Kingpin turned his head toward Nick. "I was here first," he said.
Nick's one eye raked over him. "I don't give a damn."
"I was here first," Kingpin repeated.
"Let me say it again. I don't care."
"And what if I do?" Kingpin asked.
"If you don't want all that filthy, unwashed dirt on your ass to land you in a prison cell, then shut your damn mouth and move your damn self to the side," Nick said, voice low and heavy. "Unless you feel like waking up one day with a few hundred corn-growing bruisers from Nebraska lying next to you, staring at you like you're the prettiest thing they've seen all year."
He finished, then added, "Am I clear?"
Something savage flashed in Kingpin's eyes—like scaly hands reaching out to crush Nick's throat. Just as he was about to move, the phone in the inner pocket of his suit started ringing.
He answered.
"Who is this?"
From the other end came faint, furious cursing—frustration without a way out. "You're finished, you hear me?"
Kingpin recognized the voice immediately.
Bullseye—his top enforcer—who was already under control.
To make this meeting foolproof, Kingpin had arranged hundreds of gunmen spread throughout the surrounding blocks—enough to fight a low-intensity modern war. It was insurance: if negotiations collapsed, he could still slip away.
But now even Bullseye had been taken down. The rest of the setup didn't take much imagination.
Nick gave a small, satisfied smile. "You really thought you beat me in an eating contest, didn't you?"
The fury burning behind Kingpin's eyes looked hot enough to melt asphalt through glass, but he still forced a smile and turned to Skyl.
"Who came first and who came later," Kingpin said, "should be decided by this young man."
Nick stopped pressing and handed the choice to Skyl too.
They didn't say it out loud, but Kingpin knew it: this was his one and only chance.
Skyl spoke casually. "Mr. Kingpin arrived earlier, and he paid."
Nick added, expression blank, "With gold you conjured. A finger torn off a living person."
"I know." Skyl pulled that finger segment from his pocket and examined it in his palm. He blew gently across it.
The gold faded back into flesh.
A thick, rough, dark thumb. Fresh blood seeped from the severed end.
Neither Kingpin nor Nick reacted.
A severed finger was nothing to them. Nick had seen war—bodies turned into something far worse than this. Kingpin lived in violence; the punishments he'd ordered could turn healthy people into ruined, screaming wrecks.
Skyl tossed the thumb back to Kingpin.
The crime boss caught it on instinct, then forced a smile. "I apologize for Toby's recklessness. From today onward, not a single gang will bother your business again."
"Mr. Kingpin, I've heard you control New York's underground—practically the king of crime," Skyl said. "And I don't like dealing with villains."
"I have committed many crimes, yes," Kingpin said smoothly. "But that isn't proof of evil. The existence of organized crime only proves the incompetence of those who rule. When ordinary people can't survive through lawful means—when they can't obtain dignity—crime grows in the cracks."
He kept going, as if delivering a speech. "I've seen what the underground looks like without order: gunfights in the street, innocents caught in the crossfire. It was my arrival that ended the chaos."
Nick's mouth twitched. He was a soldier; Kingpin was a thief. Of course he wouldn't buy that.
Skyl didn't like Kingpin's rationalizing either. Villains always had their own tidy logic.
"Save it," Skyl said. "Tell me why you came."
"Fine." Kingpin spread his hands. "We can become friends."
Nick cut in again. "Actually, you can't."
Kingpin clenched down on his temper. "Why not?"
"Because he's a good kid," Nick said, dead serious. "And you're a full-blooded bastard."
Kingpin shot back instantly. "The mistakes I've made don't amount to one-tenth of what congressmen do. Not one percent of what our President does. Compared to those politicians, my soul is clean enough to walk into Heaven and shake God's hand."
Skyl stopped the argument before it grew teeth. "Mr. Kingpin—when you say 'cooperate,' you mean you want me to keep making gold for you, right?"
Kingpin nodded. "Exactly. Turning stone to gold by itself won't give you power. But gold plus tens of thousands of accountants? That makes you king of the world. You won't need to sell fast food ever again. In this country, your power would surpass the White House."
Nick's face went rigid—combined with a complexion dark as cast iron, he looked like he was straining not to explode.
Skyl stared at Kingpin. "I can see the screaming in your eyes. The debtors you beat to death with your own fists. The children you ordered sold. The women you kept obedient with drugs. Thousands of broken families."
He paused, and his gaze sharpened.
"And your father—dying in the street."
Sweat beaded on Kingpin's forehead. "You can read minds?"
Skyl's eyes turned silver.
Legilimency.
He was rifling through Kingpin's past, and inside the mind of this unnaturally strong man he saw New York's rot, up close and personal.
A normal person shouldn't step into that abyss. Skyl could endure it.
But he couldn't accept it.
"You were rotten from childhood," Skyl said. "Social Darwinism. Crushing the weak. Bowing to the strong. And right now I desperately need a word more aggressive than 'animal' to describe you."
Nick offered help from the side, like a loyal translator. "Motherfucker."
Skyl laughed and nodded. "That's the one. Motherfucker."
Kingpin finally snapped.
He exploded forward and hammered Nick with a punch like artillery. The so-called king of spies reacted fast, but still went flying.
Then Kingpin surged toward Skyl like an enraged bear.
Skyl slipped aside. He looked thin and harmless, but his movement was sharp and nimble.
Kingpin advanced, grinning like he'd already won. "You're a goose that lays golden eggs. Work with me. Or I'll blind you, rip out your tongue, cut your feet off—then you'll spend the rest of your life eating through a rubber tube."
His grin widened.
"Don't worry. I'll keep your hands. As long as you can still make gold, I won't let you die."
Skyl sighed. "A sane person would run right now, Mr. Kingpin. But I can't blame you. Marvel villains are famously stupid."
Kingpin wanted to take Skyl as a hostage. He had a hundred ways to escape on New York streets after that.
"You're just a clueless kid," Kingpin snarled.
"Yeah," Skyl said, calm as ever. "And I do dumb, boring things all the time."
He looked at Kingpin. "You ate a lot just now, didn't you?"
Skyl pointed.
Kingpin's body suddenly lurched without permission—and he doubled over, vomiting like a floodgate had been ripped open.
"I curse you," Skyl said, voice flat. "Vomit reflux."
In Kingpin's widening, horrified stare, the mess on the ground surged back into his mouth, unstoppable, forcing its way down his throat and back into his stomach.
He gagged violently.
Then he vomited again—only for it to reverse again.
Over and over.
The filth slammed into his airway, flooding toward his lungs.
Instant suffocation.
"N-no—stop! Stop! Please—" Kingpin choked, gagging again.
He twisted to run, but Skyl hit him with a full-body bind—Petrificus Totalus.
Kingpin hit the ground, hammering his chest, convulsing, and within seconds he had no strength left.
Nick Fury's one eye looked ready to pop out of his skull. "Motherfucker… if I ever piss you off, remind me. I'll do the sensible thing and put a bullet in my own head."
Skyl didn't spare a shred of pity for the man drowning in his own filth. He gave Nick a small nod.
"So we finally meet," Skyl said. "Looks like you all already decided how you're going to handle me. Let me see what you've got."
Nick's scalp prickled. He forced a smile that didn't belong on his face. "Kid… ever thought about switching careers?"
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