Chapter 13: Chapter 13

 

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

 

Chapter 13– Reluctant Thieves.

 

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"Alright, so let's think this out and come up with a plan, and then we can go from there." We are both now sitting in the living room on our comfy white couches, but we are not in the mood to enjoy the luxury. The Kingpin had only left a little while ago, and it was only after my danger sense had been absent for a good fifteen minutes that we left the bathroom and closed all of the blinds and curtains, preventing anybody from looking in.

 

After that, I pulled out one of the many gadgets I had made to help us out on our thieving escapades; it is a little detector gizmo that will search the surrounding areas for any cameras or listening devices. So I quickly and entirely silently gave the apartment a quick once over, and thankfully I found a few listening devices, which I immediately destroyed.

 

"A plan? What plan? He knows who I am, and he knows about my mother. If he knew where I lived, even with me using an alias, then he definitely knows where my mom is. So all we can do is follow whatever Fisk says, and then he will hopefully just leave us alone; that is the only way I can keep my mother safe." Felicia explains resignedly, having convinced herself that this is the only way and that there is nothing else to be done, but there are always options, though they may be unfavourable.

 

"Listen, Felicia, right now, the only thing I see that they have over us is your mother. She is the sole reason you would be listening to Fisk's commands; otherwise, you could just ignore him. So we simply remove her from the situation; I am sure you have enough money and enough contacts that you can easily make her a new identity, just like the one you provided me. Then, we can help send her off to another country to live a whole new life, free from Fisk's clutches, and you can just keep doing what you are doing." I explained to her a simple way that we could get out of this, by getting rid of her mother.

 

"That is not an option; my mother is a strong, stubborn woman. She is a lawyer, after all. She will refuse to leave and prefer to stick it out, adamant about not letting a man scare her away, even a man as scary as Wilson Fisk. And even if we could convince her, what would I say? She would need a good reason to leave, which would mean I would have to reveal what I really do to her. There is no way she would be happy, and she would probably turn me in herself. So, no, we can not do this." She sighs; clearly, she does not have a good relationship with her mother.

 

"Alright, clearly, that is not good for you, so let's try the other part of the problem here, which is Fisk himself. Right now, he has the luxury of dealing with you personally and making threats in person, which tells me that he is quite secure right now without many problems. The fact he didn't give you a job outright means he doesn't urgently need anything, so you are not priority number one. So we just need to move you down his list, preferably off his list, which means we need to create bigger problems for him so that he can't bother you anymore." I tell her, and I don't really like it, not only will this one take a lot more work, but Felicia's mother will still be here and still a target, which means we need to take out Fisk fully.

 

"And what sort of problems can we make for him? Should we burn down more of his warehouses, or maybe we can start messing with the bureaucracies of his legal businesses? Better yet, why don't we dig up some dirt on him, fight fire with fire? Then we can blackmail him and get him to leave my mother and me alone." Felicia offers up a new option, which is definitely the worst option of the bunch because blackmail is going to escalate things.

 

"We can't do that, Felicia; it is just not a good idea. First of all, a man like Wilson Fisk, who is at the very top of the ladder, is very careful when it comes to scandals, evidence and sensitive information. Either it doesn't exist, or he has it locked up somewhere only he can get to it. And then, even if we do get it, when we use it to threaten him, he isn't just going to take that lying down. He is going to want that evidence back, and we will become his number one priority; he will not rest until he has it back and we are six feet under." Blackmail, apart from being morally reprehensible, will not be very effective here.

 

"Then, what the hell are we supposed to do? The guy is just too powerful, and we can't do anything to him. I wish we could just go brain him, but apart from you probably objecting to it, it would b hard to get through all the super-powered minions he undoubtedly has. Argggh!" Felicia picks up a pillow and smashes her face into it, promptly letting out a frustrated scream. I easily ignore the murder threat she made, it is understandable since she is in a stressful situation, plus the fallout that would result from his death would be insane.

 

"What is the one thing that regularly gets in Fisk's way and disrupts his business?" I ask, to which Felicia pulls her face out of the pillow and gives a shrug, still pretty downcast.

 

"Superheroes," I say simply, and Felicia's head perks up. Because really, it makes sense, Fisk's business is crime, and Superheroes' business is to stop crime. Ergo, the superhero's business is to stop Fisk. If we are capable of getting some superheroes to start looking intensely into Kingpin and mess up his operations, then he won't have time for us, and maybe we will get lucky, and they will even lock him up. Felicia obviously understands my line of thinking as her eyes light up, but then they dim a little.

 

"Okay, I get that, and that makes sense, but the superheroes have obviously been after Fisk for a long time since he is at the head of nearly all organised crime in the city. Fisk may appear clean in the eyes of all the New York citizens, but every superhero in this town worth their salt knows exactly what he is, but they have never even gotten close to taking him down, so what is going to make this time so different?" Felicia brings up an excellent point, but I wouldn't have suggested the idea if I didn't already have a plan in mind.

 

"Me," I say, to which Felicia stares at me with unamused blank eyes.

 

"You? What the hell are you going to do?" Felicia questions, and quite rightly so, because guys like Daredevil have been going after Fisk for a long time, so what difference am I going to make?

 

"We need Fisk to become preoccupied with other things so he won't have time to focus on you or your mother. And it just so happens that I have a wealth of experience being the sort of nuisance that would distract Fisk, as well as very likely giving him an aneurysm." So I explain very clear in what I am planning to do.

 

"Wha- Wait, you are planning to go be Spider-Man again, and you are going to start going after Fisk's business? I appreciate the fact that you would be willing to put that costume on again to help me, but what would you be doing differently that the other superheroes and the actual Spider-Man are not?" Felicia catches on quickly, though she got the idea a bit wrong.

 

"You are wrong; I am not going to go running around as Spider-Man, there is already one, and that is enough. I can just make up some new crappy hero to go out as since it will just be a means to an end. Also, the original didn't really use his brain and just goes out and waits to run into problems. Me, I am going to be the problem, and I am going to be smart about it. I am going to dismantle his business enough that the guys under him are going to start getting ideas and break away from him; he will be too busy dealing with the insurgency to deal with you." I explained, not the best plan, but it will work.

 

I also plan to collaborate with any other heroes that I might run into; I can use all the help I can get. Plus, I don't intend to actually be a hero, this is just a facade I am going to wear to use to my advantage, and if I can somehow pass this mission off to Daredevil or Luke Cage or someone, then I will. I am just going to get the ball rolling, and then I can hand it off to the others. As long as Fisk is busy, then I don't care how it is being done or by who.

 

"Okay, alright, this is good; I feel good about this. So the both of us will go and start messing about with Fisk's business, break it till he has to focus on that, and then my mom and I will be home free." Felicia excitedly states, ecstatic that there is now a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

"No, it is just me that is going to bust up his business, and I am going to come up with an entirely new costume for it as well. We need to make sure there is no connection between this new superhero and you because if Fisk finds out, then he will definitely carry out his threats. You will be going about your business and doing any job that he asks. Hopefully, he won't give you too many jobs before I complete my bit." Felicia nods at my words, and then we sit there in silence for a moment.

 

"Alright, we should get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day. We have to set everything in motion and get this thing going, so get some sleep, Felicia. We will start dealing with this stuff tomorrow." I say, standing up and walking past her, heading towards my room.

 

"Ben..." I stop as I hear her, a particular vulnerability in her voice that I have never heard before. I look back at her. "Thank you for helping me... even though I don't deserve it."

 

I simply nod at her and then walk off into my room, closing the door behind me. I fall back onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling, contemplating my life right now, my actions going forward, and where I am going to go after this.

 

Tomorrow I will start dealing with this whole situation, and then once that is over, I am going to leave. What am I going to do after that? One thing is for sure, I am leaving New York. Too much shit goes down here; it is the literal epicentre of invasions and bad shit, so I need to leave. Maybe I can go to university, get some good qualifications and degrees, and then I can open up a business, finally use this brain that Peter just refuses to do.

 

Perhaps I will leave America entirely, maybe go to England and attend Cambridge, start an altogether brand new life there, where there is no chance of someone discovering my origins and a whole lot less super shenanigans going on. Then, I can be anything and do anything. Maybe I might even cash in on my physical ability and become an athlete or something; I am a lot less morally scrupulous than Peter.

 

The world is my oyster; just as soon as I can wedge my way out of the shits creek that is New York.

 

---

 

"Ben... What time is it?" Felicia asks as she walks out of her room, making a beeline straight for the pot of coffee I had burning since I sensed her shuffling around in her bed a few minutes ago. It is actually quite late in the afternoon now. I could feel Felicia tossing and turning all night, worrying herself endlessly over her mother, and she was still doing the same when I woke up early this morning.

 

"It is late, sleepy head. You missed both breakfast and lunch. I just ordered some food for you five minutes ago; room service should be bringing it up soon." So I tell her, watching some TV and getting some downtime after the busy day I have had so far.

 

"Oh... shit. I am so sorry, Ben. We were supposed to start working on our plan today. This is my problem, and I can't even wake up on time." Felicia apologises, behaving self-deprecatingly while pouring herself a cup of coffee.

 

"It's fine, don't worry about it. You only have one thing to focus on after all, and that is listening to Fisk's orders while I work on all the other stuff, and I have already gotten started on my plan this morning." I tell her, I actually got up this morning with some goals in mind, and I went out and did them; pretty essential goals as well.

 

"Still, I want to help you with your part as well. Like, what have you done so far and is there anything I can do to help?" Felicia walks over and takes a seat next to me, sipping on her coffee to wake herself up.

 

"Well, I went out this morning and signed up for several martial art classes. I made sure that the teachers were at the very least reputable and proficient in their fields; I am being taught boxing by a former heavyweight champion at the gym, and karate, taekwondo and jiujitsu at semi-famous martial art dojos." It took up quite a lot of my morning sifting through all the crap scammer places for kids till I found some solid dojos that taught real martial arts.

 

"Wait, why is finding some places for you to learn martial arts part of the plan?" Felicia questions, confused about how this will help further our plans to free Felicia and her mother from the Kingpin's clutches.

 

"I need to change up my move set; I don't want to be linked or likened to Spider-Man since that may raise some trouble for me, and also because Fisk knew about me helping you out, so it is better to assume that they have been watching us for a while and they know how I move and fight. If I still fight like that, then we might be linked together, which will make things worse for you."

 

Peter fights using instincts purely and his superior abilities; apart from that, he is pretty unskilled. He has no proper fighting technique, and since I am like him, I don't have much technique either. But suppose I am going to become a temporary fake superhero. In that case, there is a high likely hood that I might run into him, so I need to change my fighting style completely so he won't be suspicious and nobody else will be suspicious either.

 

The plan is for me to attend all four of these classes every day throughout the day since I am not doing much else anyway, and then at night, I can attack Fisk's buildings and take them down. With my fighting style becoming more refined, not only will I be unable to be linked to anything else, but I will also become more efficient and dangerous, enough to make up for the absence of my web shooters.

 

"Alright, that makes sense; you don't really have anything else important to do throughout the day anyway. But still, is there anything I can do to help out? I don't just want to keep doing Fisk's errands; I want to help take the big fatty down." Felicia says pleadingly, and I understand where she is coming from, I would also want to feel like I am doing something if put in her situation. And it just so turns out that I could actually use her help.

 

You are reading story From The Smoke (Marvel) at novel35.com

"Actually, Felicia, I could use your help. Do you think you could put me in touch with The Tinkerer?"

 

---

 

"So, what do you think?" I ask, spinning around in my costume to fully show it off to Felicia, just having gone to receive it earlier today, and as soon as I got back, I put it straight on, living out a tiny little fantasy of mine.

 

"Um, what are you supposed to be exactly?" Felicia asks, obviously not understanding how big this is because she doesn't have the knowledge I am so privileged to have.

 

"I'm Batman..." I growl out with a deep voice, emulating the voice famous throughout the other world I have memories of. I needed to become an absolutely new superhero to do my part of the plan and then dispose of it after I had done what I needed to do, and honestly, who could pass up the opportunity to be Batman? Plus, I need my superhero identity to be as different as possible from Spider-Man, and Batman is pretty different.

 

While Spider-Man never shuts up and makes quips all the time, Batman is primarily silent and stoic, never a smile on his face. Hopefully, this will help me stifle some of the dumb jokes my mouth can't help but make. Ability-wise, Spider-Man relies entirely on his powers and instinct, like when his spider-sense tingles and he does a massive backflip away from the danger.

 

However, Batman is the epitome of skill. He moves quickly and efficiently. When something is about to hit him, Batman doesn't do a massive double backflip out of the way. Instead, he dodges slightly and uses minimal effort to fight expertly; I will try to be more like this.

 

"Was- Was that supposed to be intimidating or something, Batman? Because newsflash, it definitely wasn't. You sounded like a kid trying to be older than he is. Let me just quickly check under that costume and make sure you aren't two kids standing on each other's shoulders." Felicia mocks my cool Batman voice, but I had prepared for this eventuality, and I didn't want to make my voice raw either. Lifting two fingers, I press them against my neck.

 

"How about now?" My modulated voice rings out, much more profound and gravelly than it was before. A proper Batman voice, not as deep or guttural as the Christian Bale version, but deep and clear, just a bit lower than the Kevin Conroy voice.

 

"Well, The Tinkerer certainly doesn't do half measures," Felicia says, reminding me that I did not create that absolute wonder that is this Batman costume (DC one million Batsuit without the weird bat shoulders and a yellow logo, as well as a sull mask). I didn't have time to waste or focus on something that wasn't my new training, and concentrating on building my new costume and gadgets would consume all of my time. It would take a level of focus and dedication that I just didn't have time to give, and so I delegated it.

 

Felicia gave me the location of the Tinkerers shop, and I went to visit him to request some things since I had more than enough money. And to my surprise, the whole event was very much uneventful. First and foremost, Tinkerer was a scientist, and after that, he was a businessman, and his shop included the both of those things.

 

I literally walked in there, gave him the specifications of what I desired and all the other necessary detail and then gave him half the money for it. Then, just today, I went back and gave him the other half and walked away with everything I ordered made to perfection. That man is damned good at what he does; if he had a website, I would definitely give him five stars.

 

Not only did I have this costume made, but I also had a handful of tools made as well, tools that would help me and compensate for my loss of web shooters. I had the powerful grapple gun/Batclaw, which will work well with the costume cape that can help me glide.

 

I commissioned quite a lot of smoke bombs. I even got some Batarangs though I won't be using those much, probably just to help me cut things since I cannot be assured of my aim to throw such sharp things.

 

"Right, well, now I have to take this off and take it apart, get a proper look at it, along with my new gadgets." I immediately move towards my room to take off the costume.

 

"Wait, but you just put it on? And why do you even have to check it and take it apart when you specified exactly what you wanted?" Felicia asks, oblivious as to how important it is for me to check it all over. I admittedly got a little excited when I saw the costume and immediately put it on because the bat suit was so fricking cool, but I really should have inspected it first.

 

"I did specify exactly what I wanted, and just with a quick preview, it looks like the Tinkerer delivered, but I can't trust that. What if he messed up somewhere that I can't see, or what if he purposely made faulty parts or even added things I didn't want? Even worse, what if he has trackers and listening devices in here? I won't be able to trust or use any of this equipment without checking it out for myself, which is what I will start doing now." I say, walking into my room and dumping all the stuff on my desk.

 

I then start to take off the bat suit, having to undo several different latches and locks. Finally, it is time to give everything an in-depth look and see if there is anything wrong or anything I can quickly improve.

 

---

 

The Tinkerer has actually done an excellent job and has fulfilled all of my specifications to the exact requirements. I systematically took apart all the equipment piece by piece, taking a photo of it every step of the way with the latest high-definition camera. I did this just in case I took apart the equipment and didn't remember how to put it back together, but I didn't need it since I remembered perfectly, and everything was in order.

 

All the gadgets and tools were perfect; the Batarangs aerodynamic and so sharp they could cut. The one smoke grenade I took apart was fine as well, though I did end up setting off the fire alarm. The grapple gun was sublime, having two different options, push and pull, for pulling me towards stuff and for pulling things towards me; the science in that was astounding.

 

My bat suit was also magnificent, a miraculous form of kevlar that is both light and durable, some light armour plating to add some defence, and the cape itself is capable of deflecting bullets as well as letting me glide. The cowl was full masked, covering the entire face since I was already used to that and didn't feel comfortable exposing my chin, and it had various vision modes like infrared and many more.

 

"I am the night... I am Batman", And now here I am putting my suit and equipment to work, starting my crusade to become a nuisance to Fisk. Some people from my last world might take issue with what I am doing, that I am using the good Batman name for my own ends when it should be for something nobler, and to that, I say, fuck you, I'm Batman.

 

Right now, I am out on the rooftops, looking for any of Fisk's businesses that I can start smashing up and disrupting. And how else would you gain information on a crime boss than the classic old Batman way?

 

"Fisk. Talk. Now." I growl out, holding the punk by his leg over the edge of the building, his squirming not impacting my grip in the least. And soon, after holding maybe a few dozen of these guys over multiple ledges, Fisk will be finished.

 

"PLEASE, I'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING! JUST PULL ME UP, PLEASE!"

 

---

 

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