He wasn’t like a son to me. Maybe he should’ve been. I mean, his parents died years ago and he’d been coming to my lab practically every day since. His aunt – May Parker – did her best, but it was rough. The kid had a lot of problems. My Vanessa… ok, she was never mine. Sure, she has worked here at Fisk Ideas and Revolutionary Machines (The F.I.R.M.) practically since I opened the doors. Pretty sure there have been months that she’s the reason I was able to keep the doors open. Once the business took off, I even thought about asking her if she was interested in more. But I was never one for words, and the time just slipped by…
Like I was saying, Vanessa saw the good in the kid. Pete would come in here after school. She’d give him a hard candy or something. Sometimes he’d help me – the Tech King, Wilson Fisk – in the lab. Kid was smart; real smart. More than once I was on the edge of figuring something out – some new tech that would make the company money, or put us in front of the market. Pete would come in and we’d sit down, talk it over with a Jolt cola (kid never stopped moving, I swear), and before I knew it I had a working prototype in my hands.
I’ll never forget the day he came crashing in through the lab window. Bloody, cut from head to toe, and dressed up as this wall crawling hero that’d been saving the city from terror over the last year. I’ll also never forget the horror that filled my body as I realized that it wasn’t just a costume, and that the young boy that’d been visiting my lab was in fact the Spider-Man.
He was actually using a piece of tech he’d helped me develop! He explained that he’d modified a scanner that we made so that it would detect what he called ‘dark energy’ – he went on to explain that he was fighting a villain known as Lady Negative, and that this device would be useful in tracking her whereabouts and foiling her plans. We worked together on the device to specifications he provided, and I felt humbled in the presence of this child who seemed to be ignoring the broken state of his body and instead working diligently to fight injustice in the city. I respected him too much to launch into him with a barrage of ‘why’s and ‘when’s and ‘how’s; I knew that if he wanted me to know he would explain.
We worked on with idle chit-chat until he was satisfied that it would work exactly as he needed. He went to the showers in the back of the lab, and emerged a few minutes later with a fresh suit on (where did he pull that from?). He looked at me and raised his mask with no fear in his eyes – “You know I need you to keep this between us, right?” “Kid,” I replied, “I got no idea what you’re talking about. Vanessa will tell anybody that I always fall asleep at my desk at about 6, and wake up in a pile of my own drool about midnight. I do my best work after that. Pretty sure the security tapes will show exactly that.” Of course they would. I was good at doctoring my own security footage, especially if I knew my competitors from Oscorp had been trying to access it. He nodded, donned the mask, grabbed the dark energy scanner, and hurriedly left through the window.
I didn’t see him for a couple of weeks after that. It was rough. I really had to re-evaluate how I’d led my life up to that point. It was all about me; how much money, how much prestige, how great I was. And there was this kid. Out there risking his life. Every day. I’d thought about the Spider-Man since he’d come on the news. I’d given a thought to a few things I could build or design to help him. There was no money in that though. Spider-Man was on the wrong side of the law anyway; don’t need to get mixed up with that, do I?
I started work on a few designs a day or two after Peter left my lab that night. ‘I don’t know how strong the kid is, but there’s no way he’s strong enough. I’ll bet I could make some exo-armor that could augment that.’ ‘I wonder how he makes that webbing? I’ll have to talk to him.’ ‘We can find more uses for it. Let me start work on a cannon.’ ‘I can get the specifics later. He needs firepower.’ I ignored my actual lab work. Even Vanessa worried about me; I almost caved. I knew how she cared for this boy. I knew she would understand what I was doing. I actually hoped, for a minute, that this might actually be the moment in time that I ask her to be part of my life while I try to be part of something bigger than myself.
But it all came crashing down. Literally. She called me into the lobby. We were on the news – it was a live report. I looked at the TV, and streaking across the screen was the young boy who crashed through my lab window, decked out in all his webbed wonder. He was fighting this woman who looked just like a photo negative – the description fit the person he had named Lady Negative, who we had been trying to locate with the modified scanner. Spider-Man swung across a span, launching himself at her with a kick and tossing her out of the camera frame. Moments later a car (?!) came flying into frame, followed by what appeared to be a large chunk of a building – both were colored oddly, like a photo negative, like her. Spider-Man dodged the former and batted aside the latter, but like a flash she came into frame – I tried to yell a warning, but obviously there was no way for him to hear me. She crashed into him midair and drove him back – towards The F.I.R.M.! They crashed through the front of the building where Vanessa and I stood, watching in terror. Vanessa dove into a side office, but I wasn’t quick enough; I was trapped in the lobby while Spider-Man and Lady Negative traded blows.
He was getting tired. I don’t know what kind of person this Lady Negative might have been, but I think she might have been more than Peter could handle. I knew I couldn’t help in any meaningful way; I was just a man. I was large, and I was strong by a lot of measures, but I was just a man. How I wish I could grab a couple of the things I had been working on for poor Pete right now. I leapt into action. Watching them jump and twist, I barreled my huge frame between them when it looked as if she was about to strike him unprepared. What a fool I am! When I say that I have never known pain like the strike that she dealt me, know that it comes after many beatings at the hands of many bullies and my own father. I crumbled to the floor from the blow, but my plan worked. Spider-Man sprung over my frame and drove into her, driving fist after fist into her and spinning his web around her! Yes! It worked – I bought him the upper hand! He was winning! He was – he was – – – he was still not enough. She tore through the webbing. I still don’t know where the blade came from. She tore him to shreds. The suit fell away. He was cut everywhere. Worse than the night he crashed through my window. And in a moment he was on top of me. Oh God the blade was all the way through his chest – into me! No! I couldn’t move – paralyzed in this moment, afraid of this monster, afraid that she might drive this blade further, afraid of what it means if Spider-Man is really dead here on top of me.
Without a sound, she is gone. I don’t hear Vanessa screaming. I don’t hear the police. I don’t hear the medical workers. I don’t hear the sirens from any of the emergency vehicles. I don’t know how long they tried to get me to let him go. I know he’s gone. I can feel it. He’s cold. Motionless. Spider-Man. Peter Parker. This boy who helped me in my lab, who called me Mr. Fisk despite my insistence on being Wilson. He was gone.
I woke up in a F.E.A.S.T. medical center. Dr. Melinda Li had done amazing things in the medical community; sometimes curing supposedly incurable diseases without explanation. She was personally waiting at my side when I woke; she was nice, very comforting. She told me I should have died – that the blade was poisoned, and had in fact pierced my heart. I replied that she was right; the wrong person had indeed died on the night of the battle. She smiled a small comforting smile, and said some mumbo-jumbo like ‘everything works out for a reason’ or some such – I was honestly barely paying attention to her at that point. At that moment I couldn’t see any reason for Spider-Man to be gone and for me to be here.
The next few days were hard. I tried to get back to my lab. Vanessa was there waiting for me, of course. She was actually at the med center too, but I insisted that she go home and get some rest. Work wasn’t fulfilling at all, and I kept having these odd dreams – about spiders. Guess I couldn’t get the boy off my mind. Everything around me pounds loudly through my head. I decided to work on the spider gear a bit. Why not? Never know when it might be useful. The exo-gear was complete. Just need to make it look good. Finished product. It might have a practical application elsewhere. Trial it myself.
Had to get a baseline strength reading before seeing how much the gear would augment, right? Trial one: Ok, I broke the equipment. Seriously? What is this equipment rated for anyway? I’ve been using this for my industrial stuff! The noise summons Vanessa – she runs in from the front as I attempt to piece the equipment back together; in my agitated state, the left half of the scale refuses to remove itself from my fingertips. I shake it a few times and explain to her that I must have overdid it with the super-glue. Once she is gone, I manage to calm down and peel it from my hand. ‘S-spider?’ I mumble to myself. I’m losing my mind. Wall crawler. The words echoed in my mind. They were the words that Jameson had yelled on every broadcast that he’d smeared Spider-Man’s name, and those were the words most associated with him. I looked over at the wall. Now, I’m not a small man. Just shy of 500 lbs. When I tell you that climbing things is not a frequent pastime of mine, believe it. I’ve got the muscle, but there’s not a lot that will support my… generous frame. Nonetheless, I walk over to the wall of the lab and plant my hands to the wall and pull, expectantly. A piece of drywall comes off the lab wall, firmly attached to my hands. Hmph. Need a better surface.
Up on the roof of the building, the water tower looked – scared. It looked exactly as one might look if a hulk of a man were sizing you up for an attempt at climbing you. But for all the applied weight of Wilson Fisk, it held. I scaled the tower slowly and easily, unsure of my footing at first; but once I figured out that my girth was not going to betray me it was fairly easy going. I haven’t used my muscles this way in a long while, but they seemed… made for it. I reached the top of the tower and stood there a moment triumphantly! I made it! I looked out over the city – The FIRM wasn’t the tallest building, but it was no slouch – and felt an immediate sadness. This was his city. He watched it. He protected it. And he was gone. And then – I saw it. I don’t know how I saw it, but it was plain as day to me. The flash of off color – the negative light. I dropped from the tower, leaving a crack in the rooftop. Ouch. Have to have that fixed.
Lady Negative. I have to go after her. She killed Spider-Man!
No way! You can’t go after her! She killed Spider-Man! What hope do you have? You’re – well – NOT SPIDER-MAN!
No. I was too late. Too selfish to help Spider-Man. I was the Tech King, and that was all that mattered. I don’t know how it happened, but now I’m the Spider, too. The tech I was working on for him… I’ll use it to fight her. I’ll stop her. I’ll be…
The Spider King!!!
More Kaiju 