The neon hum of the city felt different tonight—sharper, more rhythmic, as if New York itself had developed a faster pulse to match the woman sitting in the back of the blacked-out SUV. Whitney Frost sat in silence, her fingers tracing the face that was now as smooth as the silk scarf she used to blindfold herself for the transit.
Felicia Hardy watched her through the rearview mirror. The transformation was complete, but the atmosphere inside the vehicle was thick with something more than just the scent of expensive leather and ozone.
As the SUV pulled into a discreet, high-security garage beneath the ex-Fisk, now Black Orchard-owned high-rise, Felicia killed the engine.
"We're here," Felicia said, her voice cutting through the silence. She reached over and untied the blindfold.
Whitney blinked, her pupils adjusting with predatory speed. She didn't look disoriented; she looked hungry. She stepped out of the car, her movements possessing a terrifying, calibrated grace that made the reinforced concrete floor seem fragile beneath her boots.
"I've finished the drop-off," Felicia said, leaning against the doorframe of the SUV. "Luc's orders are for you to lay low for forty-eight hours. Let the cellular integration stabilize. I'll be out of town for a day or two myself—handling some personal business—so if you or Delilah need anything, send me a message. As Luc's 'Secretary,' it's still my job to make sure the Black Orchard doesn't burn itself or the city down prematurely."
Whitney turned, her gaze fixing on Felicia. There was no gratitude in those eyes, only a cold, shimmering calculation. "You're leaving the city? Does the Frenchman know his leash is that long?"
Felicia offered a thin, dangerous smile. "The length of my leash isn't your concern, Masque. Just remember: you're stronger now. Try to spend some time getting used to this level of strength. It'll do you some good to do that rather than spend hours looking at your own face in a mirror."
Without waiting for a reply, Felicia climbed back into the driver's seat and sped out of the garage. She needed air. She needed to get away from the heavy aura that Whitney was now radiating.
She was three blocks away, merging into the late-night traffic of Lexington Avenue, when her phone buzzed. The caller ID was blank—a signature of the encrypted lines Ethan favored.
She swiped the screen and put it on speaker. "You have impeccable timing. I just dropped off the 'Patient of the Year.'"
"Then the transition was successful," Ethan's voice drifted through the speakers. He sounded calm, almost bored, though Felicia knew better. "I assume she reached the penthouse without incident?"
Felicia let out a short, sharp laugh, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. "Since you're calling me the second the garage door closed, you clearly already know the answer to that. This proves it, kid. My phone is bugged. Can't be the car I rented today. So maybe my clothes or probably my earrings."
"Bugging you would be a waste of resources, Felicia," Ethan replied, and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice. "It would also be incredibly rude. I simply received a notification on my phone when your biometric signature entered the lab's perimeter and another when you left. I simply ran the math on the distance and the current traffic density. It was an educated guess."
"You're awfully defensive for someone who claims they aren't a voyeur," Felicia sneered, weaving the SUV between two yellow cabs. "Why the check-in? Missing your lab rat already?"
"I wanted your impression," Ethan said, pivoting the conversation with clinical efficiency. "Specifically, your impression of Whitney after the procedure."
Felicia slowed down as she hit a red light, staring out at the blurred lights of a 24-hour diner. "Why ask me? You were sending messages to my phone the whole time. You had the cameras, the vitals, and I assume you were recording every heartbeat."
"There are things a high-definition lens cannot convey," Ethan countered. "Video can show me muscle contraction and pupillary dilation. It cannot show me more personal things. You have instincts that such things lack. Tell me: what did you feel when she stepped out?"
Felicia went quiet. She remembered the way her skin had crawled, the way her own 'bad luck' activated as a warning that she was in danger. Whenever she faced such danger, she always got that feeling, and her opponents would receive bad luck.
"I felt danger," Felicia admitted, her voice dropping an octave. "For the first time since I met her. Before, she was just a random woman with a mask and a grudge. Now... she feels like a thunderstorm looking for a place to strike. Tell me the truth, Ethan. Is she as powerful as Peter?"
There was a pause on the other end, the faint sound of typing echoing in the background.
"No," Ethan answered firmly. "In the hierarchy of biological anomalies, Peter remains the gold standard. His strength, his precognitive 'spider-sense,' and his sheer durability are results of a chaotic, multi-vector mutation. Whitney's enhancement is controlled, refined. She is significantly stronger than the deceased Green Goblin. She is also physically superior to the current Captain America, who is the absolute peak of natural human potential."
Felicia felt a cold shock hit her chest. "Stronger than Captain America? The man is a living legend. You're telling me you just turned a Maggia socialite into something that could take him down?"
"I'm telling you that Steve Rogers represents the limit of what a human could be," Ethan explained, his tone shifting into that of a professor lecturing a student. "My refined Kane-Erskine serum takes the subject a step further. It optimizes density and synaptic speed beyond the 'peak human' ceiling. Whitney is a biological 'Plus Ultra.' However, she is still weaker than Spider-Man. Peter's ceiling isn't human; it's something else entirely. He still operates on a level she can't touch without compromising her cellular stability."
"That's a shame," Felicia murmured, though her mind was racing. "All that work just to be second best."
"Is that so?" Ethan asked, his voice suddenly dropping into a softer, more speculative register. "If you find the disparity so disappointing, you should know the offer is open to you as well. You can undergo the procedure at any point in time. The infrastructure is already in place."
Felicia barked out a laugh, a sound of genuine amusement. "And there it is. I wondered when you'd try to turn me into one of your lab rats. What's the matter, Ethan? Is Whitney not enough data for you? Do you need a feline sample to round out the collection?"
"The serum is complete, Felicia," Ethan retorted, his voice regaining its icy composure. "It worked exactly as intended. I offered it to you because there is nothing left to 'gain' from your participation as a test subject. Whether you take it or not is technically irrelevant to the project's success."
"Then why offer?"
"Because of Peter," Ethan said.
The mention of his name made Felicia's heart skip a beat, a reaction she hated.
"I am well aware that you don't trust me," Ethan continued. "I know you barely tolerate my presence, and that you only cooperate because Peter sees something in me that you don't. You should understand that the feeling is mutual. I tolerate your unpredictability and your... 'peculiar' influence on probability solely because of my friendship with him."
"So we're even," Felicia snapped. "Glad we cleared the air."
"We are," Ethan agreed. "But Peter worries. Every time he goes to take care of a request from me, every time you leave to do the same, he worries about the people he leaves behind. Much to my shock, he worries especially about you, Felicia. He wonders if you can defend yourself against the type of threats that are starting to crawl out of the woodwork—threats like the Exemplar. He wants me to keep you away from such dangers. I made the offer with his peace of mind in mind, not because I wish to 'use' you."
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had a sharp, whetted edge to it. He was aiming for the throat now.
"The question you have to ask yourself is: what do you want to be to him? Do you want to be a partner who can stand at his side when the world starts to burn? Or do you want to be like Mary Jane Watson—the ex-girlfriend who became a liability? A burden he had to constantly look over his shoulder to protect? A 'normal' woman in a world of monsters is just a hostage-in-waiting."
Felicia's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. The comparison to MJ hit her like a physical blow. It was her deepest, most guarded insecurity—the fear that for all her leather and claws and 'bad luck,' she was just a girl playing dress-up.
"You're a real bastard, you know that?" Felicia hissed.
"I am a realist," Ethan replied, unbothered. "You currently possess the ability to tilt the scales of luck, yet you are physically as fragile as any civilian on the sidewalk. With the serum, you would reach heights you haven't even imagined. You wouldn't just be a thief who gets lucky; you would be a force of nature."
Ethan didn't tell her the real reason he wanted her in that pod. He didn't mention that her 'bad luck' powers were the only thing in his calculated world that consistently negated his own 'good luck' aura. She was his foil, the one variable his Sage-brain couldn't perfectly account for. If he couldn't control her luck, he could at least ensure her loyalty—or her debt—by making her a part of his new world. Keeping her at his side, seeing eye-to-eye, was the only way to ensure she didn't accidentally trip his master plan.
"Think about it, Felicia," Ethan said, his voice returning to its calm, melodic anchor. "You're heading out of town to help Peter save those kids in the desert. Ask yourself during the trip if you're going there to help him carry the weight... or if you're just one more thing he has to carry. I don't think I could stand such a thing if I were you."
The line went dead as Ethan finished chuckling.
Felicia stared at the phone for a long time, and the silence of the SUV suddenly felt very small. She looked at her hands—the hands of a normal woman who had spent her life stealing from the powerful.
She thought of the way Whitney had lifted that steel table. She thought of Peter, bruised and bleeding, always getting back up.
"Bastard," she whispered again, but this time, the anger was replaced by a cold, lingering doubt.
She turned the SUV toward the bridge, the lights of the city fading in her rearview mirror. She had a flight to catch, a desert to cross, and a choice to make.