"Rikers Island. A massive federal penitentiary sitting in the middle of the East River, accessible by a single, heavily guarded bridge. Why didn't I think of swinging by here sooner?"
Peter crouched on a steel support beam high above the island, the wind whipping at his suit. He had completely skipped his afternoon classes for this. He didn't call S.H.I.E.L.D., and he certainly didn't flash his Avengers credentials at the front gate. He just engaged his suit's active camouflage, turned completely invisible, and bypassed the perimeter fences entirely.
The reality of Rikers Island was grim. Most of the facility was built directly on top of a landfill, and the infrastructure was rotting from the inside out. Security was notoriously chaotic; the prison averaged over fifteen hundred inmate-on-guard assaults a year. Peter didn't have high hopes for their patrols.
He tapped the side of his mask, cycling his lenses to structural scan mode. According to Matt Murdock, Luke Cage had escaped by physically detonating a basement wall and swan-diving into the river. Given the glacial pace of federal prison maintenance, there was absolutely zero chance they had repaired a reinforced concrete breach in two days.
Sure enough, the HUD highlighted a massive, jagged hole near the waterline.
The invisible Spider-Man dropped from the beam, slipping silently through the breach. He followed the structural damage, tracking the path of destruction up to the restricted segregation block where Cage and the other test subjects had been held.
Dropping silently from the ceiling, Peter landed behind a patrolling guard. He delicately unclipped the master keycard from the man's belt without brushing the fabric of his uniform, swiped it against the heavy steel door of the block, and slipped inside before the latch could click.
"The world's greatest invisible spy is on the scene," Peter whispered to himself.
Unfortunately, being invisible didn't make him soundproof, so he kept his commentary strictly internal from that point on.
His lenses processed the ambient data in the corridor. Dust distribution and thermal decay confirmed that the block had been completely evacuated two days ago—the exact day Luke Cage broke out.
They moved fast, Peter thought.
He navigated down the hallway until he found the basement stairwell. The heavy steel door at the bottom had been hastily reinforced with thick wooden planks. It was a sloppy, desperate barricade. Peter ran a thermal and acoustic sweep. Nothing. He dug his fingers into the wood, violently tearing the planks away with a sharp crack, and kicked the door open.
His muscles coiled, ready to dodge a trap, an ambush, or a burst of automatic fire.
Nothing happened.
The basement was a vast, cavernous void.
There were no gas traps. There were no armed mercenaries waiting in the dark. There was only the harsh buzz of fluorescent lights and the heavy, metallic stench of dried blood. A massive industrial exhaust fan hummed in the far corner, actively cycling the contaminated air out of the room.
The people running this lab hadn't left a monologue, a bomb, or a clue. They simply packed up their billion-dollar operation, sanitized the kill room, and vanished into the wind.
It was terrifyingly efficient.
Peter pulled out his camera, snapping high-resolution photos of the empty space. He focused specifically on the heavy, deep scratches carved into the concrete floor, using them to digitally map out the exact dimensions of the missing surgical tables and centrifuges.
But photos of an empty room wouldn't build a case. He needed a lead. And he knew exactly who on this island had the answers.
Wilson Fisk was making himself at home.
The Kingpin of Crime had barely been processed into Rikers, yet he was already occupying a luxury, double-sized suite in the administrative wing. He wore a standard-issue orange jumpsuit, but the fabric had clearly been tailored. He stood in front of a stainless-steel mirror, calmly dragging a straight razor down his jawline.
He wiped his face with a steaming towel, stepped out of the bathroom, and stopped.
Spider-Man was casually sitting on the back of his leather sofa.
Fisk didn't flinch. He tossed the towel onto a side table and let out a deep, resonant chuckle. "If you make a move here, Spider-Man, every camera in New York will broadcast it."
Fisk walked over and sat heavily on the sofa, forcing Peter to hop off and stand on the concrete floor. "What do you want?"
Peter didn't waste time. "Did you know the military was running illegal human experiment in the basement of this facility?"
Fisk's hand paused on the armrest. His thick brow furrowed. It was a micro-expression, but Peter caught it. Fisk was genuinely taken aback. The experimenters had deliberately selected inmates with zero gang affiliations, operating completely outside of Fisk's criminal ecosystem.
But the Kingpin recovered his composure in a second. He leaned back, lacing his thick fingers together.
"I know nothing about that," Fisk rumbled slowly. "But... I do know that people vanish from the streets of New York every day. They are swallowed by the concrete, and they never return."
Fisk found the military's involvement interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. If S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Pentagon was playing with test tubes, it wasn't his business. And he certainly wasn't going to share his theories with a vigilante.
"Why should I tell you anything else?" Fisk asked, a smug smirk touching his lips.
"Because I've been to another universe, Fisk," Peter said, his voice dropping an octave, completely stripping away the friendly neighborhood banter. "I've been to a reality where your wife is named Vanessa. And you have a son. Named Richard."
Fisk froze. The smirk vanished. The air in the room suddenly felt suffocatingly heavy as the massive man slowly pushed himself to his feet.
"Are you threatening my family?" Fisk whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal intent.
"I don't make threats," Peter didn't step back. He locked eyes with the mob boss, his tone absolutely frigid. "I'm making a promise. I know you're trying to dig up my true identity. I know you're hiring fools to hunt me. So understand this: I am watching you. If you ever put the people I love in danger... I will go find the people you love."
Peter tilted his head, the white lenses of his mask narrowing. "Now. Tell me exactly what happened here."
Deep beneath the streets of Manhattan, Otto Octavius was on the run.
Fisk had offered him a state-of-the-art laboratory in exchange for his services. It was exactly the kind of facility Otto craved, but he had abandoned it. Surviving to take revenge on Norman Osborn was more important than comfort.
With Herman Schultz and the rest of his hired muscle securely transferred to the Raft, Otto had systematically abandoned his remaining sewer outposts. He was scrubbing his footprint from the city.
But his escape route was suddenly blocked.
"Dr. Otto Octavius. It is a profound pleasure to meet you. You may call me Dr. Oyama."
An elderly Japanese scientist stood in the ankle-deep muck of the sewer. He was flanked by a dozen men dressed entirely in black tactical shinobi gear.
Otto's mechanical tentacles hissed, lifting him out of the dirty water. His goggles flared, running a rapid thermal sweep of the new arrivals. Otto's breath hitched.
The men in black didn't register on the infrared spectrum. They were exactly room temperature. They had no heartbeats. They were walking corpses.
"What do you want?" Otto sneered, his mechanical arms coiling defensively. "I don't remember associating with necromancers."
"I have read your papers," Dr. Oyama said, completely ignoring the insult. "I read the neural-interface research that Norman Osborn stole from you. You are an undeniable genius, Doctor. Join us. We can give you the ultimate opportunity for revenge."
Oyama stepped forward, the water rippling around his boots. "Don't you want to stand in front of Norman Osborn and utterly humiliate him?"
Otto's eyes widened behind his thick lenses. He caught the exact phrasing.
"You just said... stand," Otto murmured.
"Yes," Oyama smiled, a chilling, knowing expression. "Stand."
Otto looked at the undead soldiers, then back to the brilliant, terrifying scientist offering him the impossible. A heavy, metallic clank echoed off the brick walls as Otto extended one of his lower titanium tentacles.
The metal claw wrapped around Oyama's hand, sealing the deal.
"Our collaboration is strictly temporary," Otto said. "I am trading my intellect... for my health."
PS: Dr. Oyama is a massive figure in Marvel's street-level and mutant lore! He is the brilliant, twisted Japanese scientist who originally invented the adamantium-to-bone bonding process that gave Wolverine his indestructible skeleton. He is also the father of the X-Men villain Lady Deathstrike, and has deep ties to the Hand's resurrection magic!
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