moment; my apologies. Please take this nominal sum as a token of my appreciation.”
He knew that his disguise would work on people who had no idea who Parker was, but meeting with a relative had required a layer of makeup as well as a suit that made him look much larger and more imposing than he was. Still, the old lady had recognized him. Perhaps at her age it makes more sense to rely on the voice to recognize people.
Without another word, he left the cash, something to the tune of ten million. He would have left it on the doorstep, but for most people, that was a white elephant; if they took it, the IRS would want to know where they got it, and there would be no record of receiving it as a gift. Most likely, the court would think it was stolen and just dumped off on a random person to be stolen again later. Walking up to her and handing it to her presented the risk that she might recognize him, but she had no other way to verify that it was a gift.
Oscorp’s asset value had risen substantially in just the last few days, and when he picked up a newspaper someone else had cast aside, he saw in the financials section that Fisk Enterprises was expected to fall. They knew that they had an enemy in Matches Malone, but as with Spider-Man, they had no address to raid, and no car to bomb. Flipping to the front page, he found the drug bust had gone as planned. Some of the criminals had escaped the police barricade, but they would be going back to their bosses and informing them of who broke up the deal.
Though he thought that in an ideal case, people could take their own risks with chemicals they put into their own bodies, breaking up the deal was a chance to strike a blow against the Kingpin, and he was aware that the dealers working in his employ, as well as many other dealers, would mislead the consumer about the product. It could not be said that the consumer was making an informed decision, even though that would be the case if the drugs were always labeled accurately and the effects were well-known. There was nothing in the article about his enemy losing out on the deal, but that was most likely because the paper belonged to a Fisk subsidiary.
It was the strangest thing on first glance. The Daily Bugle never gave anyone a break, whether it was a vigilante or a self-proclaimed spice trader, while papers that praised Spider-Man were almost all owned by Organized Crime Inc. Basically, the public was aware, for the most part, that Parker really was a hero, and the crooked papers made themselves look better by making him look heroic. Even though criminals hated him, it seemed he mostly stuck to fighting those only he could fight, and as a result he did not present much of a threat to them, and praising him would not really make him any stronger.
“That reminds me,” he muttered, thinking of a recent parole break that had been mentioned on police radio. Changing back into his suit as soon as he returned to the repair shop, he decided to follow up on a lead that a powerful enemy had escaped. It was not something he had prioritized because he did not have a lot of information at the time, and even though it seemed urgent, he did not know that it was important; he did not know that going after Electro would be productive.
Getting on the glider and calibrating the electrical disruptor that he had manufactured, he was grateful that he had realized the arachnid early warning system was only reactive, and if he wanted to hunt down enemies, he would have to develop other means of sensing them. Using the disruptor to find existing disruptions, he hit power lines in the Bronx one by one, listening carefully for the transformer fuses to blow. I can fix this later. The power lines in this neighborhood were due for renovation anyway.
Spider-Man found the area where the electricity was already disrupted in about twenty minutes. In the early hours of the morning, he doubted anyone was paying attention to what he was doing on the glider, and he was grateful that the police had already narrowed down the most likely location of the parole-breaker to one part of New York. He should be at the intersection, but he’s probably hiding in an apartment rather than underground; the sewer system would give him an edge in the short term, but he would smell and be easier to track down.
Landing and securing the glider, he would have to take the rest of the trip on foot. The sense that informed him of danger would have to fire when the enemy attacked him, even if he could get within a range. As he crawled along the side of a building looking for any sign that Electro had been there, he thought that the early warning system was representative of the way Parker approached the fight against injustice. It was reactive; he seemed to go from fighting the biggest threats to whatever was the biggest threat the next day.
“Spider-Man?” someone asked, opening a window. “What are you doing in this neighborhood?”
“I’m looking for a dangerous criminal named Electro. He might be lying low right now, but it’s better if I get him before he links up with anyone else.”
“Electro? That jerk who shoots lightning everywhere? Is he why the power went off a minute ago?”
“Most likely, yes.”
“I’ll call the building manager.”
“I see. He might know where in the block that Electro might be hiding.”
“Yeah, or at least he knows the power going off isn’t my fault.”
“I see.”
He had thought about contacting the power plant, but he could not explain why Matches Malone wanted to know where a villain with electric powers was located, and giving them Spider-Man's number as well as his voice on a recording seemed like an unnecessary risk. It was unlikely that any one person possessed all the data that he needed to track down the enemy. While he was looking around, though, he decided to move on to another building, and crawled back up the side, only to find that the glider was not there.
Having asked the boys at Oscorp to come up with a deterrent to keep people from stealing the aircraft, he had attached it two nights before, and that gave him enough confidence that no random hooligan would fly off with it, but as it was an electric shock, he doubted that it did anything to Electro. I had not accounted for the chance that he would simply abscond with my transportation.
Looking around, he saw the machine nowhere in the area, and it was more likely that someone trying to hide from him had taken it further out of town rather than further in. Annoyed, he used the web shooters to swing to the west and found that it was a functioning method of travel, but only with tall buildings around. That’s another reason that Electro would want to get out of town.
From the roof of the building, he had picked up a ticket of some kind, and he guessed that it was dropped by the escapee, but did not yet know how he would use it to track him down. As he reached the top of what looked like the last tall building before he crossed the river, he reconsidered. Should I go after the glider or just make another and treat this as a setback?
“What could he want with a glider, though? Can’t he fly?” he asked aloud. Having done a small amount of research on the escapee, he was aware that he could levitate in certain areas or during thunderstorms, but perhaps, like him, Electro decided that the glider would be more convenient. If nothing else, it slows me down. If I suddenly come out of nowhere with another glider and I can’t claim it as spoils from a Goblin that I’ve already had arrested, then everyone will realize that I control Oscorp. I was prepared for someone to make a connection between Matches Malone and Spider-Man, because that does not make either identity more vulnerable, but the unspoken presumption that the prior is not a fake identity would be gone; he would simply be Spider-Man wearing a suit, and then people would realize a few basic details about him, like his race and eye color, though I doubt anything else is the same as Parker’s; even my handwriting would be different.
Deciding it was better to keep the Avengers and the State of New York from having any way of getting in contact with his other identity and in general it was better to conceal as much as possible, he would have to accept that the glider was lost for the time being. I’ll have to track them down. Fortunately, I can manage most business deals over the phone, so I can stay on the move while I’m looking.
Though Electro was powerful, it was possible to counter his strength, and he had weaknesses. The upgrades that Spider-Man had used to build out a new suit included a partially rubber exterior, so he would at least survive a direct attack. It made sense, therefore, for his enemy to be looking for allies to use his strength more effectively and cover for his weaknesses. He knew that previously, the man had worked with a group called the Fearsome Four, and before that the Sinister Six, and on both teams there had been a mutant of some sort named Sandman.
He changed in an alley to take a taxi out of town. Though he would be following the trail of a powerful enemy, the criminal would just flee again if he saw Spider-Man; he would not attack unless he had some reason to believe he would win. Parker accomplished a lot in the way of intimidating his enemies; I never realized that someone as powerful as Electro would steal the glider and run for it rather than trying to kill me with a sneak attack.
“Where we goin’, boss?” the driver asked.
“West. Have you ever seen this before?” he asked, handing him the ticket he had found.
“Ah, it’s a dry cleaner’s wait ticket. Habersham’s the brand name. Why, you got some suits to dry clean? Yours looks a little... disheveled, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.” He squinted once more at the ticket. “It’s funny, though, I didn’t think they had a location in the City.” That was a local term referring to the island of Manhattan. He thought it was somewhat odd considering the surrounding area was urban as well, but that was the jargon they used.
“Take me to the nearest location, then,” he said. “I don’t care what it costs.”
As the car went over the bridge, he thought it was supremely unlikely that Electro possessed such a ticket by coincidence, or that he had ever been to the business, considering he had only just broken parole, though it was bizarre that the justice system had ever granted him parole in the first place. On his ‘Matches’ phone, he started texting Yehuda that they should run a story about the electric villain and opine that it was ridiculous he was ever allowed out of a prison after killing multiple people. At the very least, the column would direct attention to whatever public official was responsible.
“What’cha so interested in the dry cleaners for?” the driver asked. “Don’t tell me it’s really about the suit.”
He supposed he could lie and say that someone had given him the ticket as a recommendation, but then he would have already known what it was. It was also somewhat odd that he would find it by getting in a taxi and asking to be taken there rather than simply looking up the location and seeing if it was close.
“I’m something like a private eye,” he said. “There’s a woman who thinks her husband is cheating on her.”
“Oh, so she found the ticket and didn’t know what it was.” He seemed to think for a moment. “Lemme tell you somethin’, pal, if a broad finds a hair on a shirt, it ain’t because she was lookin’ for no hair, it’s because she smelled the poifume. She don’ want you to know that, though.”
There was a stereotype that arguably had some basis to it that women were more sensitive to smell, either by paying more attention to it or actually having greater olfactory nerves, and the driver was making reference to it. He did not know how far he needed to go along with the bit, but he went ahead and smelled the ticket once he had it back.
Drugs. Opioid is a blanket term for anything derived from the poppy. From prescription drugs to heroin, it’s all the same plant. What matters is the concentration, the dose, and the condition for which it’s being prescribed.
He decided it was most likely that Electro had not escaped under his own power, as strong as he was at full capacity. Though the report did not specify as much, he most likely was restricted when he was out on parole, and someone got him out of it- though not out of the kindness of his heart. The Kingpin would have had motive. After Bullseye failed and was arrested, he needed someone else to kill me, even if he did not know the reason why the first assassin failed. I still have no idea whether Elektra came after me of her own volition or whether she had a contract.
It was nerve-wracking trying to keep up with all the details of the criminal underworld of the universe in which he had found himself, because there was so much history and there were so many characters, moving parts, powers and abilities- the worst was the Sandman, at least out of that that currently concerned him. Basically, he was exactly what he sounded like, a man made out of sand; there was no way to knock him out or injure him, and he generally relied on that kind of approach with most criminals. He knew that he could glass him if he had a powerful enough heat source, but would that kill him, or just give him more jagged edges? Could he break himself down into granules no matter what?
It was for that reason that he needed to catch up to Electro and cut him off from receiving any help. For one reason or another, whether it was his strengths, weaknesses, or personality, he was more of a team player than an individual powerhouse, and it seemed like other criminals had already picked up on this. They sent him that ticket as a theoretically inconspicuous invitation to a business that they were using as a front. Habersham’s, the dry cleaner, if it was a real enterprise, at least had one location that organized crime was using, and he would make sure their stock would suffer for it.
“Here we are.”
“Thanks for your trouble.”
He did not see the glider anywhere around, but he had expected the villain to hide it, assuming he had already arrived. Going behind the building, he saw two bored-looking guards standing around and it was easy enough to knock them out after distracting them. Seeing no cameras, he changed into his suit, a rubber exterior with a layer of kevlar underneath, and equipped with an optic deflection array that had only just recently made him immune to heat scanners. He wanted a fireproof cape as well, but as long as people expected Spider-Man to be without one, then, he supposed he could not change the branding unilaterally; using the glider was ambitious already. Parker most likely would not have a problem with that, though.
Entering through a ventilation shaft after removing the cover, he found the basement, and in it, the glider, though it seemed Electro had already joined up with other criminals, more than he could identify. Even with the research that he had done on the subject, there were still more, each with their own abilities- and he could not assume that those not wearing costumes lacked special abilities; even the man of the hour was dressed somewhat normally. He was bald in a black suit, though he was not, for some reason, wearing a shirt or tie. There were two much larger men and though Spider-Man was sure he was stronger than any normal human, he could not verify they were anything resembling normal. What he could do was listen carefully to what they were discussing to figure out the vulnerabilities in their plans.
“What’s in it for me?” Electro was asking. “I’ve worked with the Kingpin before- don't pretend that’s not who’s in charge here- he always hung me out to dry. It’s always the same. Even years ago, when he was only giving orders through some gang, if something came up, I never saw that gang again, not the leader, not anyone else. Everyone acted like it never existed.”
“We know it’s frustrating,” one of the larger men said. It was a false sympathy, probably something that worked as a joke in their dimension. “We just want you to hear us out.”
“Go on.” The sigh seemed feigned.
“The boss doesn’t like Oscorp. They used to play nicely with us, but then they got bought out. We want you to cause some problems for them. See if something happens.”
I see. They’re trying to see if Spider-Man has anything to do with the company. It’s not a serviceable experiment, though- if Electro were attacking anyone, he would still come in and save the day. Do they want him to hurt the asset value of my company without harming anyone? Is that the goal here? Electro seemed to be considering it.
“I can get to work on that, but I need something from Fisk first. If we want to hit them where it hurts, we need information. If there’s been changes at Oscorp, I need to know about them.”
“We already got someone on it.”
Elektra.