The roar of the helicopter rotors vibrated through the cabin deck. Nick Fury stared through the bulletproof glass, his single eye tracking the shrinking spire of Avengers Tower.
He didn't buy into any mystical, interdimensional Web of Fate theories. He dealt in hard intelligence. And he knew exactly where the spider that bit Peter Parker and Cindy Moon came from.
It was the byproduct of a classified super-soldier initiative codenamed "Savage Force"—a program designed to map animal genetics onto human physiology. The original architect was a British geneticist named Professor Nathaniel Essex. When Essex pivoted his focus to mutant genome sequencing, he handed the Savage Force reigns to his top graduate students: Richard Parker and Herbert Edgar Wyndham.
Wyndham vanished shortly after. Richard chose to specialize in arachnid research, partnering with his wife, Mary. But a few years ago, the Parkers abruptly walked away from Oscorp, leaving Richard's protégé, Jonathan Drew, to head the division.
They walked away because they found the leak. The U.S. military was quietly sharing their classified data with a shadow organization.
Nick Fury had recruited them to expose it. And that recruitment ultimately led to their assassination by the Winter Soldier.
The deaths of Richard and Mary Parker were one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest tactical failures, but their sacrifice wasn't entirely in vain. It tore the mask off HYDRA. The terrorist cell wasn't crushed in World War II; it had metastasized, weaving its tentacles deep into the postwar global infrastructure. AIM, Roxxon, the Hand—they were all just surface-level symptoms of the same disease. And Savage Force—which HYDRA internally designated as "Project Two"—was just the tip of the iceberg.
Fury rubbed his temple. If the overt, documented Savage Force program could accidentally produce three superhumans, what kind of nightmares was HYDRA breeding in the dark?
Worse, HYDRA had absolutely planted operatives inside S.H.I.E.L.D. The extent of the rot was the variable Fury couldn't lock down.
He knows.
Fury pictured the kid sitting on the Avengers' sofa. Peter Parker had "joked" about S.H.I.E.L.D. being infiltrated. Did Richard leave a dead-drop file for his son? Fury's jaw tightened. He needed to watch the kid closely.
Thick cigar smoke curled into the incandescent lighting. Wilson Fisk stepped into the cavernous, newly excavated basement of the Fisk Building. Aaron Davis shadowed him, his footsteps entirely silent against the raw concrete.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet face-to-face, Dr. Otto Octavius," Fisk said.
A heavy, articulated mechanical claw extended from the shadows. Fisk didn't flinch. He grasped the cold metal, shook it firmly, and released it.
"I believe my parameters are clear," Fisk said. "Spider-Man has become a structural liability to my operations in New York. I require a weapon capable of swatting him."
Otto adjusted his thick-lensed goggles with a secondary mechanical arm. "The honor is mine, Mr. Fisk. However, weapon design requires accurate baseline metrics. I have cataloged his engagements with the Shocker and the recent incident with the spider swarm. Despite this, my analysis indicates he has not yet hit his operational ceiling. If you want a countermeasure, you must first force him to his limit.".
Fisk scowled around his cigar. He knew conventional street-level firepower was mathematically useless against the vigilante. The board had changed.
Aaron Davis stepped up to Fisk's side. He squared his shoulders. "Build me the armor," Aaron said, his voice flat and serious. "I'll take him myself.".
"Listen to me, Aaron," Fisk said. He clamped a massive, heavy hand onto Aaron's shoulder, applying precisely measured pressure. "I will fund an armor build for you. But not for Spider-Man. We do not need to dirty our own hands with this.".
Fisk turned back to Otto. "I will contract a specialized mercenary unit to field-test your current prototypes, Doctor. In the interim, I expect your primary focus to remain on a dedicated Spider-Man countermeasure. Do not disappoint me."
As Fisk and Aaron retreated toward the freight elevator, Otto used his lower mechanical tentacles to elevate his chassis to the primary workstation. He brought the monitors out of sleep mode.
Beyond standard ballistics, Otto was tracking an alternative avenue. Before he was forced out of his previous arrangements, he had intercepted a military logistics report. An extraterrestrial meteorite had crashed in the Arizona desert, carrying a symbiotic organism capable of bonding to Earth biology and exponentially multiplying the host's physical output. It was currently sitting in a military containment facility in New Mexico. If he could acquire the symbiote, Spider-Man would be a trivial obstacle.
Otto began indexing Fisk's remaining Chitauri salvage. He was perfectly willing to build Kingpin's toys for now. But his ultimate agenda remained fixed. Spider-Man was a distraction. His true enemy—the man responsible for trapping him in this mechanical frame—was Norman Osborn.
A light-particle projector? Fisk had actually found someone capable of reverse-engineering this tier of optical technology.
Quentin Beck stood in his makeshift safe house studio, staring down at the device. It no longer looked like a prototype fishbowl.
"It's done," Quentin whispered, his hands trembling slightly. "I actually perfected it."
He pressed the tips of his fingers against his temples. He had hardwired neural interface electrodes directly into the projector's logic board. The room around him rippled. The environment shifted, responding in real-time to his firing synapses.
Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway. Kingpin's enforcers. The thugs who had been shoving him around and treating him like a disposable tech-support geek for weeks.
Quentin looked at the door, then down at the glass dome helmet resting on his workbench.
He picked it up and locked it over his head.
"Beck!" one of the goons barked, kicking the door open. "Where are you, you little rat?"
The two enforcers stepped inside. The studio was completely empty.
"He's playing tricks again," the second goon sneered. "Find the door. Let's get out of here."
They turned around and walked back through the threshold.
They didn't end up in the hallway. They stepped right back into the center of the studio.
Panic flared. The first goon swung a wild punch at the air. Something caught his wrist. A devastating physical blow cracked across his jaw, sending him crashing to the floor. The second goon was swept off his feet by an invisible force.
Thick, swirling green smoke suddenly flooded the room.
The smoke parted. A man stood over them, draped in a dramatic purple cape over a segmented green survival suit. An opaque glass dome concealed his entire head.
"Tell Kingpin," the distorted, booming voice echoed from the dome. "I will handle Spider-Man myself.".
PS: This chapter weaves together some massive comic book origins! Nathaniel Essex is the true identity of the X-Men villain Mister Sinister, and Herbert Edgar Wyndham goes on to become the High Evolutionary! It makes perfect, terrifying sense that those two genetic heavyweights laid the groundwork for the spider that bit Peter. Also, enter the master of illusions: Quentin Beck, stepping fully into his iconic Mysterio persona (green suit, fishbowl, and all) to finally get some respect!