The sun was out. A new day was beginning.
The motel sat just off the road in Williamsburg, its neon sign buzzing and flickering. Several of the letters were burned out, leaving only a dull red glow across the cracked pavement. The parking lot was nearly empty, with more oil stains than cars.
Felix walked up the concrete steps. He limped, his legs still healing. He was in simple black clothes: black jacket, a black shirt, and dark jeans.
'Rash? I hope you're finding it cozy again.'
'I aaammmm…thank you very much. But we should relax, not…do this.'
'Time isn't exactly on our side. Don't worry, Rash.' He smiled. 'I'll take a backseat.'
He stopped at the motel door and knocked twice. Quietly, he whispered, "It's Felix from another universe."
The door opened almost immediately, but only a few inches. It made no sound.
Czarina stood in the narrow gap. Her red hair was pulled back, and she wore brown clothes that hid everything she was. The dim light from inside the room vaguely illuminated her watchful expression.
"You are late," Czarina noted.
"Traffic," he replied apologetically. "And a coup in Eastern Europe."
"I heard." Czarina studied him for another moment before stepping aside to let him enter. "Come in."
Felix walked into the room and shut the door behind him. The lock clicked softly. Norman Osborn sat in a cheap vinyl chair near a small table. His coat hung over the back of the chair, and his posture was rigid.
When Felix entered, Norman stood up.
"To think the great Norman Osborn would be hiding out here," Felix remarked as a greeting.
"Felix," he said. "You made it."
Felix nodded once and took a few steps into the room. "I heard about the morgue," he said. "Are you injured?"
Norman shook his head stiffly. "No. Fortunately not." His eyes shifted briefly toward Czarina. "Thanks to your… precaution."
Czarina was beside Felix. Her arms crossed as if to say she was with Felix, not Norman. Felix wasn't sure if Norman got that memo. The CEO looked him over carefully. His expression softened slightly, though the tension in his shoulders never quite disappeared.
"Good work, son," Norman said after a moment. "I always knew you possessed foresight like this." He let out a slow breath and rubbed his temple. "I overheard the radio earlier. Latveria is undergoing a coup. It seems the world has become dangerous for men like me."
"It has, hasn't it?" Felix said quietly to himself.
Norman paced a few steps across the room and peered through the closed shutters of the window. The memory of the morgue was clearly still fresh in his mind. The image of his dead son had left a crack in the armor of his usual confidence.
"He knew I would be there," Norman muttered. "Whoever attacked me knew exactly where I would be."
Norman straightened his posture again, attempting to reclaim control of the moment. The shutters were a pointless thing to look at now.
"How long do I have to remain in this place?" he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. "When can I leave? When will it stop being dangerous?"
"It's…"
"Apologies, Felix." Norman didn't even glance over him. "My life isn't often in jeopardy like this. I haven't told the public of the morgue's location, so it must be a spy. Ah, no, wait, it could have been a security misstep and someone saw me. Regardless…"
He inhaled at length and turned toward them.
"I will be needed. SHIELD will likely want my aid in reconstruction."
"You and Wilson Fisk did establish Damage Control together," Felix said, quiet but an octave louder. Norman heard him.
Damage Control wasn't the only construction company that specialized in repairing the property damage caused by conflicts between superheroes and super-villains but it was the largest one in New York at least. Norman tilted his head at the name-drop of the old Kingpin.
"Yes, Stark as well. He will likely jump at the chance if he learns I am not available. Felix, fetch a taxi. Or better yet, call for backup. You know Kate Bishop, correct? She can loan us men."
Stark, Norman, Kingpin…
Felix turned his head slightly and looked at Czarina.
"Czarina?"
"Yes?" she replied.
"Shoot him."
Norman blinked in confusion.
"What?"
Felix did not raise his voice. "I said shoot him."
Norman's expression shifted from confusion to disbelief.
Czarina did not hesitate. Her hand moved smoothly beneath her jacket, and she drew a pistol already fitted with a silencer.
CLIP!
The shot was loud in the small room but considerably duller than a normal gunshot. Czarina had used a silencer. It was like a clip. Norman staggered backward. He struck the table, knocking the chair aside, before he collapsed onto the floor. A dark stain spread quickly across his shirt.
Czarina lowered the pistol slowly. Her eyes turned toward Felix. She did not look shocked. She did not look uncertain. She had followed his order because she trusted his judgment. He was the smartest man on the planet and he promised to take her home.
Felix was glad he could trust her. He walked forward and looked down at Norman Osborn. Norman tried to push himself up. His hand slipped against the floor, now slick with blood.
"You…!" Norman gasped. "Felix, you fool!"
"A better tomorrow…what does that mean?" Felix crouched down. "I'm optimistic. I'm not going to torture the middlemen or the ordinary. I want to work with them, whether they like me or not. But you? I'm sorry Norman but you're the personification of corporate greed."
Norman coughed violently. Blood stained his lips. "Nngfh…F-Felix, it's not—"
"It is too late. You'll be lobbying for more power and more military investments from the government considering what just happened. I won't allow that."
Norman opened his mouth as if to protest again, but no words came out. His strength faded quickly.
Norman Osborn died in a cheap motel without a single person knowing. A forgettable death handed to him by his own employer. He walked over and peered through the shuttered windows. A truck was coming in and a yawning driver came out.
Spider-Sense wasn't going off. Herbie wasn't detecting anything.
Nobody was coming for Norman Osborn.
He was dead like any and all ordinary men were.
Czarina watched Felix carefully. "Felix…are you certain of this?" she asked.
Felix looked down at the body. "Yes," he said.
"What will happen to Oscorp? Norman is dead and so is his son. Conspiracy allegations may arise…"
"Because those conspiracies are true."
"Huh?"
"Let me tell you something Czarina; I'm Spider-Man."
"...!" Czarina's eyes turned into saucers. "You're…Spider-Man…?" A small incredulous laugh slipped out, which snapped back into a set line. "The tech, the intelligence, yes, but…no, but when did you receive your powers…?"
His killing of Norman suddenly changed everything. She took a small step back.
"Prove it."
Another step back. Felix stopped, jumped, and threw a hand up. He stuck to the ceiling with his fingers only, no palm. Czarina swallowed thickly. "Prove enough?"
He dropped down. Czarina did not step back. Obviously, if he wanted to kill her, he could easily do it.
"You're a decent liar."
"And so are you." It was an accusation so much as it was a statement. "Look, I want total honesty and transparency. You were trying to stop the Particle Accelerator from activating because of a thief—the Black Cat."
"The Black Cat, yes. I told you this."
"You were where?"
"On the platform right near the particle accelerator. Why?"
"So who activated it? Be honest with me, Natasha."
Using her real name, she sucked in a breath. "How important is this?"
"The utmost important. A villain known as the Red Goblin caused the coup in Latveria. And he won't stop there—he wants more. He has the power to control minds and his ultimate goal is to get control of Gwen. If he managed that, there's nobody in the world that could stop him."
With Gwen came the Sheath in all likelihood. Gwen alone was a problem. To imagine her or the Red Goblin even stronger was a problem.
"The Red Goblin?" Czarina stood at attention. "Does he possess some kind of telekinesis?"
"No, a Symbiote that he injects into people. It ignores willpower and biology. You saw the news, didn't you? The Hulk went on a rampage and that was because of him."
Czarina scoffed. "Impossible."
"I'm telling the truth."
What a bombshell to drop on her. But Czarina quickly thought about, adapted, and slowly nodded. "What do you want from me, Spider-Man? Just the truth?"
"The truth and a favour."
"Look, there was a chance that the Accelerator was activated before I arrived. But I told you this once and I'll say it again: it is best that I don't tell you too much about my world."
"Why?" he pressed.
"The nature of my world makes it so that it may cause unwanted ripples here."
"Just tell me. Tell me everything."
Czarina stared with narrowed eyes and suppressed emotion. She sighed. "Me, the Black Cat…I was working adjacent with SHIELD to capture her. She had been on the payroll of someone to steal Alchemax's new particle accelerator, the Super-Collider. It was still under construction and when there was a small signal for a necessary repair, I checked it out knowing Black Cat would be there. But she wasn't. It was a massive, massive thing."
She set her palms parallel and wiggled one side to represent where she was versus Black Cat.
"There were two parts to the particle accelerator: the breacher side and the manifest side. The breach as its name suggests breaches the barrier between dimensions while the manifest side manifests items. That part can work independently, actually. It's the normal part of a particle accelerator, so to speak."
She lifted and wriggled her left hand.
"I was here. I swore I saw a screw loose, but then I heard my partner announce she was on the other side. It was dark and full of security lasers, and she got through them all. I was lucky that I had Agent Hawkeye to keep watch."
Hawkeye…?
"Where was he?"
"He's not a field agent, he uses security drones. Without him, I never would have been able to track and trap the Black Cat the way I did." Between her parallel palms, she nudged her chin down. "There were several platforms here. Again, it wasn't fully finished. Maybe a month left. We fought on these platforms once the alarm rang."
"And then?"
"Then…you know the rest. The accelerator turned on somehow. We saw Gwen Stacy, screaming and writhing in red. And since we were smack dab in the middle of it all, we got sucked up." Her hands dropped. "And the rest is history."
"There was someone else there."
"What?"
"You mentioned loose screws. I suspect there was someone else there."
"It could have been due to the repairs—"
"No. Your instincts were correct."
Czarina cocked her head. "How did I miss them?"
"Because they were invisible."
"Invisible…?"
Hobie Brown was there that day. He had told him as much. He mentioned he owed Gwen massively as well. Was he, perhaps, involved with why that happened to her? Was there something he avoided telling him?
The stench of Norman's corpse reminded him he didn't have as much time as he'd liked. Czarina glanced over at it.
"I told you what you needed to know, but you also required a favour. I assume it's not…this?"
"We can let Norman be discovered normally. I doubt someone like you left any tracks."
"No, of course not."
"Neither did I." He paused and glanced at Norman's decaying body again. "Let's get going now. There's a bus coming. Let's talk there."
They exited the motel room. Felix didn't spare a final glance at his old boss. They walked down the stairs and past the receptionist where a truck driver was receiving the keys to the room adjacent to where Norman died. There was some irony to be had. To be so great and yet to wound up in the same place as a measly truck driver.
It was the dawn of a new era.
The motel and the surrounding brown buildings were far, far away from the battles of Spider-Man and the Hulk. New York was massive after all and Williamsburg, Brooklyn was quite east of mainline New York. Sure, it was a little tense but ultimately the morning light was calm.
The blue bus arrived and Czarina paid for the two of them. They sat down at the back. It was almost five o'clock. They were the only ones here.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to Manhattan. I have a place in Lexington."
The bus was bumpy. Czarina looked out. "We killed Norman Osborn. The investigation will be extensive," Czarina murmured.
"We'll be fine. I have Spider-Bots going to the location as we speak. They'll tamper with the body and throw off any autopsy."
"So confident."
"I presume it's not this way in your world?"
Czarina only grimaced. "It is not. Regardless, what do you want me to do with this?"
"As I mentioned, the Red Goblin needs Gwen in order to defeat me. In a one-on-one fight, he's strong, but I could incapacitate him with relative ease. And he knows that. He knows his best bet is to cause havoc far and away from me. But he can't do it forever. I will catch him. Find patterns in his teleportation device."
"Teleportation device? Hm…" Czarina massaged her chin, thinking.
"It's capable of large-scale usage. The Black Cat gave him the schematics, actually."
"The Black Cat—?" Czarina did a double-take. "And he was actually able to actually create it? With the resources on this Earth?"
"...I get the feeling your Earth is far more advanced than mine." Felicia mentioned it. Hobie too. "You mentioned ripples as well. Wait a minute, is your Earth…from the future?"
Czarina bit her bottom lip. It seemed like she couldn't hide it any longer. "It's…it's a kind of future, I believe. We are still separate dimensions. Some history is different, other history is the same."
"You're beating around the bush. What year?"
"2099."
Felix's eyes widened. That was an eighty year jump! No wonder!
"It's a corporate hellhole compared to this Earth. Mercenaries like Felicia are common. SHIELD does its best to keep the peace but it's a difficult fight. Oscorp, Alchemax, Stark Industries, Faith Corporation, Fantastic Inc, they rule over Nueva York with an iron fist. It's all about money, money, money. Decency has been lost."
Nueva…York…?
Czarina saw his confusion and smiled faintly. It was then he saw a bitter hate and envy in her: hate toward the world that she was from, bitterness from not being able to change it, and the envy that this world wasn't quite.
Things could still change.
"But I suppose with you, we can stop that future."
Things would change, Felix told himself.
"Yeah." Felix's eyes hardened. "The powerful don't get a better tomorrow; it's always better for them. For ordinary people, they're the ones I fight for and they're the ones that need a better tomorrow."
Czarina had killed Norman perhaps in tribute to her Earth. She wanted to help not just so she could go home but to feel some glimmer of hope and justice. "So your favour? What is it?"
"It has to do with two people: Gwen Stacy and Bruce Banner."
"Bruce Banner? The Hulk?"
"He's dead." Felix's casual announcement earned a flinch. "Right now, his corpse is in SHIELD custody. He'll be dissected and studied. He was a terrible man but he doesn't deserve that. He deserves to be buried like anyone else."
"Then what is your plan? Do you even know where he is?"
"I do. The plan is already in motion." From his pockets, he pulled two cards. It was the Black Card and White Card.
Czarina audibly gasped. It was a quiet sound—and unexpected from her of all people. "That's…"
Felix side-glanced her. "You know it?"
"We have something like it in my world, but…retrieving it…" Czarina looked up. "You aren't lying. You're Spider-Man."
"You didn't believe me?" he joked.
The bus stopped for a stop. Czarina laughed a little. It was still just the two of them.
"You want me to infiltrate the SHIELD?"
"I do. Specifically, an underwater prison. I need someone on the inside there to break her out."
Czarina raised a brow at that. "You can't do that?"
"I can't be in two places at once. Not to mention I've already infiltrated there. They know my face."
Czarina snorted. "Of course you infiltrated the super secret underwater prison."
"Tomorrow, there will be an opening for SHIELD scientists to enter. I want you to be one of those scientists." Unlike with Gwen, this time, Herbie was able to do something. "Don't worry, you won't have to disguise much. I was able to nudge the SHIELD database into suggesting a redhead scientist."
Czarina considered her next question. Should she ask how in the world he had hacked SHIELD?
"Dimensions?" she asked instead, because the mission was the priority here.
"She's two inches shorter than you and less voluptuous. Wears glasses as well."
"Not an issue then," Czarina bristled. "Location?"
"You'll find her in Ireland."
The redhead slowly craned over like he was insane.
"They're picking her up as we speak," Felix said.
"So how in the world am I supposed to get there?"
"Simple. We follow the plane carrying her with my private jet and secretly have you two switch places. If we go now, we can intercept and do the extraction in ten hours."
Czarina looked at him like he was. "You're crazy." She said it too.
"Gwen needs our help and I don't want to twiddle my thumbs or let the Red Goblin reign havoc." Felix looked at her. "I know I lied to you—"
He didn't have to explain a thing. Czarina chuckled. "I'm a spy. Lying is what I do—and lying for being Spider-Man is an acceptable lie."
"You'll do it then?"
"You're my only real ally and friend here, Felix. And frankly, I've been out of action for too long. It's time for the Black Widow to return."