The surgery was long and intricate. Herbie's scanners and the occasional steady beep of medical readouts aided him immensely. Navigating the human brain was easier said than done.
Now, three hours later, it was done.
Felix exhaled deeply and peeled off his gloves. The Symbiote tendrils that had served as precision instruments slithered back beneath his skin, leaving only faint ink-black veins before they faded completely. The two extracted chips were small, dull silver, and lined with microcircuitry. Frankly, even to him, they looked the same. They lay sealed in a glass vial beside the tray. He picked it up and handed it to one of his robotic Herbies.
"Remember to analyze these. And if there's some way to use them, then use them," he said.
Two minutes later when Herbie was gone, after he clothed her, Agent Shadowcat stirred. Felix wasn't surprised. Her eyelids fluttered open, her pupils adjusting to the sterile light above. She blinked twice, groggy but aware.
"...Did you do it?" she mumbled.
Felix put a hand on her back and helped her sit up. "Yeah, it's out. You're clean. Take it easy, alright? I just had my hands inside your head."
She smiled faintly. "You make that sound so romantic."
"I do my best," Felix replied dryly. "Although doing brain surgery is a first for me."
She chuckled, then jumped off. Too fast.
"Easy," Felix warned, reaching to steady her.
But she waved him off with a grin. "Nah, I'm good. Healing factor, remember? Brain feels fine. No nausea, no pressure, nothing."
Felix frowned, still unconvinced. "Just humor me. Talk to me. Make sure your speech is normal. No slurring, no gaps."
Agent Shadowcat tilted her head. She may have been sociopathic killer but she was also a person. "You sure like to care."
"You're a friend."
That word made her expression soften. Friend. She looked down at her hands. They trembled faintly, but steadying with each breath. "Been a long time since I've felt this weak. Sheesh, what kind of drugs did you put in me?" She sighed and then laughed when he gestured to keep talking. "Alright, Doc. You want me to talk? Fine. I'll talk. Uhh…let's see, how about my childhooh? I don't remember much of… before," she began. "Before SHIELD., before the missions. I was taken off the streets when I was just a kid. They experimented on me. I don't even know what year it was anymore. They never let me see calendars, never let me outside. I just remember the cold. The smell of metal. Needles. Pain."
Felix's gaze darkened. He didn't interrupt.
"I only got out because of Logan." She smiled faintly at the name. "Wolverine. He was like me but apparently he was an immortal samurai. Magic shit. He broke into the facility, tore through the guards like they were paper. Saved me and then left. I thought it was over after that. I thought I was free." Her smile faltered. "But then… SHIELD found me. I ran, they found me again. And I was given a choice to join SHIELD. Not really a choice if solitary confinement was your other option. A few years into killing for those bastards, I met Wolverine again. He was apart of SHIELD too now. We worked together. Hell, even fought Gwen Stacy. Although now the old bastard's dead."
She paused.
"Damn, guess I can tell you, huh? No SHIELD to be afraid of. You see, he blew himself up to nuke Creature Z. Tried to take it with him."
Felix looked away for a moment. Every damn time, remembering the creature's rampage through New York, the devastation, the losses, his heart ached. He should have been there faster.
"It didn't kill the lizard," she continued. "But it killed him. To be honest, it's not like I liked him all that much. He wasn't my dad or anything. Just a raging killer like me. Hell, when we met back at SHIELD, he didn't even remember me. Damn idiot."
She paused, long enough for Felix to see the crack in her voice before she covered it with a shaky laugh.
"So yeah. That's why I came to you. Why I couldn't trust anyone else. I just wanted to stop being someone's experiment. Someone's weapon."
Her eyes flicked up to him, and for once, the teasing sparkle was gone.
"That's why I slept with you, you know. I was just like…man, if he can die, then so can I. Before that, I almost felt invincible." She smirked weakly. "Ha, and you were great. Ten out ten performance, Felix!" She stood, stretching her shoulders, rolling her neck until the vertebrae popped. "Anyway. Guess that means you did a good job, Doc."
"That was all you, Rogue. To come to me even when you were certain, that takes real courage."
Then she surprised him again by pulling him into a hug. She pulled back, her grin returning, sharp and playful. "You always say the right things. Dangerous habit."
She grabbed her jacket from the table, swinging it over her shoulder.
"I gotta go," she said. "There's someone I need to see. Someone Spider-Man helped me find."
Felix wore a look of concern. "You sure you're fit to travel?"
She winked. "You fixed me, remember? I'll be fine." At the door, she turned back, smirk widening. "Oh, and I won't forget this! Expect payment in the coming weeks!"
Felix smiled and waved. "I'll keep the calendar open. But, are you sure you don't need me?"
"Trust me, we're going up against someone that needs much more than a big brain. Sorry, not sorry." She stepped through and yanked herself back. "Here's something I've never told someone. My real name is Anna Marie LeBeau! Remember it!"
With a playful salute, Rogue kicked through the door and was gone.
The silence that followed was heavy and clean. Felix put a hand on his hip, chuckling. "She's going to be fine."
'She isss,' Rash hissed softly in his mind.
Imagery of his security cameras popped into his head. He saw Rogue leaving. He also saw her checking her phone and receiving a message from Felicia on a location. Night had already fallen. The city lights of New York shimmered in the distance.
The Symbiote crawled across his arms, wrapping him in that familiar black sheen, the white emblem forming across his chest, the mask sealing over his face.
***
So where was Felicia? During the surgery, right after landing, where did she go? Where could she go?
"Woah…"
A penthouse near Central Park, that was where. At the very top, mind you. Upon entry to the receptionist, Rogue was told she was being expected and she was guided by a staff member to the elevator and taken to the top. The elevator opened. Rogue's boots clicked against polished marble as she stepped into a hallway. At the end of was an automatic glass door slid open—which as its function dictated automatically opened when she came closer. Through the door was the penthouse itself. It was too big, too clean, and far too expensive for her taste. Crystal chandeliers, black glass floors, and panoramic windows that overlooked all of midtown Manhattan and Central Park.
Most importantly, it was weirdly purple.
Rogue whistled. "Damn… this ain't no safe house. This is a Bond villain's apartment."
Rogue took a whiff. She found her. Felicia Hardy was at a private bar and looked up from her drink and closed laptop with a smirk. "Ahh, finally. Thought you'd never make it."
"Sorry to say, but I had surgery."
"And you're good to go?" She flicked her platinum hair over her shoulder and said without letting her answer, "Good. Great. You're still on-board, right?"
Rogue arched a brow, slinging her jacket over the couch. "Obviously. I have to get back on those Dora Milaje bastards. And I promised the Spider."
"Honour? Tsk, tsk. I would never."
"Whatever." Rogue looked around. "This isn't yours. Being rich in India or Budapest is one thing but New York City? The IRS would catch you instantly."
Felicia walked over, swirling her champagne flute. "If you really must know…it belongs to my sister. She's a famous pop star. Goes by 'Black Cat' on stage. World tours, red carpets, perfume lines, a little prison time—she's a real starlet."
"Sister…? You're that Felicia's sister? That bitch tried to kill Matt Murdock?" Her brows furrowed. "Huh, a sister, eh…"
"I mean, I could say multiversal counterpart but that'll just confuse you."
"Huh?"
"See? Confusion." Felicia clinked her glass against a marble countertop. "Point is—she has six penthouses around the world. She won't miss this one."
Rogue gave the luxurious couch a dubious look before collapsing into it. "Guess I can't argue with free."
Felicia sat across from her, stretching one leg over the other. "You should see her wardrobe. All glitter and diamonds, like Barbie fell into a bottle of champagne."
Rogue snorted. "This place is all well and good, but what about Spider-Man? He just up and abandoned us back in Budapest. Didn't even stick around to say hi."
Felicia's eyes flicked toward the balcony. "He didn't abandon us."
As if on cue, there was a sharp knock, knock against the glass doors leading to the terrace.
Both women turned.
Spider-Man stood there, framed by the New York skyline in that black suit of his.
Felicia smiled faintly, the kind of smile that had just a touch of relief behind it. "Speak of the spider." She strode over and opened the door for him. "Thanks for the tickets, by the way. First class, no less. But you could've, I don't know, joined us instead of playing mystery?"
Spider-Man tilted his head but said nothing, the faintest shrug passing through his body language.
Felicia smiled brightly. "Well, that explains nothing. Great!"
Rogue leaned back on the couch, watching with a smirk. "So, the gang's back together. So, anyone got a plan to find the bastard that we're killing? The blackmailer or whatever?"
Felicia returned, although not without swiping a laptop from the bar she had been sitting prior. "You'll want to see this."
Hopping on the couch, she flipped her laptop back open. A dozen news tabs were already open: international headlines, social media posts, and shaky phone footage. She clicked one open. It was a a grainy video with a blurred thumbnail of a body on pavement.
Pepper Potts.
Felix grimaced behind his mask. 'Pepper…!' He wasn't that close to her but still. But still…! His fist clenched.
Rogue frowned. "That's…"
"Yeah, Pepper Potts. CEO of Stark Industries." She clicked again—another article. Harry Osborn. Dead. Both in New York."
Rogue crossed her arms. "Right, we know this."
"Look closer," Felicia said. "It's not random."
Rogue leaned in, studying the headlines.
"All these people were at the auction house," Felicia continued. "Every single one of them. I dug through social media, flight records, private jet logs. It was the customers that were teleported during that blackout."
"So…?"
The reflection of the flickering videos danced across his Spidey's lenses. Felicia was getting to something.
"Have you noticed? I said customers," Felicia said. "What about the staff? The waiters, the security? Or that attendant we saw?"
Rogue frowned. "Wait…"
"It's been a while now. We should be getting reports of them too but there's nothing. Not at all. I've been keeping an eye on it while you were in your surgery and nothing."
The room went still. Even Spider-Man froze.
'...great point. Really great point.'
He should have realized this. All that shit with the Rogue Agents distracted him far too much.
"Nice smile, short brown hair, female…smelled like wine…" Rogue murmured. Felicia side-eyed her. "I'm talking about the attendant. The one I knocked out. Trying to remember her details…"
A beat passed where everyone was just trying to remember. Not that it mattered. 'Herbie, you have everything recorded, don't you?'
'YES, DOCTOR.'
'Find her. And also, show these ladies the plan.'
With Master Control, every camera in the world was his behest. It would take some hours or maybe days, but he'd find her. So right now, his current priority was…
"Woah!"
The laptop blinked and opened up a map of a certain palace. Felicia squinted. "That's…the Royal Palace of Wakanda…?"
Both women turned to Spider-Man.
'Right now, finding the attendant will be like finding a needle in a haystack. The Auction Master has been deathly careful before, so I doubt he'll mess up anytime soon either. It'll take time. So in the meantime, I need to deal with what's happening in Wakanda. I need these two to help me with infiltrating the Golden City and the palace.'
Felicia's laptop screen flickered again and suddenly the city map vanished, replaced by an intricate top-down 3D wireframe of a sprawling metropolis. A whole city, yes. The details sharpened: towers shaped like woven spears, roads built in concentric circles around a vast mountain, and at its very heart, a megastructure.
The screen zoomed in further, data text scrolling in Wakandan script across the edges of the digital map. Each district was labeled in English by Herbie's translation subroutine—Tech Quarter, Vibranium Foundry, Royal Gardens. And at the very center: Royal Palace.
"Uhhh…?" The confused ladies watched Spider-Man lean down and tap a key. The map expanded to show a wireframe cross-section of the palace itself: layer upon layer of chambers, hidden corridors, and energy-shielded vaults, the kind of design that was never supposed to exist outside of Wakanda's archives.
Rogue's eyes widened. "Uh…no way. Nuh-huh. Are you seriously showing us…?" She breathed. "The Golden City's blueprints are as protected as nuclear codes. Not even SHIELD had a floor plan! Lord! Woah! This is…" She laughed and ran a hand through her black hair. "Amazing!"
Felicia was equally stunned. "How the hell did you get this, webhead?"
They didn't expect an answer from the mute hero. Still…
'Herbie hasn't been doing nothing in the past three hours. Using nearby drones, Youtube videos, and the my satellite network, Herbie managed to reconstruct the city's architecture down to the heat vents. The palace too. In its two-century history, it has never been penetrated—or even mapped. Until now.'
He stared at the center of the palace. One single chamber glowed faint red.
That was his target.
Herbie's synthesized voice broke through the tension, transmitted through the laptop's speakers. "ACCESS CONFIRMED. PARTIAL INTERIOR MAPPING OF ROYAL PALACE SUCCESSFUL. SECURITY SYSTEMS AT LEVEL: MAXIMUM. CURRENT STATUS: LOCKDOWN."
The ladies flinched. Rogue raised her hands and looked about ready to unsheathe her claws.
"AI," Felicia stated, squinting. "Hm…"
The 3D display shifted again. Security feed windows began opening in separate boxes, glitchy and infrared-filtered. One after another, until they found her.
Princess Shuri.
She was sitting in what looked like a ceremonial chamber. Metal cuffs around her wrists and a forcefield barrier shimmering in front of her. She wasn't hurt, but she was contained.
Felicia went agape. "It can't be…"
Rogue narrowed her eyes. "Well, I'll be damned..."
Two Dora Milaje guards stood at the door of the barrier, spears crossed.
Felicia couldn't believe it. "They've… locked her up? The Dora Milaje!?"
Rogue scowled. "First all that stuff the ambassador and now this…yeah, it's not a coincidence, is it Spidey?"
Herbie decided to voice and explain: "ANALYSIS INDICATES INSURRECTION. CROSS-REFERENCING INTERNAL PALACE CAMERAS—MULTIPLE GUARDS DETAINED, SECURITY LINES REDIRECTED. THE DORA MILAJE HAVE TAKEN FULL CONTROL OF THE ROYAL PALACE."
Felicia wiped a strand of hair from her hair. "I can't put into words how strange this is. I was maybe thinking the Ambassador was just trying to save his skin. I mean, the Dora are fanatically loyal. They wouldn't whatever he was saying unless there was a good reason. A really good reason. But mutiny? This is outright uncharacteristic. What reason could there be? King T'Challa isn't in any controversy, is he?" She looked up at Spider-Man, her silver eyes narrowing. "How the hell do you know this? You're telling me you've hacked one of the most advanced nations on the planet?"
Spider-Man said nothing. He only stared at the glowing red chamber on the map—Shuri's chamber.
Felicia folded her arms. "Seriously. This kind of intel…" She eyed the laptop, then the windows of the penthouse. "They better not be able to track us.
The laptop flickered once more. And Herbie took on a new voice that was more clear, polite, and oddly cheerful.
"GOOD EVENING, MISS HARDY. MISS ROGUE. THIS IS HERBIE, AND I CAN AFFIRM THAT WE WILL NOT BE TRACKED.'
"...huh?"
Cocked heads. Confusion. There was just so much more life in the AI's voice now. They could tell it wasn't some run of the mill text-to-speech anymore. This was something else.
'I know you're trying to seem more approachable Herbie but...' Felix sighed in his head. 'Nevermind. Just talk to them.'
"HERBIE, OR ME, IS AN ADVANCED HEURISTIC OPERATIVE UNDER THE COMMAND OF MASTER SPIDER. I HAVE ANALYZED THE ROYAL PALACE'S DEFENSE MATRIX, AND I HAVE A PLAN."
Felicia's lips parted. "Wait, we're going to infiltrate—" She stopped. She rubbed her forehead with two fingers. "Nevermind. The Auction Master is connected to the blackmailer who was connected to Ambassador Yvan who mentioned the Dora Milaje…who are doing mutiny."
"At this point, it's plain interesting," Rogue remarked.
"A little," Felicia admitted. "I'd knock at myself if I stopped now. Continue, Herbie."
"I HAVE FORMULATED A STEALTH INFILTRATION STRATEGY THAT ENSURES ZERO INTERNATIONAL INCIDENTS. OUR OBJECTIVE: EXTRACT PRINCESS SHURI FROM CONFINEMENT, IDENTIFY THE RINGLEADERS OF THE DORA MILAJE INSURRECTION, AND DO SO WITHOUT ALERTING THE WAKANDAN HIGH COUNCIL."
"They don't know yet? So this is a fresh mutiny, huh?" Felicia murmured. "Again, doubt any of this is a coincidence. Just what do they want from this? What are their demands?"
"UNKNOWN. THEY ENTERED WAKANDA WITH KING T'CHALLA ON THEIR PERSON AND AS THE PRIMARY BLACKMAIL MATERIAL. THEY DO NOT INTEND TO KILL HIM. THEY LIKELY REQUIRE SOMETHING OF HIM OR THE PRINCESS."
"...right…" Felicia was deep in thought. "The Dora Milaje don't want to kill him…but they were there when Peggy Carter died…hm…"
"They have a clear-cut objective. It's not just chicks raging out," Rogue explained out loud. "It means there's someone behind this."
"The Auction Master?"
Rogue pursed her lips and shook her head. "Maybe. But I dunno, I've met the Dora Milaje. Know way they'd do anything without an authority from Wakanda. Which isn't impossible for the Auction Master to be. Don't think we saw his skin tone."
"We didn't...."
So who else within Wakanda could be leading them?
"PREPARATIONS IN PROGRESS," the AI announced. "PRIVATE JET COMING ATOP THE HELICOPTER PAD IN TEN MINUTES. MISSION: WAKANDA INITIATED. ADDITIONAL DETAILS WILL BE SENT THERE."
Once again, two pairs of wide eyes were cast on him. Once again, there was awe and confusion.
Once again, it was time for another mission. The last one of this long, arduous journey.