Mystique lounged on the feather-comfortable piece of expensive furniture as she narrated everything she had seen in the underground Morlocks tunnels to a perpetually frowning Magneto.

  ‘This thing is even more comfortable than my bed.’ She thought even as her mouth parroted out her test/least favorite experience.

  “That woman is quick to forget her pce.” The Master of Magnetism remarked in displeasure when he heard of Callisto’s decision and vague warning.

  Mystique’s eyes narrowed. “There is no ‘pce’ she forgot, Eric. She and her Morlocks are free to do what they want and what they do is no one’s business. Just as it’s not their business what you do.”

  Eric’s eyes narrowed at her from the slit of his helm but Raven held it as her golden yellow stared back.

  Eric reclined into his chair, his eyes looked like crescent frowns. “What are you trying to say, Raven? We just let them do whatever they want and only react when it comes to stab at our backs?”

  Her head tilted to one side while her raspy voice flowed out like a draping silk gown. “It seems to have been working out so far, so I don’t see what’s the problem.”

  She almost sighed as she felt the minute vibrations that vibrated through the furniture into her spine, working a knot that had been particurly stubborn. “What I’m trying to say is that we will find out what they are doing but we’ll do so in our own way. We won’t inconvenience them with our own problems like they don’t inconvenience us with theirs.”

  Eric’s quick retort was stifled at the st part of Raven’s sentence but he made it clear that he didn’t appreciate her tone.

  They knew about the Morlocks, that was true, but what made it an ugly joke was that none of them did anything for the underground dwellers. Eric himself had told Raven back then that they won’t interfere with their way of life, the new one they’ve found, so as not to drag them into their own war.

  It was a good reason back then, and still a good one right now, but the promised noninterference was supposed to go both ways.

  At the end of the day, the Morlocks were just tired and unfortunate mutants who had come together to form a sanctuary and they had done so without asking anyone for anything. Eric had no right to demand anything of them and that was what Callisto made clear.

  “Someone is out there curing mutants, Raven. Do you want me to spell out the danger of such a thing?” Eric asked in a low voice without any of his magnetic charms and it made her skin bristle. His words brought fshes of nightmares and other such images to her mind.

  She scowled. He was good at poking the proverbial big red button and making it look like the obvious truth. He was not one for petty lies, but he was very much one for painful truths.

  “Like I said, we’ll find out what they are doing without involving them in any meaningful way and risking them becoming exposed.” She said as she stood up to leave, no longer interested in keeping her old friend company, regardless of how heavenly his couch felt like.

  She got to the door and froze for a second because of the question that he asked.

  “How did they look? Were they…”

  “They looked happy.” She remembered the faces of the humans at the camp, both old and young, and the easy air they kept themselves in. “More than that, they looked content. They were… satisfied.”

  It felt like someone punched the air out of the room and left a gaping wound of oppressing silence.

  She didn’t say another word and left Magneto to his contemption as she closed the door behind her.

  She left the hidden base and came to a clearing where she just spent a few minutes looking up at the sky.

  “What a shitty thing.”

  Whatever she meant by that, only she could know.

  .

  ………..

  In a spacious office in some high-rise building in the middle of New York, with roof-sized windowpanes and curtains that draped down from the ceiling, a burly blob of a man sat on the only desk that was inside the office.

  Wilson Fisk. The Kingpin.

  In front of the seated mass of a man, and creating a stark image because of the disparity, was a nky man in a neatly pressed suit, holding a folder in his hands.

  James Wesley: criminal wyer, ambitious politician, eager participant, opportunistic nerd, personal assistant to Wilson Fisk and the right-hand and confidant of the Kingpin.

  He read through his reports to his burgeoning mass of flesh of a boss with the smooth-slicked voice of an efficiently corrupt wyer.

  Fisk remained silent as the report went on, twirling the pen around his fingers while his eyes crinkled at every bullet point that was read out.

  “The guns, James.” He almost growled. Almost. It was such a close thing.

  James adjusted his gsses with a finger with the composed posture of someone who greenlit an extensive torture session in the middle of a business deal.

  “Every trickle of news we’ve been hearing about this supplier has died down. Most of the gangs that got their guns from this source have been found dead. I believe someone is actively suppressing this news, sir.”

  “Of course someone is suppressing it.” Fisk grunted as the dancing pen in his hand broke. “They probably got a hold of the supplier and started muzzling down every loose end. We need those guns, James.”

  James gave a crisp nod. He reached into his folder and brought out a paper and slid it to his boss.

  “The boys at the station sent some our way and we took them apart.” James’ gsses tilted as he gave a face smile. “You were right, sir. The make is the same but the model is new to the market, and it already outperforms most of our guns with simir models.”

  Fisk went through the report and the images of the dismantled gun with a glint in his eyes and a frown on his face.

  “Even the screws look new. The springs are still shining. The entire manufacture of this gun is less than a month old… and it’s currently untraceable in any w enforcement database.”

  James Wesley wisely kept his mouth shut as Wilson Fisk intensely studied the gun with the same kind of eye-to-detail that helped him raise his career to his current level.

  “Invisible guns, James.” He smacked his lips as his thoughts raced at the opportunity. “We are looking at a personal work. It is identically detailed but I’m certain that every piece was made by the same person. This is a professional gunsmith, James. A gunsmith that is essentially a ghost. But even ghosts have needs.”

  James Wesley once again admired his boss’ sharp wit and strategic mind.

  “I’ll redouble the people we’ve got looking out. In the meantime, what do we do about the guns in the police custody? The boys said that the importance of the gun makes it difficult to slip out of storage without causing an arm.”

  The big man waved his hand dispassionately, not at all caring for the problem or even seeing it as one. “Then we’ll get them to move the guns and hit the transport en route.”

  James nodded and scribbled something on his notepad.

  “Before all that, I want the gunsmith found. And I want him making my guns. Double his price if you have to. Get him under my coverage before he’s bought into our competitors.”

  He picked another pen from the cup and just held it in his hands as his mind went to work.

  The mafia and those groups of uppity old men would be a lot harder to deal with if they had their own genius gunsmith and a lot of time — one that the current cold peace provided.

  But that was not the only issue they were facing.

  “The hitman cutting off the loose ends; I want him found. If you can’t get anything from him, remove him. I want this done as soon as possible before our st trails go cold.” Fisk ordered a nodding Wesley who took the dismissal for what it was as he took his bags and put away his folder.

  “One more thing, sir.” James said as he straightened himself. “Lady Vanessa said to remind you of your dinner pns at 9.”

  Just like that, a good pool of anger and irritation that Fisk had been feeling was simply washed away as the reminder of the lovely woman that was waiting for him at the end of all this.

  “I’ll call her myself.” He picked up his phone and picked up himself with shocking ease and walked towards the wall of windows that watched over the city below while his phone rang.

  All this. Everything he had done for himself. Every decision he had made. They were all—

  “Hello, Wilson?”

  “Dear Vanessa….”

  .

  ………..

  Peter Parker swerved with the kind of swiftness he had never once used since got bit by that one radioactive spider.

  The mad cackle from the Green Goblin(so jealous that J. J. Jameson came up with the better name. He had been so close with Green Elf) sent a tingle that traveled up his spine to his eyes.

  He had been fighting the Green Goblin for the past 15 minutes and his body had been moving on its own for at least two-thirds of that.

  He was sweating under the suit and that wasn’t because of the heat. Sweating under the suit was normal, especially on sunny days, but never once since becoming Spider-Man did he ever sweat from exertion.

  It was a te realization but the verdict remained the same.

  The Green Goblin was dangerous, Spider-Man had realized after the fifth minute of his body moving on auto-dodge.

  Thugs and bullies were dangerous. Criminals with knives and guns were dangerous. The Green Goblin was dangerous, but in an entirely different way.

  Spider-Man did not care about a crowd of criminals with knives. He could dodge bullets with fir and a joke mid-quip. He was trying with moderate success to dodge everything the Green Goblin was throwing his way.

  His muscles were tingling for the first time and not in a good way.

  “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, where are you, Spider-Man?~”

  Peter groaned as he flipped off the surface of a building and twisted midair as two things wheezed past his neck and thigh. He used his left hand to fire a web only for his eyes to widen a second ter as he tried to correct his mistake, only to be too slow as the Goblin’s glider smacked him across the face and sent him falling to the ground.

  “Shi—mmers.” His manners kicked in even in his extremely panicked state. His left webshooter busted, crushed by the Goblin before he could get a good use out of it.

  His wrist spat a webstring that hung against the bottom of the glider and used it to effectively escape its flight path.

  Bdes crawled out from the glider’s underside and cut off the web but Peter was already on his second swing away and pirouetted off it to come at the Goblin from behind.

  It turned out to be a bad move as the Goblin turned around and fired off these little bded discs that also exploded. If that was all, Peter would have seen it as manageable but that was not the case because of how fast they traveled.

  The wrist contraption the Goblin had on and whatever sudden boost the glider seemed to have at every st second were so identical and analogous to how his own webshooters worked.

  It had been a week since their st fight, which was also the Goblin’s first appearance, and the Goblin—whoever he was— had created his own devices that worked like his webshooters.

  They were collecting information on him.

  His spider senses rang again as he dodged another salvo of fsh-speeding exploding discs which left numerous cuts on his body.

  He looked at the Goblin, tely realizing again that he wouldn’t beat the Green Goblin’s long range advantage. He ran up the side of the building and jumped into the roof, his neck tingling even as he heard the whirring of the Goblin’s glider giving chase.

  The moment the glider broke over the roof, Peter pressed a button on his shooter and fired a blob of web instead of a string.

  The Green Goblin seemed to realize what it was but his glider was in a full tilt so he couldn’t dodge as the web bomb exploded in his face and spshed webs everywhere.

  The concentration could use some work, Peter thought as he rushed the Green Goblin off his glider and off the roof and started pummeling him as they started free falling. The glider would be stuck for the next few seconds, seconds Peter did not waste as he started giving the Goblin a beating of his lifetime.

  The man had a mean swing but Peter was reassured in the fact that he was the stronger one, but that did not mean that the Goblin was in any way weaker.

  “Hahaha, YES!~” The Goblin cooed. “Give me MOOOOOORE!”

  Peter’s ears picked up on the glider flying towards them in a low hum but he didn’t stop his assault.

  Whoever was behind this mask was a madman, Peter decided. Peter never felt any form of hesitation or disbelief from the man when he began terrorizing people with bombs and riddles.

  He turned to the glider at the st moment when it wouldn’t have enough room to dodge and fired a barrage of webs at it that sent it tumbling to the ground.

  The Green Goblin used the reprieve to elbow him across the head and kicked him away but not before firing off his wrist stingers.

  “Shit…” Peter couldn’t take it anymore and cursed. Today was going to be a very long one.

  “Don’t die now, little spider. Keep on dancing for me~” As if everything so far had not been enough, the Goblin shot off a grappling hook from his wrists and righted himself before he started bouncing off the concrete.

  “....Man, what did Christmas ever do to you?” Peter asked as he hung off a web upside down. He was supposed to be helping Aunt May with dinner in 30—20 minutes and here he was dealing with the Mr. Jolly Terror.

  They were both studying the other, like kids checking out the other kid’s bike to make sure that theirs was better, and Peter was certain that he was losing on that front.

  “Okay, that’s it, Gobby. Up those hands.” He said as he mimed jabs. “Time for round two.”

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