Chapter 31: Queenpin?

I took one last look at the card and snapped it into the nearest trashcan a few feet away from me without looking. I remembered the number, and it didn't hurt to be a little paranoid about the possibility that she had bugged it. I've seen this before. So, what do we got? Not Daredevil Murdock M.P. working for Mrs. Fisk. And I've already got their attention as Peter Parker. That bodes well for the future. And somewhere out there is Osborne, who may have already injected herself with OZ serum and is about to go on a spree.

"Young man, what do you think you're doing?!" Waving his purse threateningly, the old man standing next to me screeched at me. His cracked and creaky voice made me think of old trees whose branches have long since dried up, and whose trunk is ready to snap at any gust of wind.

I knew immediately what it was. Murdock's business card had flown past the trashcan.

"It was an accident," I began to justify myself for some reason, but the old man did not let up, as if he had been waiting for a chance to sic a man, and he had such a good opportunity, and there was an audience, so he grasped the chance with his crooked hands, as if it were his last.

In the end there was nothing left for me to do but, blushing with embarrassment, pick up the damn piece of plastic and put it in the wastebasket, to the laughter of the dozen women who had seen the scene.

I drove straight to our hiding place, as I had no desire to return home. In fact, I am reluctant to return to this place. It reminds me of home. The house where Aunt May and Uncle Ben lived. When I think of home, the first thing I think of is the smell of rising dough and Aunt May's hands as she whipped the dough. She loved to cook, and we always had homemade pastries in the house, which Uncle Ben loved so much. Subsequently, after they died, I had many homes, but they no longer had that quality of...homeliness. So, a place of residence. And so was my home in this world. Empty and lifeless. Not a home at all. I didn't want to live there, and after Gwen had destroyed my computer, I couldn't even work there. The only reason to go back there was Mary Jane, but she was in school now.

Bobby wasn't there, and Deadpool, who had settled down in front of the TV with a can of beer in her hand, didn't know where she was going. Well, I don't pay her a salary, so I can't demand more than I have at the moment. Besides, it might be something important.

Since there wasn't much point in developing anything substantial at the current level of technical resources, even synthesizing new portions of the Lizard serum without replenishing supplies, I suggested that Deadpool continue our lessons.

Thanks to the serum's unexpected effects, I was now in much better physical shape, and the training was much more productive. I was fascinated by the learning process, and Wilson could only wonder at the speed with which I was adopting her science... and so was I. It turned out to be pretty simple. I remembered how many times I'd been told that instead of fighting, I just waved my arms... Rogers and Romanova never missed a chance to tease me about it, and it was a favorite topic with Cap. Even Felicia made fun of me a couple of times during our brief affair. Once she found footage of me catching a cab that had lost control and was hurtling straight into a sidewalk full of people, and afterwards she said she could drop me just as easily as I had caught that car. By the way, it wasn't that easy! A ton at seventy miles an hour! Good thing I didn't have time to think about what I was doing then.

Before I returned home, I told Wilson about my unexpected encounter with, I suspect, Fisk's right-hand man, to which Wanda unexpectedly admitted that Queenpin was her employer in pursuit of the symbiote. And now, because Deadpool openly sent her customer, there's a hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on her head.

"So I'm thinking I might try to get that reward," Wanda told me, "though the last time I lost my head she subjugated a tribe of natives in another world, so I'm still not sure it's worth it."

At times I start to think that Wilson is becoming more adequate, but then she tells another crazy story or pulls another trick... and I realize that nothing has changed, she's just trying to restrain herself. Which isn't so bad, if you think about it.

So Wanda colorfully described to me the local version of Fisk, who, it turns out, went by the name Wilma. According to her, Queenpin didn't get her nickname from nothing. This woman has come a long way from a battered fat girl in elementary school to the queen of the New York underworld. She is one of the richest women in the world, and that already speaks volumes. According to Wanda, Fisk's enemies have two ways to go: into the ground or into submission. The result of her cautionary speech, during which she tried to convince me of the indestructibility of the empire Queenpin had built, was a proposal to kill Fisk.

She probably thought I would be stunned by this option, but I guessed long ago that's exactly what she would suggest. In my time, I fought the Kingpin of my world for a long time. I frustrated his plans, imprisoned his henchmen, even made his shady dealings public, forcing the Mafia King to hide from the government in Japan, but a few years later he returned, cleared his name, waged a bloody war among the New York gangs and in the end only strengthened his position even more.

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Even after the crisis began, he was one of the few criminals who didn't get caught up in the sweep and managed to get away with it. I'm afraid to guess how much it cost him. No matter what I did, Fisk always came back, and with him ruined fortunes and death.

In the end it was either Felicia or Mysterio who killed him. Which led to the obvious conclusion.

Yes, Spider-Man is not a killer. But I'm not the superhero my world once knew. I had condemned the crews of four ships to death with my own hands when I told the Captain about the plan. And then I participated in their plundering, for otherwise we simply would not have enough resources to survive.

I buried deep inside someone who survived in the dark depths of space, with the likes of him, deprived of the chance to return to Earth, because I understand: it is no longer human. It is a creature of another morality, having no other home but the ship on which he lives. The worst part of this is that I have no remorse for what I did as part of a microcivilization called the Blue Space Crew, nor have I ever felt remorse for betraying that civilization in the same way that I betrayed fundamental human values before.

But the sprouts are still there. After all, I'm not so categorical anymore, although I prefer to do without killing where possible.

"How do you propose to do it?" I ask.

Deadpool shrugged.

"Queenin's a bit paranoid: armored cars, bulletproof glass in the building and in the house, that sort of thing, but there's no one who can't be killed by someone who can afford to be in the middle of an explosion."

"No, no collateral deaths," I object.

"Well, then we should sneak in and kill Queenpin on sight," I can feel Wanda smirking under her mask. "You just got an offer to work for her, didn't you? Too bad you blew it, and then got in trouble with Murdock for threatening you."

All the other ways the mercenary had suggested involved massacres and shootings, during which there would almost certainly be a lot of uninvolved people getting hurt. In the end we never came to an agreement, deciding to mull over our options for now. Of course, I can't forbid Wanda to kill Queenpin on her own, but I don't think she will.

When I got home, barely alive after hours of training with the mercenary, I fell asleep instantly, my head barely touching the pillow.

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