by David Liss
Spider-Man held his ground, and then spiraled out of the way at the last moment. As he did, he unleashed another barrage of webs at Bingham’s feet. One caught the man by the ankle and Bingham went down, hard. He face-planted, and a voice in the back of Spider-Man’s head chimed in with the hope that someone had caught it on video for later.
If he survived—because that wasn’t a guarantee.
Bingham pushed himself up like an acrobat and yanked free of the webbing.
“All those people are dead because of you!” he shouted.
He’s just talking, Spider-Man told himself. There’s no logic to it. He’s just trying to get under my skin.
Bingham swung and missed. The Web-Slinger saw an opportunity but didn’t take it. He’d likely miss if he made another attempt to connect. He wasn’t going to play by Bingham’s rules. He was going to make the rules for the both of them—and then Spider-Man would find his moment.
“They laughed at me because of you,” Blood Spider snapped. He came in hard with another punch. Spider-Man ducked under it, just barely, and a good thing too. It was strong enough to take his head off his neck.
“My mother ignored me because of you,” Bingham cried out, and he tried to connect again.
“That one’s true,” Spider-Man countered as he danced backwards. “She didn’t have as much time for you once she started coming over my house and baking cookies for me.” It wasn’t the most dignified thing he’d ever done, but he had to use what was available. Blood Spider was nuts, so he hit him where it seemed like it would hurt.
It must have succeeded. Bingham screamed and came at him again, but this time more sloppily. He was nothing but fury now. Spider-Man ducked under his blow and then came up hard, landing a sledgehammer of a punch into Bingham’s chin.
Blood Spider staggered back, but he looked to be steadying himself. Spider-Man moved in again and struck him in the jaw. Bingham stayed on his feet. He bunched his fists, readying to strike back, so Spider-Man hit him again. This time he didn’t wait.
He hit again, and then again, and then—
And then he stopped.
This man had killed Anika and Remzi and Andy and so many others, but he wasn’t a monster—not like Fisk, who plotted his schemes and cared no more for the dead than he did for fallen pieces on a chess board. Bingham was damaged. Anyone could see that. He needed to be locked up, not beaten to a pulp.
Now was the time for the webs. A barrage aimed at Bingham’s calves set him off balance. As he lurched in place Spider-Man circled him, wrapping him in a cocoon even his advanced strength couldn’t break.
Bingham continued to waver, half-conscious. His eyes rolled in his head.
“You’re right,” Spider-Man told him between panting breaths. “We’re not the same. We’re completely different.”
Bingham began to topple. The kind thing would have been to step in and ease his fall. Forget that. Spider-Man wasn’t like Bingham, but he never claimed to be a saint.
Blood Spider hit the floor.
The Web-Slinger stood there, trying to figure out what to feel. There were so many people around him. He’d been vaguely aware before, but now he felt all those eyes. He felt the lights of the TV cameras. It was time to run, but not yet.
He needed to be still, just for a moment.
He’d caught Anika’s murderer. He hadn’t killed him, destroyed him, or made him beg for mercy. He’d caught him. He’d taken on that responsibility, and he’d seen it through. Breathing hard, he looked up to face all those eyes. Then he felt the pain from the beating he’d taken.
Best not to say “ow,” he thought. Might tarnish the image. Many of the guests had fled, but there were still plenty around, pressed to the sides of the ballroom, watching the excitement. Reporters were there, including MJ—who was grinning at him. Even Aunt May seemed pleased. It was nice that, over the years, she’d become a Spider-Man defender.
Reporters snapped photos. Video cameras followed his every move. He watched as Yuri Watanabe talked down some of the police who still wanted to move in for an arrest.
“Here’s the fake Spider-Man,” he told them. “This is the restaurant bomber. He should have some pretty interesting stories to tell you.”
“Arrest him!” Jameson shouted, pointing at Spider-Man. Then he was pointing to where the Web-Slinger had been.
Spider-Man was gone.
STILL in his Spider-Man suit, he used his phone to watch video footage of the police leading Wilson Fisk out of the ballroom. Nothing was going to stick, of course, but everyone had seen him punch Maya. There would be questions, and the media was sure to find out that Maya was his foster child.
Still, she was dressed in a costume, and it would be easy for Fisk to argue that he hadn’t recognized her, that he’d felt threated by someone who could have been as dangerous as one of the Spider-Men or any other powerful criminal. It was a safe bet that Fisk’s lawyer would have him out on the street in an hour.
Whatever the Kingpin had on Norman Osborn was lost forever. Spider-Man wasn’t sure how he felt about that. No one should be able to blackmail the mayor of New York, of course. On the other hand, it would be better if the mayor wasn’t doing things that left him susceptible to blackmail. The world, however, was a complicated place, and he’d have to hope that Norman Osborn would seek power through being an effective leader, rather than abusing his authority.
Wilson Fisk was never going to be commissioner of finance, though, and that was a huge win. It wasn’t a win like seeing Fisk tried for murder, but it gave Spider-Man time to dig in further. It gave him room to breathe. And Bingham, the false Spider-Man, was in custody. On the news they said he was being sent for psychiatric evaluation. It was likely he’d end up in Ravencroft, rather than a prison. That was fine as far as Spider-Man was concerned. Clearly the guy was nuts. As long as he was kept off the streets forever, it didn’t much matter what flavor the confinement came in.
“Don’t expect Bingham to talk,” Echo said when they met again in the janitor’s closet. “Guys like that never do, so there’s not much chance he’ll turn on Fisk. Besides, it’s pretty clear that he is insane, which means anything he says will need to come with hard evidence. That won’t be the way to destroy Fisk.”
“The goal isn’t to destroy him,” Spider-Man said. “It’s to see he goes to jail.”
“That’s one opinion,” she responded.
“Look,” he began, “I know you were raised not to believe in subtlety, but we have to let the police handle this. Even better, we have to help the police to handle it.”
“Do you have any idea how many people Fisk controls inside the police department?”
“So, you want to take justice into your own hands?” he asked. “That never works out well.”
“I don’t know what I want to do,” she admitted. “I need time. Before he found out I’d turned on him, I raided some files and found out that I still have cousins in Montana. The first thing I will do is head out there, talk to them, see if maybe they can help me learn more about who my father really was. Maybe I’ll stay out there.”
“Echo, I could always use your help here,” Spider-Man told her. “We could do things the right way and make a huge difference.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but you’ve got pretty good instincts. I have a feeling that you’ll figure out what needs to be done—and when that happens, you’ll see things through.”
Spider-Man nodded. “Family’s important, so I understand, but if you ever decide you want to come back, I’ll be happy to have your help.”
“Might be fun.” She smiled. “In the meantime, I have something for you.” She held out a thick file bound together with straining rubber bands. “Think of this as a going-away present.”
* * *
HE turned when he heard the stairwell door opening. Yuri Watanabe came out onto the roof, and much to Peter’s surprise, she looked happy.
“I’ve only got a few minutes,” she said. “People will start
to wonder where I am.”
“Look, Lieutenant, I’m sorry,” he began. “I know you told me to stay away, but the situation was critical. I had to act.”
“Yes, you did,” she said. “And I’m not angry. You don’t work for me, and you do what you have to do. I would be angry with you if it hadn’t worked out, but you stopped a bad guy. And when it comes to Fisk, you’ve bought us some time. That’s what’s important.”
“So, I haven’t blown the investigation?”
She laughed. “People aren’t worried that Spider-Man is a criminal—cops on the force were wasting too much time looking for you. That takes a lot of pressure off anyone who might be seen talking to you, too. It doesn’t mean we can have lunch together, but it does mean maybe we can get back to work.”
“That’s good,” he said, “because I have a present for you.” He handed her the file that Maya had given him. “It’s from an insider. Lots of details about Fisk’s operation. It may make a difference.”
Watanabe took out her phone and used its light to scan through the documents.
“I’ll need time to digest this, but it looks huge.” She gave a low whistle. “Really huge. There are lots of avenues to pursue. It could take months to run it all down, but if even some of what’s in here checks out, it could make the difference.”
She turned and walked back into the building, still reading. He sat down on the edge of the roof, letting his legs dangle. It had been a long time—a very long time—since there had been any sort of win. Fisk would likely remain a free man, but he was tainted now. Done were the days he could sell himself as the savior of New York. Anika’s killer was in police custody. There was justice for all of the victims of the restaurant bombing. For Abe Remzi.
He’d spent so much time wondering if he could really make a difference. Now he was starting to think that maybe the world was better off with Spider-Man after all.
At least for now.
IT was the police scanner that woke him up.
“All units: level four mobilization. Location: Fisk Tower.”
Peter sat straight up in bed.
It had been months since the fight at the hotel, and he’d been dreaming about MJ, but he hadn’t spoken to her for a long time. He’d wanted to give her space—that was definitely part of it—but he’d also worried that he could never be the boyfriend she needed. He couldn’t stop worrying, and he cared enough to give her the freedom she wanted, rather than hinder her career.
As he’d predicted, Fisk had walked away from the incident with no charges, but that wasn’t to say he was untarnished. Footage of him punching Maya Lopez—a woman who had been his legal ward—was all over the national news. A man who was acquitted of criminal charges could remake himself as a scoundrel, but a man who punched his foster daughter on national television was bound to get a lot of negative publicity.
It cost him a lot of business.
Thanks to Yuri Watanabe—who’d received a promotion to captain shortly after the incident—links leaked to the press, connecting Fisk to the murder of Maya’s father. Various reporters, like Ben Urich, had written scathing pieces that made it seem as if evidence had been buried by crooked cops at the time. The district attorney was talking about reopening the case. Even J. Jonah Jameson had become interested. He’d switched his show over to a podcast, cutting his ties with Fisk, and he seemed to have more listeners than ever.
Fisk remained a free man, but he’d been wounded. They hadn’t stopped him that night, not the way they wanted to, but they’d done damage, and that felt pretty good.
Now Peter struggled to get his Spider-Man suit on.
“SWAT is 10-84 at Fisk Tower,” the police scanner squawked. “All units stand by. Warrant is en route.”
A warrant! Could this really be it? All the work they’d done, and the files provided by Maya Lopez were making a difference. Watanabe kept telling him that. Was it possible that something major had shifted, and they were actually going to take down Fisk?
His heart raced as he sped out the window.
More importantly, how could Watanabe not tell him? Now that she was a captain, had she forgotten the little people? While swinging toward Hell’s Kitchen, the Web-Slinger used his new in-suit phone to call her.
“I thought you were going to tell me before taking down the big guy,” he said as soon as she picked up.
She didn’t have to ask who was calling.
“We think he got wind of it a couple of hours ago,” she explained, “so we’re moving fast. Still waiting on the warrant. Just need to secure one last piece of evidence.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing,” she said. “This needs to go by the book. You know his lawyers.”
That didn’t slow him down. No way was she going to box him out. Not now. She knew it, too. He figured she was just putting up a fight out of procedural instinct.
“Come on, Yuri,” Spider-Man said. “I’ve been working the last eight years on this. Taking down Fisk is kind of a big deal to me.”
“Hold on a sec,” she said. It sounded as if she was dealing with a crowd of people over there. Launching an assault against a major figure like Fisk had to be a logistical nightmare, especially when he was unlikely to go quietly.
“Okay,” she said when she got back on the phone. “Now’s your chance. Get to Times Square. Fisk’s men are trying to keep my guys from getting to the scene.”
“You got it,” he answered quickly, before she could change her mind. “Thanks, Yuri.”
Yes! He was going to be a part of it.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but think he was already supposed to be at the lab. It turned out that Peyton hadn’t had permission to get rid of Peter, so the boss had hired him back and fired Peyton instead. For a while Peter had actually been pretty good about showing up on time and being where he was supposed to be.
He hated to fall into the old habits, but this was Fisk, and some things couldn’t wait. The boss was going to be furious with him, but he could live with that. To get Fisk, he could live with almost anything.
There was an incoming call from the lab. He hated having these conversations. He hated letting anyone down. Being Spider-Man could be a burden. There were a lot of days when he wanted to set that burden aside.
This wasn’t one of them. He was going to see Fisk behind bars, and after that—well, he’d deal with it when it happened.
He let the phone take his boss’s call. Spider-Man flicked his wrist and shot out a web, loving the feeling of hurling himself, not away from anything, but toward something—toward something important.
He felt alive and electric, full of the joy of movement and action. He wanted to act, needed to act, to be part of making the city a better and more just place.
Soon, he thought, when Fisk was finally behind bars, his life would finally calm down. It couldn’t get any crazier, right?
DAVID LISS is the author of eleven novels, including A Conspiracy of Paper and The Whiskey Rebels, both currently being developed for television. He is also the author of the Randoms space opera trilogy, as well as numerous comics, including Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, Mystery Men, and Angelica Tomorrow.
MANY thanks to all who helped make Marvel’s Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover possible. I could not have put this book together without the hard work of my partners at Marvel: Becka McIntosh, Eric Monacelli, Caitlin O’Connell, Jeff Reingold, Jeff Youngquist, and especially Bill Rosemann. Thanks to Christos Gage, and Bryan Intihar and Jon Paquette at Insomniac. I am also deeply grateful for the guidance and advice provided by my crack editor, Steve Saffel. My agent, Howard Morhaim, helped keep me in line. And I am grateful, as always, to my family.
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