"We need to get out of Oscorp first," Felicia said, her voice dropping. "Then... I might talk to you."
The white lenses on Peter's mask narrowed slightly. He snapped his fingers. The heavy titanium blast doors sealing the laboratory instantly slid open. Peter offered a grand, theatrical bow, gesturing for the lady to go first.
Felicia didn't hesitate. She bolted through the gap, sprinting down the hallway like she fully expected Spider-Man to web her in the back.
Peter just shrugged, watching her go. Even with her enhanced speed, she couldn't outrun him. Besides, when he had blocked her kick earlier, he had casually slipped a microscopic spider-tracer onto the heel of her boot.
Peter turned back to the terminal.
He took one last, lingering look at the reinforced terrariums holding Dr. Drew's genetically modified spiders. The files said they were engineered to cure ALS.
Peter slipped out the window, firing a web-line into the night sky.
Following the rhythmic pulse of the tracer on his HUD, Peter swung across three city blocks. He landed silently on a gravel rooftop, right on top of the blinking red dot.
But Felicia wasn't there.
Peter looked down at his boots. The tracer was sitting by itself on the gravel.
A split second later, a silver canister rolled out from behind an air conditioning unit, stopping right between Peter's feet.
Click.
Peter recognized the flashbang instantly. He executed a flawless, blindingly fast backflip, launching himself backward off the edge of the building just as the grenade detonated in a brilliant, silent flash of magnesium. He fired a web-line mid-air, swung back up in a tight arc, and landed perfectly back on the rooftop.
Felicia Hardy was sitting casually on top of a massive industrial ventilation unit. She rested her chin in her hands, a highly amused smile on her face.
"I noticed my left boot was exactly two grams heavier," Felicia purred, watching him stick the landing. "So, I decided to return your little toy. Your move are impressive, by the way. Should we talk?"
Peter stood up, dusting off his knees. "Okay, first question: why the Catwoman cosplay?"
Felicia's smile vanished. "It's not... I am not wearing cat ears!"
She let out a frustrated sigh, shaking her head. "It's not a cosplay. It's a legacy. My teacher wore a suit like this. Okay?"
"Ah," Peter nodded sagely. "You mean Walter Hardy. The legendary cat burglar simply known as 'The Cat.' How interesting. It just so happens that he has a seventeen-year-old daughter with the exact same shade of silver hair as you."
Felicia let out two cold, sharp laughs. She didn't deny it.
Just like Peter had deduced back in the lab, her identity wasn't exactly a fortress. Anyone with S.H.I.E.L.D.-level clearance could figure out who she was, provided they got a good look at her face. And her domino mask wasn't hiding much.
"Walter Hardy was last seen operating in Budapest" Peter recited smoothly, pacing the gravel. "And his daughter was spotted taking an extended 'vacation' in Budapest just a few months ago. Same long silver hair. Extremely beautiful."
Felicia sighed heavily, rubbing her temples. "Are you always this annoying?"
"Like I told you inside," Peter stopped pacing, pointing a finger gun at her. "Only criminals and supervillains hate me. Now, do you want to tell me why a legacy cat burglar is suddenly obsessed with military Super-Soldier Serums?"
Felicia studied the masked Avenger. She still wasn't entirely sure why Spider-Man was taking such a keen interest in her, or if she could even trust him. But he had Omega-level clearance at Oscorp, and he seemed to know things the public didn't.
She decided to take the gamble.
"You first," Felicia countered, crossing her legs. "You said you met a survivor of an illegal super-soldier experiment. What exactly happened?"
"A guy broke out of a black-site prison on Rikers Island," Peter explained, keeping his arms crossed. "He found a lawyer friend of mine. He said the US military dragged him into a underground lab and forced him to participate in a human trial. The rest of his test group was eliminated. He survived, broke out, and now he's a super-soldier."
Felicia tapped her fingers against her arm, looking incredibly impatient. "You literally just said a whole lot of nothing."
"Thanks for the compliment."
"It wasn't a compliment."
Felicia let out a frustrated breath. "Let me be specific. Did this survivor just gain enhanced baseline physical attributes? Strength, speed, endurance? Or did he acquire... other powers?"
Peter paused. His lenses narrowed as the pieces started clicking into place. "You mean... the serum doesn't just make you strong?"
"The Super-Soldier Serum has been fundamentally misunderstood from the very beginning," Felicia said, her voice deadly serious. "Specifically, Dr. Abraham Erskine's original formula. The one they injected into Steve Rogers."
Felicia hopped down from the ventilation unit, pacing the roof. "Almost everyone in the world thinks the Red Skull became a monster because he took a flawed, prototype version of Erskine's serum, while Captain America got the perfected version. That's a lie. They were injected with the exact same chemical compound."
"The serum amplifies everything that is inside," Peter recited softly, remembering his history textbooks. "Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse."
Felicia stopped pacing and pointed at him. "That wasn't just a poetic metaphor, Spider-Man. That was a literal, biological description."
The true effect of the Erskine Serum wasn't simply to build the ultimate infantryman. It was a catalyst. It forcefully reshaped the host's biology to physically manifest their deepest, most consuming psychological desires.
Johann Schmidt became the Red Skull because he was consumed by a megalomaniacal desire to become a terrifying, untouchable god-king—to completely replace Hitler and build an empire of fear. The serum literally turned him into a monster.
Steve Rogers became Captain America simply because, at his absolute core, he was a genuinely good man whose only desire was to be a strong enough soldier to stop bullies.
"The fugitive I met," Peter murmured, his eyes widening beneath the mask. "Luke Cage. He became completely invulnerable. Bulletproof skin. Unbreakable bones. Because right before they experimented on him... all he wanted was to be safe. He just wanted to not be hurt anymore."
Peter looked at Felicia, his mind racing. "The military has spent eighty years thinking Erskine's formula was a standard biological steroid. They've been trying to mass-produce Captain America. But they keep failing because the serum is entirely dependent on the host's psychology!"
That was why every modern iteration of the serum failed. The military either created uncontrollable, psychotic monsters, or they had to heavily dilute the formula to the point where it only offered minor physical enhancements.
They didn't understand the psychological variable.
"Exactly," Felicia nodded grimly. "And at the beginning of this century, my father surfaced in Eastern Europe. He didn't go there to steal diamonds."
Peter finally understood.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union successfully created their own super-soldier: the Red Guardian. That meant the Russians had somehow cracked the Erskine code. They had figured out how to bypass the psychological mutation and successfully synthesize the physical enhancements.
But the KGB kept the formula buried. It wasn't until the Soviet Union collapsed that the American military finally saw an opening.
So, they hired the greatest thief in the world to steal it.
Walter Hardy didn't go to Europe for art. He went to steal the Russian Super-Soldier Serum.
PS: Disclaimer: The specific mechanics of the Erskine Serum adapting to a person's deepest psychological desires is a fan-theory crafted for this specific continuity! While the MCU touches on the "good becomes great" theme, this story takes it a step further to explain why every single knock-off serum (like Luke Cage's invulnerability) manifests completely different superpowers!