His fingers and feet were losing the wall.
'S-shit…shit…!'
The grip that had kept him alive since the beginning of all this, the one thing that had never failed him, was failing for once. The Symbiote was trying. He could feel Rash trying, spreading across his palm and over his fingertips, trying to find the surface and hold it, but the surface kept moving or he kept moving. The distinction between those two things had stopped being clear.
Drip, drip. Blood was falling.
His fingers melted and painted the surface scarlet as he slid and slid and his head bobbed.The city below was very bright.
He thought, distantly, that he might fall.
"I gotcha!"
An arm lapped his shoulder and started carrying him up. It was an invisible arm too. It was…
"Hobie…?"
"Easy, mate," Hobie said. He was invisible. Right, right, right. "I've got you."
Hobie carried and hauled him up back to a horizontal floor. There was a loud grunt. There was nothing graceful left available to either of them tonight. It was the hauling that required every arm they had, dragging dead weight back over the ledge and onto the broken floor of the forty-third floor of the SHIELD building.
The two of them hit the floor on his hands and knees.
"Haah…"
Felix blinked and blinked, breathing hard. He and Rash were one. He had gained the scarlet Symbiote. But…he felt weaker than ever.
Cold concrete, and the wind from the open gap, continued the night. Chills rolled down his spine and he tried to pull himself up.
Hobie groaned and his invisibility flickered. He rolled to his feet and put a hand on Felix's his shoulder. "Alright, you're in. You're in. Don't—don't do anything yet. Just breathe."
Felix breathed. It was more complicated than it should have been.
"Looks like nothing went your way, huh?"
"..."
"That guy…seeing that tech…yeah, if we had him, we probably could have healed the world and made all sorts of medicine. But…"
That wasn't how it went.
"Xina's on the other side," Hobie said. "She's been holding position. We just have to get to her."
Lights flashed the building and Hobie looked over his shoulder in panic.
"Shit, they're here…!"
It was the hard white of the military's searchlight. It swept across the ruined opening and illuminated the floor in a stripe of absolute clarity. Fortunately, Felix felt Hobie's hand on his shoulder change and his invisibility spread. From Felix's shoulder, down his arm and up his neck, to his hands and the dark red of Spider-Man himself—all of it vanished.
The lights swept across them and found nothing.
Felix didn't breathe. There was confusion and an order to storm in. Hobie carried Felix forward but had to promptly stop.
"Shit…! I sense guys up ahead," Hobie hissed.
Boots kicked up the entrance on the far side of the room. Military personnel ran in pairs and guns pointed. However, their attention was quickly taken by the black cocoons and dead SHIELD agents.
Hobie's mouth was beside his ear. "Can you walk?"
"Some."
"Some is enough. Come on."
He got an arm under Felix's and started moving. They crossed the room in the direction opposite the personnel. Felix's feet found the floor in approximations of steps. The black cocoons were what really got everyone's attention.
"We found more of 'em. Seems like Spider-Man was here. No question about it, like at that store."
Regardless, Felix and Hobie were not there.
Still, getting out wouldn't be simple now that the military was here.
The corridor beyond was darker and easier. Hobie navigated it. In all probability, Xina was speaking in his earpiece.
"We're goin' a floor down," Hobie murmured. Soon, Felix's foot found the first step of the staircase.
They went two floors down, enough to clear the worst of the military presence above. Hobie and Felix arrived at an office room and stopped at a window. There was the night…
A groan from Felix. "Wait…what are we doing?"
The window faced outward over the side street below where the crowd was thinner and the emergency vehicles had left a gap.
"We're jumping," Hobie said and he promptly put his elbow through the window.
The glass went without ceremony and the night air came in all at once, cold and immediate and carrying with it the full sound of the city that the building had been keeping out. The sirens, the helicopters that swooped above, and the distant crowd that had not fully dispersed.
"Jump!"
The Spider-Men jumped.
For anyone watching the side street at that precise moment — and several people might have, phones raised, faces tilted up toward the smoking gap in the SHIELD building's upper floors — it lasted less than a second.
A van suddenly appeared. White and boxy and completely unremarkable except for the fact that it had repulsors underneath it to let it fly. The side door was open and two figures were received. The doors closed and the van wasn't there anymore.
Again, it was maybe two seconds. Maybe.
"Warm…"
That was the first thing Felix murmured. Warm and close and smelling…coffee? Ah, and the conditioning. Wonderful. Marilyn was running at full capacity, her screens cycling through satellite feeds and police frequencies and the news coverage that had already found the footage of the building's upper floors and was describing what it saw in the escalating tones of a situation.
Felix loved this van.
"Is he—? He's red…!" He felt Xina touching him and immediately recoiling. "His suit…! It's like blood! He really did it…!"
Hobie propped him against the van's interior wall. The screens made everything blue. The van was already moving.
"Felix," Xina said, from somewhere close. From the sound of it, she was using a 2099 first-aid kit on him. "I need you to stay awake. Just for a few more—"
He heard her. He intended to comply. But he didn't have a speck of energy within himself and passed out.
Spider-Man disappeared in the night, while the Red Goblin lay exposed and dead on pavement. Good had prevailed. Perhaps.
***
'Not…dead…'
Felix was not dead.
His fingers and toes twitched madly. It was cold and he shivered in the worst, body-twitching way. So cold, so cold…!
Opening his eyes, he realized where he was: the cryo chamber. He was strung up, naked, with needles plugged at every major vein and an oxygen mask pumping air into him. He was like a chilled puppet.
'Rash…?'
'I am…awake…'
His thoughts were jumbled.
Who was Rash? Who was Felix? It…didn't make sense and the voices and thoughts faded.
The cryo chamber's display shifted from blue to white. The internal sensors registered consciousness and seals along the chamber's edge released in sequence. A soft series of clicks moving top to bottom, like a spine. The front panel began to open.
Warm air rushed in. Felix blinked and his arm went to unplug the oxygen mask.
"Mmmaaah…!"
That was him breathing. He blinked again. The room was taking longer than usual to assemble itself.
Xina was the closest, at a computer and having been checking readings for longer than was healthy. Hobie was no longer in costume but in ordinary punk clothes.
"Sue…" Felix called out to her because he was closest to her. Sue, his maid, lit up. Everyone saw the chamber open but it seemed Xina hadn't explained why. Probably, they had to periodically open it to administer other things.
Sue jogged over and got halfway inside the chamber to pull the oxygen mask off. After that, she helped him out.
"Looks like…we've switched roles," Felix murmured.
"Please don't speak." But Sue smiled. "But I'm glad you're okay."
She draped black bathrobes on him. Felix needed help to pull the robe on. His fingers felt so…numb. To the point that he sat down at the chamber's little staircase, breathed, and took inventory.
"How are you feeling?" Xina asked.
He considered the question with the honesty it deserved. "Groggy and weak."
"Weak how?"
He could walk and stuff. That much made sense. But the web of awareness that had been present since he got his powers, that…didn't seem to be there.
"My ears…they feel…weaker. I can't hear as well."
He closed his eyes and did the mental search for Rash. Rash was like a second heartbeat in his brain. And after fusing, he thought they'd be closer than ever. Rash described it as being one with each other.
Except there was silence.
"Parts of your brain are in hibernation," Hobie explained. Felix looked up. "Too much Extremis pushed past its limit, too much direct contact with the Sheath's hivemind. Your nervous system needed to stop. So it stopped. Meaning…" Hobie flicked his wrist, his thumb, index finger, and pinkie finger pointing out. The instinctive gesture of Spider-Man. "...your powers are gone."
His heart did stop in fear and in an emotion he did not know. "I'm…normal?"
"Yep. In every way."
"..."
"I've never seen someone's muscles thin so fast. It's crazy."
Normal. He was normal.
"But for how long?"
"My estimate is a few weeks," Xina said. "Hobie thinks the same. But it could be longer. A month, possibly."
"Could be shorter," Hobie added.
"It could," Xina agreed.
"And Rash?" Felix asked. "We took the gamble. We should be one."
Hobie grimaced. So did Xina. He didn't get it.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Remember the risk? Remember Gwen, mate?" Hobie said. "Well…you're lucky."
Felix wasn't sure if he was slow on the uptake, if he got dumber, or there was something crazy that he missed. "What?"
Xina answered, "You and your Symbiote are together on a cellular level. And our only other record of a Symbiote doing that, Gwen, do you know what she craved?"
"Blood…?"
"Yes. You woke up on your first day and the first thing your Symbiote did was…" Oh no. "...tell us that he shouldn't work with you anymore."
"Huh?"
Rash…said what?
"Rash is a Symbiote that will forever be apart of you. But…doing so, to exist, to power him up, he needs blood. You can't replace chocolate either, it's a must. In order for you to not have to go through life sucking human flesh, Rash chose to hole up. To…give you a choice."
"A choice…?"
"Yes. To be ordinary. To not have powers anymore."
Felix couldn't believe it. Rash wanted him to make that choice? Felix looked at his hands. His actual hands: no suit, no Symbiote, and no red pooling at the edges of his skin. Just hands. He curled his fingers and uncurled them.
The room was very still.
"To not have powers…" Felix murmured.
"Not to be Spider-Man." This was Sue. "Sir…Felix…you should consider it. At least, I think so."
"..."
Silence.
Hobie said nothing. Xina said nothing. Felix looked up at Sue for a moment. He smiled, stood up, tightened the robe, and walked out.
The spiral staircase was longer than he remembered. He struggled to walk it down. "Don't have the same equilibrium and balance." Before, he could run his way down backwards and now he had to observe every step. Like a normal person.
"Unh!"
He misjudged the last step. His foot came down expecting something that wasn't there and he flung himself sideways into the banister.
Hobie caught him. "You prolly shouldn't be walking, mate."
"I know but…" Felix pulled himself upright and kept going. "I need to see the world first."
The living room was large and over-furnished. Duh, this was his mansion. The Faeth Mansion, it was dramatic with the sofa, the table, and the huge television on the far wall. He sat down and picked up the remote.
The Daily Bugle had Irene Merryweather reporting. The redhead sat with glasses and alone at a long black desk.
"—the cocooned men and women still, as of yet, have not given testimony. It appears the military have been keeping them, leading speculation to a possible connection with Spider-Man. If that is the case, that Spider-Man is a product of the military, then does that call into question his heroics? Or not?"
There was a dramatic transition to an interview asking that exact question.
"Changes anything? As if! He saves people, that's what he does! That's his thing, government or not!"
Soon, it became a montage of interviews. Different Daily Bugle reporters asking people from different parts of New York.
"I mean, it makes sense…remember when he saved Princess Ororo? That WOULD be in the military's best interests. Makes America look strong!"
"Naaah, he saved my aunt once and she's the worst person I know. I've been in the military, we can be real pieces of shits, ya know?"
"If he was in the military, then why did Creature Z kill my parents? Why the FUCK did the military hold him back? Huh? Huh? Why did they wait for him to save us, huh?"
"Nope, makes no sense at all. The military are way too pathetic to have someone like him.'
The allegations of Spider-Man being a military project became a big question across America. To some, the only way for him to have escaped was with the military's help. Felix didn't care. It was weird. He did care about Spider-Man's image as a hero. At the same time, there was this acceptance that there were those that he could never convince. Good people, even.
It was just the way the world was.
"Nothing on Harold...or the dead body..."
"Nah, there was news," Hobie said. "An old guy that kinda looked like Osborn falling out of a building? Big news, lots of conspiracy. But, well, no one knows who he is. There's maybe what? A handful of people that do know Harold Osborn's existence?"
"But there's bound to be theories, right?"
"The prevailing thought is that he's a SHIELD agent gone rogue. That he helped leak the Sam Papers."
Felix craned his head. "Seriously?"
Hobie nodded. "My guess? Hobie's people introduced that bit."
"They did, huh?" Felix murmured and hit his head on the sofa. "Makes sense, makes sense..."
"We've been observing them. They've been taking it surprisingly well, but without their leader, they're confused and directionless."
"His followers were based on skill and loyalty, not ideology," Felix said, "like a company. And with his short lifespan, this was probably the original intention anyway."
Ideology gave strong opinions. For Harold, the only opinion that mattered was his.
"Mhm, they'll probably disband soon, especially with what's happened," Hobie said and gestured. "Well, see for yourself."
Once the channel returned to Irene, Hobie pointed to the bottom where old breaking news scrolled across. Felix sat up straight.
BREAKING: SHIELD OFFICIALLY DISSOLVED BY EXECUTIVE ORDER. CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE TO ASSUME OVERSIGHT OF REMAINING OPERATIONS.
Felix's eyes went white when he tried not to be surprised. This was, effectively, what he expected and what he wanted. "They really did it? They actually got SHIELD to shut down?" He put a hand to his mouth. "Wow. I can't…I can't believe it."
SHIELD…dissolved.
Yeah, even if there were some that agreed with Harold's ideology, without SHIELD, there wasn't much to channel that. And with the government in the state of change, it was a matter of actually doing what was needed. Of breaking the hierarchal world and letting people live with dignity.
"Yeah," Xina said from somewhere beside him. He hadn't noticed that she had sat down at the other end of the sofa, one knee pulled up. "It's real. Happened yesterday."
On screen, they switched from Irene to an anchor speaking over footage of the Midtown building. Specifically, footage of the secret SHIELD building and the destroyed forty-third floor.
Then a cut to the congressional hearing.
Then to protests, the same photographs of the same teenagers held up in the same November cold, and then to more recent footage of protestors.
"The Sam Papers were really the thing," Xina said. "Once that was in the water, everything Harold had done in private — all the fear he'd put in those government offices — it had somewhere to go. The elites were already scared. The papers gave everyone else a reason to be angry at the same time." She paused. "Maybe Cuba and Latveria changing governments in the same month affected them as well."
"Norman Osborn is dead, Nick Fury is dead…there's no one with the balls to stamp out these people," Hobie remarked.
"The president?" Sue questioned. She arrived with a plate of sliced pears. With a fork, Felix picked out one. "Can't he do something?"
"Cuba's getting fucked, Latveria getting fucked, and now all this? President Ross' balls are getting stomped and unless he goes dictator mode, which he won't because he's a pussy, then he's not doing shit." Hobie too got a slice. "And if he did…I'm stepping in."
Felix changed channels. A correspondent outside a building he recognised as somewhere in Washington, talking to someone whose lower-third identified him as a political analyst of some kind.
"—what we're seeing is NOT a communist revolution, despite what certain commentators have been saying. This is democratic accountability functioning at—"
He changed the channel again.
"—very real possibility that what's happening in Cuba and Latveria is the opening movement of something much larger, and if the American government thinks that dissolving one agency is going to—"
Another channel.
"This is unquestionable the result of leftist movement. Not communism but progressives coming together—"
Another channel.
"It's a matter of patriotism, of the people bearing arms and sticking it to the bastards who've been sucking us up. The government is like a nest of vultures. The people are doing what they need to—"
Another channel.
Finally, it was J. Jonah Jameson. Felix immediately snorted. The man looked like he'd been awake for three days, which was probably accurate.
"—and in international news, Princess Ororo of Kenya has made what I can only describe as a HISTORIC announcement, people. I know, I know, African princess, blah, blah, but come on! You've heard enough about the Sam Papers! I've heard enough! I've heard enough of myself hearing enough! ANYWAY, in a statement released this morning, Princess Ororo has declared an end to the Kenyan monarchy and announced plans to transition the country toward a parliamentary republic within eighteen months. Now, this is significant not only in and of itself but because Ororo has governed in all but name for years, her father having been in a coma since—"
Felix set the remote down.
He sat with it. All of it. The screen cycling through voices and interpretations and the different angles from which people were choosing to understand what the last several weeks had produced. The fear voices and the hopeful voices and the analytical voices that weren't sure which they were yet.
The world was turning. It was moving in a direction that hadn't been available months ago or decades ago, and the specific mechanism of that movement ultimately sprung with him, Harold, an old police captain, and a mother named Dolores Reyes who had been waiting fifty years for someone to stop calling her a liar.
Hobie sat down. He had been standing and commenting this entire time. "You know, all things considered, this isn't the worst outcome. You couldn't save everyone but…I think the change you and that goblin wanted is there."
To inspire hope and change…
That was the ultimate goal. Yes, that was true.
Felix crossed his arms. His eyes dimmed. "The Sheath. What happened to the Sheath?"
"It's gone."
"And the military don't have it, do they?"
"They don't." Hobie glanced over at him and frowned. "Just like you predicted. You were right — there's a spy from Earth 2099 here."
Hope. He inspired hope and he stopped evil. And soon, someday soon, once there was enough change and hope for him to relax, he'd take it.
Today was not that day.