"Spider-Man said to me, 'With great power comes great responsibility.' He didn't just save me—he showed me what to do with my life. Spider-Man is a great superhero, a savior to the people of New York..."
Clack—
Tony slammed the remote down, yanked the bow tie loose at his throat, grabbed the glass off the bar, and threw back a few hard swallows. He let out a long breath. "What a load of horseshit. Before, every single night he'd be out there wandering around for the hell of it. But the one time several dozen of us wait for him, night after night, he doesn't show once. And now he finally surfaces—in Queens. You tell me: does he know something? Is he doing this on purpose?"
Obadiah went on watching the TV, unruffled as ever, and after a while pointed at Uncle Ben on the screen. "Look at this fellow—look how worked up he is. Doesn't that speak for what a lot of America's young people are thinking?"
Clunk. Tony set the glass down on the bar and sneered. "Bunch of morons. Never occurs to them how much a set of ODM gear costs. Look at that broke-ass—he could sink his whole pension into it and maybe afford half a set. Pointed his life in a direction, my ass. Do these paupers really think superheroism is something they get to dream about? A man that age, no hope left of ever awakening as a mutant—what in God's name has him so worked up?"
Obadiah frowned at that. "That doesn't sound like something the great genius Tony Stark would say. So bitter, so petty—I can practically smell the jealousy coming off you. Can you really not build that neural-pulse energy gun?"
Tony rubbed his forehead and explained. "It's not that I can't build it. It's that I can't miniaturize it. To keep it accurate, it has to be at least the size of a table and weigh as much as two grown men. Shrink it down to something like an M16, sure, you could use it—but one shot and the target's whole body bursts open, and it drains all its power at the same time."
Obadiah nodded. "No good, then. One shot and the guy's dead—you'd be better off with an ordinary pistol. Truth is, the reason the military's so keen on this weapon is mainly the mutant business lately."
That cleared it up for Tony. "Ah, that explains it. Spider-Man's weapon isn't even that powerful, and if we developed it, it'd be wildly expensive—as a self-defense weapon it's a losing proposition. But for capturing mutants—now that's a peerless instrument of terror!"
"Tony—what do you think we should do now?"
Not waiting for an answer, Obadiah circled back around. "Look at this Mr. Ben Parker. All this time later, in front of the reporters, still this emotional. What does that tell you? It tells you Spider-Man's popularity is real, that his image as a hero of justice has already sunk deep into people's hearts. Especially after tonight—that line, 'with great power comes great responsibility,' is going to spread across all of America. Spider-Man is no longer just a street hero. He has a fine conviction, and he spreads that conviction, and people take it up, and little by little his conviction becomes the faith of America's younger generation. Spider-Man is a living Statue of Liberty."
Tony's expression was complicated. He said nothing, just paced back and forth under the crystal chandelier.
Obadiah let it go, lit a cigar, and settled elegantly onto the sofa to keep watching the news.
A full half hour later, Tony dropped onto the couch with a thump and shouted, "Happy—Happy, get in here!"
Seeing Tony like this, Obadiah broke into a satisfied smile.
---
Going through the research files inside Aldrich Psychiatric Hospital the night before had run late as it was; then she'd saved Uncle Ben and his wife on top of it, so it was one in the morning by the time Maya got back to Manhattan. Stick and Matt had long since wrapped up the day's training—Matt was an ordinary human, after all, and practicing martial arts, unlike playing radar for Maya, burned through real stamina. So his training time each day was capped, to keep him from breaking down.
First thing that morning, Maya found Stick, brought Matt along, and ducked into a coffee shop on the corner.
"...and that's the whole thing. So—what should I do?" Maya laid it all out in detail and put the question to the two across from her.
"How about—we go to the police?" Matt offered first.
Stick shot him a withering glance. "You eavesdrop on the precinct every single day, and you still come up with a suggestion this stupid? Call it in and they won't give you the time of day. Show up in person and—how exactly do you explain knowing about this, in this much detail? End result: you don't save anyone, and you bury yourself right along with them."
"You look awfully relaxed, Shifu. Got it all figured out, have you?" Maya asked.
Stick took a sip of coffee and said breezily, "I've got nothing. It's just—this has nothing to do with me. So of course I'm relaxed."
Maya nearly choked to death on that one. Right there she said, furious, "They're running experiments on live human beings, and you can't summon one ounce of fellow feeling?"
"This is nothing. Old blind man like me, I've seen plenty—just a few insignificant mutant brats. You've done everything you can; the rest isn't yours to touch. That psych hospital obviously has government backing. You dare lay a finger on it, and the CIA, the FBI, S.H.I.E.L.D., that whole crowd comes knocking the same instant... These days, no matter how good your kung fu is, enough people can still bring you down. Even a Spider-Man who knows ninjutsu can't hold out."
Seeing Maya still looked less than convinced, Stick went on, "You want to give it a shot, be my guest. Worst case, you come back to Japan with this old man in the end. You like being President, don't you? How about President of The Chaste?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Maya asked.
"What do you think it means? Some young hotshot suddenly learns a divine art, figures he's invincible, loves playing the hero, crosses the wrong people, ends up with his home and family destroyed—then finds another master and gets his great revenge. That's how the story goes."
Maya had no words. She propped her chin on the back of her hand and said sullenly, "I came to you precisely because I don't want a head-on fight, don't want to be exposed. And you, old man—all these years alive for nothing. Can't even come up with one halfway-safe plan."
At that, Stick's face turned serious. "Maya, remember this: however great one person's strength, it can't stand against the will of a nation. The mutant business isn't the act of one individual—the whole American state machine has been set in motion for it... Rescuing the girl Liz is easy. But what happens afterward—where do we put her? What if the police come to take her again? You going to go save her a second time?"
Maya thought about it. "Actually, what I was planning—"
"We interrupt with breaking news—we're coming to you live from the site of a Stark Industries press conference..."
Maya's words were cut off by the sound from the TV across the shop.
The coffee shop sat right on the corner—a little roadside storefront, three meters (10 feet) wide, six meters (20 feet) deep, the television dead center, not far from Maya's booth.
Now it wasn't just Maya fixed on the screen. Stick, Matt, and everyone else in the shop were watching intently too—because America's most famous playboy, Tony Stark, was walking slowly up to the microphone at center stage...