As soon as I arrive near the auction site, I hide in a place where passers-by cannot see me and from my backpack I take my civilian clothes that I later wear over my costume, in order to hide it.
In addition to the clothes, I take my camera and my employee ID from the Daily Bugle, which I attach to the pocket of the shirt I am wearing, so that it is clearly visible to everyone.
Inside the backpack I put both my mask and the gloves of the costume.
My task for the newspaper is only to take pictures of Spider-Man in action, however after sending the photo of the meteorite I managed strangely to convince Jameson to give me the opportunity to attend this event as a photographer.
Instead of having to sneak into the building through some conduit or other way, this time I enter directly through the front door after passing the security check, and even though I have dressed in a more formal way, I still feel out of place seeing how these high-ranking people are dressed.
Inside the building that is set up for this auction, there is a small exhibition with some of the pieces that will be sold, most of which I have already seen in the past during my various clashes with Willy when he was still in business.
After a few photos of that small exhibition, I move to the room where most of the participants gathered, where there is a small refreshment.
Right from the entrance I had a feeling that most of the wealthy families in New York and other cities would attend, but when I enter the room I see that there are many more important people than I imagined. In addition to the mayor and some political figures, there are celebrities, well-known athletes and artists but also famous entrepreneurs, such as Alonzo Thompson Lincoln.
Some time ago I read an article about him, he is a new successful entrepreneur who has recently returned to New York once he consolidated his industrial empire, which also expands outside the United States.
He recently started funding the redevelopment of Harlem, the neighborhood where he has lived much of his life since his birth, and he is doing various charitable activities to help both families in that neighborhood but also other families in New York who are in trouble.
Being the person of the moment, both for his various activities as a philanthropist and his work successes, the attention of all present is on him, in fact he is surrounded by various people who are trying to exchange a few words with him, but it seems that some others are reluctant to approach him because of his appearance.
Alonzo Lincoln is an albino man certainly over 6 feet tall, he has a muscular and robust build and due to the exposure of a chemical compound as a teenager, he has eyes with pink iris, a disfigured nose and slightly filed Teeth.
At some point the mayor and his entourage go on stage where, shortly, will be auctioned the confiscated assets of Fisk and he starts to make a speech.
He basically takes the credit for the end of Fisk's dominance, despite it being almost entirely thanks to Spider-Man if he is behind bars, and he declares that this is an important step in his fight against the mafia, who promises he will commit himself wholeheartedly to continue if he is re-elected.
During this somewhat inappropriate parenthesis where he tries to grab some votes for the next election, my eyes peer among the people who have sat on those rows of chairs that the organizers have placed in front of that stage and there I see a familiar face.
The person I recognize among that group is the President and CEO of Alchemax Corporate, an American Multinational corporation, whose name is Wilson Allan.
Right now he's sitting next to his wife in one of those chairs and, in fact, other than seeing him sometimes in passing, I've never talked or had any kind of problems with him, the problem is another. If he and his wife are here, and there's a chair still loose next to them, that means she's probably here, too, and meeting her here is the last thing I want.
While they are getting ready for the start of the auction, I stay on the sidelines and with the excuse of taking some photos with other photographers, I check around a bit. The refreshment staff, while the auctioneer presents himself to the bidders, departs from their position and they divide into two groups.
A group goes to deliver the auction paddles with the numbers that have been chosen for those who plan to attend, while the other waiters are passing between the people who sat and those who are still standing with a tray with flutes of champagne each to offer to the guests.
Among the people who are carrying trays, there is one girl in particular, who has brown hair and is wearing eyeglasses. Ever since I saw her, I feel like she looks familiar.
After almost forcing the people in the first row to take all the glasses on her tray, she leaves the room and instead of filling her tray again like two of her colleagues did, she leaves after saying she had to go to the bathroom.
Having a vague idea of where the bathroom is, I get suspicious when I see her go in a different direction, so without being noticed I also go away to follow her, however, before I can go in the same direction as the girl, A person steps in front of me to stop me.
"Parker, what's a guy like you doing here?" Liz Allan exclaims with her arms crossed and a scowling expression on her face.
"Hello to you too Liz..." I whisper annoyed and then I answer her, "I'm here to take pictures on behalf of the Daily Bugle, in fact now I have to get ready for the start of the auction, so if you don't mind-"
"Apparently I was wrong when I thought this was an important event, since they also allow reports from a poor newspaper to be here. Leaving that aside, how did you dress? Did you already have to return the suit you wore to the party because you couldn't afford its rent for a few more days and you came with these rags? You think having a pretty face is enough to keep people from noticing the way you're dressed? You-" Liz interrupts me and she starts to give me a long speech that after a while I stop listening.
"You're right, Liz, I'm dressed like a beggar and you're perfect. Now that you got what you wanted, I'm sorry but I have to go to work, I'm not here for fun like you. See you at school, have a good night." I say, then I leave there to get to the door that suspicious waitress went through.
"Wait a minute, I didn't want to- Parker?! Are you really ditching me here?!" she exclaims as I walk away from her.
'I have neither the desire nor the time to stand here and pay attention to your rant Liz, especially if today there is a chance that some thug will sneak in here. Tomorrow I promise I will give you time to insult me as much as you want...'
Before she gets the idea to join me, I increase the speed of my pace and, after mixing with the people who are still standing to take their seats, I enter the same door that the girl from before entered.
Once I am beyond that door, I hide behind the wall that is on the right to examine a moment where I am, without being seen by the cameras and I see that here there are stairs that lead to the lower floors, where probably the things that will be auctioned are kept, and near the stairs there is a door half open.
From my backpack, I take the mask and the gloves from my costume and I put them on, and then I walk into that door, and I find it leads to this place's security control center. In front of the station where there are all the screens showing what the cameras are filming, there is a man sitting in the chair with his head over the desk.
Slowly I get closer to him and, fortunately, the man just passed out.
I quickly take off my civilian clothes and put them in my backpack, then, with the backpack on my shoulders and the camera hanging around my neck, I go to check what the security cameras are filming.
None of the screens in front of me show where that girl is now or traces of her possible movements, so I'm assuming that she knows the location of the cameras, so she's able to avoid them, however, at some point I realize something.
As I look at the screens that show me where the participants in the auction are present, I notice in one of those screens there is me among those people, which makes me realize that the footage is not live.
Before I can set up the cameras and have a real-time view of what's going on in the building, I feel that the guard's walkie-talkie is ringing and, without wasting time, I decide to answer that call instead of the unconscious man next to me.
'There's a chance that the girl from before is Balck Cat, so alerting the security staff and the police isn't a good idea right now. If she really came here to get just what those thugs are looking for, Which can probably help us track down them and the missing kids, I can't risk some dirty cop taking it away from us. I can take care of her myself, so I can get definitive proof of the veracity of her words of that night.'
- Luis, I'm coming back so you can go to the bathroom while I take your place, so you can stop whining. Everything okay over there? Over.- a male voice asks through the transceiver.
"*COUGH* Yes, everything is fine... *COUGH*Over." I say trying to make him not notice that I don't have the voice of his colleague
- Luis, my friend, what's going on? Don't tell me you're upset. Over.-
"I'm not very well, actually*COUGH*, can you hurry? I think I ate something bad." I say after seeing some food scattered on the table.
- Don't tell me you ate that burrito too, I told you it didn't smell good. Fuck. I'm coming, don't throw up again on the equipment because this time you'll definitely get fired! -
Shortly after that conversation I hear the sounds of a person running in this direction and, before he can open the door, I shoot a web on the ceiling to be able to attach myself to it. In the meantime the man takes care of his unconscious colleague, I leave that room without being seen through the door he left open and i head to the place where they store Willy's old properties.
When I arrive at the floor where my destination is located, I see that an air vent that is in a ceiling duct has been opened, so I go in through that opening and, a little later, I find myself in front of another open air vent. The moment I look out of it, to understand where I am, I realize that I have reached the room I was looking for.
Before I get out of there, I put the camera in my backpack and then I fix it on a wall of the duct with my webs.
As soon as I get out of the conduit, I see that the room is full of wooden boxes, and next to one of them, I see a white-haired girl. she is suspended in the air thanks to a rope that starts from her belt and it is fixed to the ceiling, and right now she is making a hole in that box.
Without her noticing I approach her, then I descend upside down to her level after shooting a web to the ceiling.
"Do you know there can only be one person who can swing from a cord here in New York? In a few days, you're gonna get a copyright infringement report from my Spider lawyer."
When she hears my words she is not taken by surprise as I had hoped, so either she was able to sense the arrival of another person here, or she was simply good at not showing it and she managed to remain calm.
"Hi Spidey, I was starting to think that you wanted to stand me up on our first date..." She says as she turns towards me while standing upside down like me.
This time it is I who must try to remain impassive, since, what I see when she turns towards me makes me swallow unconsciously.
The moment I saw her, I noticed that she was wearing a different outfit from the one she had used the first time I saw her, when she was coming down a window with a grappling hook.
The only thing she's wearing from that night is her black mask.
Besides the mask, she is wearing a black choker and black jumpsuit. The jumpsuit is made of a material that resembles leather and it adheres perfectly to her, which further accentuates the curves of her body.
In addition to that, when she turns towards me, I see that in the neck area and the elbow area of the jumpsuit there is white faux fur and the front zipper of the jumpsuit is open up to her breastbone, leaving therefore little to the imagination seen how little covered is her chest.
'Thanks to what law of physics her chest still manages to remain covered...? She's even upside down...'
"Even if you wear the mask, a woman can sense when someone is looking at her body, honey..." She says as she approaches me, then, after she puts her hand on my cheek, she keeps talking,"I guess now you agree with me when I told you that my costume suits me better than the prison uniform. You know, I tend to leave my zipper so low just to distract people, yet it disgusts me when someone looks at me lustfully. But your look at me didn't give me that feeling, in fact, I didn't mind at all... Maybe when we're done here, we'll go somewhere and I'll let you open the zipper completely..." She says to tease me.
"It-It's not time for your little games, Cat. What we're looking for is in that box?" I say to change the subject.
"To think that I had the doubt that you didn't like me after not giving me the slightest attention the last time we met. It seems that you're just playing hard to get. Being able to see the stoic Spider-Man embarrassed is a delight for my eyes and my heart, it makes me jealous to know that other people can see you like this, without even the mask."
'It wasn't enough Mary Jane, now she will also keep teasing me...'
"Stop it, Cat. Do you want the only clue that can help us figure out anything about the group behind the disappearance of those kids to slip through our fingers and we're left with no leads to track them down again?" I ask after taking it by the wrist of the hand that is on my face, to move the hand away from it.
"Stop it, Cat. We can't waste time. Do you want to risk losing this possible lead and go back to not having a clue that will help us track down the group behind the disappearance of those kids?" I ask after taking it by the wrist of the hand that is on my face, to move the hand away from it.
"Uh, here's your aggressive side that since you showed it to me that night I can't get it out of my head... *Urgh* Shit, sorry, I know we have to hurry, but it's your fault if I get distracted, sweetheart! Anyway, I've already marked the boxes that have paintings in them, so can you help me check the remaining boxes?" She asks, then she takes from her belt another tool similar to the one she was using to pierce the box.
'Who would have thought that I would help a criminal...'
After taking that tool, I start to make a small hole as she was doing in the remaining boxes while I try not to give the attention she seeks through her various attempts to start a conversation and her tease, until we spotted all the boxes with paintings inside them.
After we have gathered all the boxes that interest us in one place, we start to open them one by one and we begin to inspect each of those paintings and, at some point, Black Cat dwells on one of them in particular.
"From the interception I had about what they were looking for, it was often emphasized they had to look for that thing that contained the painting or to look for the painting, but they never specified a single detail that could help recognize the painting they were looking for. What if you don't need directions because you only need those words to figure out what they're looking for?" She asks, then directs the painting she was looking at to make me see it too.
In that painting that he has in his hands, which is the size of a person's bust, there is a portrait of a painter looking at a painting that he seems to have just finished.
Her reasoning, even if it is a little stretched, has some sense, since it is strange that among these paintings there was a particular one like this, so together we start to examine it first until, suddenly, an idea comes to mind.
"Do you happen to have with you that it's thin, like a sewing needle? Maybe some picklocks."
"Here, I think these might be good, what do you need them for?" She asks after passing me one of the pockets of her multi-purpose belt that contains picklocks.
"If we have to follow your reasoning, then we have to investigate that thing that contains the painting..." I explain as I test that theory of mine, "What is the thing that contains a painting?"
"The frame!" She exclaims as I begin to pass that thin and small metal rod on the baroque frame of the painting.
Without answering, I hand you one of those tools to help me find a hidden hole or something that can confirm my assumption and, after a few minutes, i feel my picklock go inside the frame.
Black Cat, who noticed that thing, and I look at each other for a moment and, once I start to put pressure in that point where it entered, I suddlently feel like I'm pressing something. As a result of this action, we hear the sound of a click followed by an electronic sound that makes us realize that what I did is right, but not enough to give us what we want.
As soon as she realizes that we are probably on the right path, Black Cat turns to me to hug me.
"Damn, Spidey, you're great! I knew from the first time we met that you and I are a great couple, are you sure you don't want to work with me? There is obviously chemistry between us, honey, it would be a shame not to keep collaborating and not to find out if this chemistry remains even in more pleasant contexts..."
"I already told you I'll never work with a criminal, this time it's just kind of an exception because of our deal. Besides, if I did, I'd lose the 10% discount on shopping and transportation that I get because I'm a hero club member. Do you think I'm stupid enough to give it up, given how much it costs to live here in New York?" I answer in a ironic way while I start to check if there are other holes like the one before in the frame.
"You've got a point, sometimes when I go to the grocery store I feel like I'm being robbed ahah... But maybe I can offer you something in return that will compensate for having to give up that discount..." She says initially while she also keeps checking the other side of the frame, then, after a strange pause, she approaches me to whisper the last part in a seductive way.
"Cat, we can't get distracted now. We need to hurry up and solve this puzzle before the other people looking for this painting come visit us or security notices that you tampered with the cameras."
"Tampering with cameras? I didn't do anything like that, I memorized the location of the cameras and I'm avoiding them. If I had done something like tamper with them, I would have left traces that, inevitably, would have made security and the police discover that someone had infiltrated here. We've been avoiding the ones in this room together so far, so I thought you knew where they were as well as me. Are you telling me that you thought they were disabled? Why?" She asks and, when she realizes that something is wrong, she unconsciously gets defensive.
"Did you knock out the security guard in the camera room?"
"Yes, but I did it because I needed a place to remove my disguise and to check if the positions of the cameras marked on the map I had were correct, I did nothing else! What-"
Before Black Cat can continue to speak, we both hear an explosion coming from upstairs, followed by several screams of fear produced by the people who were participating in the auction.
"Looks like we have visitors..." I whisper.
From the sounds we can hear from where we are, it's clear that a group of people broke in and it's obvious that the goal isn't to hurt the people in this building, they're just hostages, The painting Black Cat is guarding is definitely their real target.
When I turn to Black Cat, she is holding the painting in her arms with an anguished expression, making it obvious that she is afraid that someone will take it from her, even me.
Given the urgency of the situation I find myself in, my brain formulates some action plans that allow me both to keep people safe and not to lose possession of the painting, However, I can formulate hundreds of plans but they will not have effect if I don't first clarify a question, to which I haven't yet given a definite answer.
"Cat, listen to me." I tell her as I start staring into her eyes, then I keep talking. "Right now there are people upstairs who need help. I know you don't care about them, and your only interest is to start your search for those kids right away with that painting, but if you run off with the painting now, You will only end up not only endangering those people but yourself if you choose to ignore this situation."
"Are you implying that I should give up the painting to save that bunch of rich people?! I, those kids and many other people live a daily life in which we are forced to give up many things, when they have everything they want and when they want it. Many of those people have made their fortune on the backs of poor people like us and you dare ask me to help those scum?! And don't give me that bullshit that we're gonna find other leads, I've been trying for days, and since I was losing hope, I was forced to ask for your help, even if the price is that I go to jail. This is the only real lead I could find, I will not let you take away from me and those kids who already had nothing even hope that they can still be saved!"
"I am sure that even though you hate those people, you would not want them to die, because deep down you know that even if they are scum, they do not deserve to die. I see it in your eyes, which are mirroring the hesitation you're feeling in deciding what to do.
Like you, I am one of those people who has had a difficult life, but our past and our difficulties should make us more altruistic, to encourage us to make sure that others do not suffer like us, not selfish.
You should listen to what you know is the right thing and not use the excuse that they are bad people to justify the fact that you want to abandon them. Otherwise, all you do is become one of them and continue this vicious circle.
It's true that there's probably scum among them, but in the end it's all people who couldn't hug their loved ones again if they died. If you really want justice for their wrongdoing, letting them die is not the right choice.
I understand how you feel right now, and if I was in your position, I'd probably have a hard time giving up something that could help me save someone I love to save people I don't know.
That's why I'm not asking you to give them the painting. I just want to prevent you from making a bad choice that you might regret, because if you run away now and you ignore what's happening, I personally guarantee that you'll probably live with the regret that you didn't do something about it for the rest of your life.
I don't know if that evening you said those things without believing in them or for other reasons, but now I need you to trust me and prove to me that I'm right to trust you, the real you. Because one thing I've figured out about you in this short time we know each other is that behind this cynical, seductive thief mask of yours, there's a kind, selfless girl.
So, can I count on you or do I have to go on stage alone with the thought that you might encounter problems during your escape?"
Black Cat stares at my eyes the whole time of that speech, and as she listens to me, I see that the uncertainty that was in her eyes is replaced by a strange glow, accentuated by her slightly damp eyes.
The moment she notices that she was showing herself to me in that visibly fragile way, she turns for a moment to calm down and decide what to do, and once she's done, she turns back to me.
"All right, all right, you don't have to lecture me like that, you're cuter when you're embarrassed and you don't know what to say... I will help you and I will play heroes with you, after all I owe you. Besides, I need to vent some tension on those bad guys, maybe we can even extract some information from them. You have a plan, don't you? 'Cause I think they're coming over soon."
"Yes, and don't worry. They will not come to us, we will go to them.You have memorized the whole map of this place, or at least the escape routes from this building, right?"
