Chapter 227: Hell's Kitchen School of Superheroes
Ethan had been gone for what felt like a reasonable amount of time. He'd fought the entire Spider-Society, befriended several hundred multiverse variants, and come home. Standard trip.
In that window, Hell's Kitchen had apparently become the largest private arms dealer in the United States.
"How," Ethan said, "did any of this pass federal education review."
"Your godfather," Magneto said, with the satisfied tone of a man delivering good news. "Wilson Fisk is a sitting city councilman with federal connections and a gift for personal outreach. He visited the relevant officials individually. The curriculum passed unanimously." He paused. "Strictly speaking, Hell's Kitchen Community School now has complete academic autonomy."
Ethan thought about Fisk, who had somehow gone from retired crime lord to politician to accreditation lobbyist for a high school with a course on evading federal pursuit. He decided not to think about it too hard.
"And this," Magneto said, producing another sheet of paper with the energy of a man unveiling a second act, "is the proposed expansion curriculum. I'd value your input."
Ethan took it.
"'One Hundred Methods for Defeating Superheroes.'"
"Tactical awareness—"
"'Better a Villain Than a Pushover.'"
"Character formation—"
"'Firearms Maintenance and Care.'"
"Practical skills—"
"'Master High-Speed Driving: Never Get Caught Again.'"
Ethan stopped reading. He looked at the paper. He looked at Magneto. He looked back at the paper.
"These," he said, after a moment, "are actually less bad."
Magneto's expression was carefully neutral.
"The driving course is fine. Firearms maintenance, if we're already doing firearms, is fine. The superhero tactics course I'll allow as a purely defensive framing." Ethan set the paper down. "The villain philosophy course goes. The 'pushover' course goes. Anything that frames crime as a life strategy goes."
"They're electives—"
"Erik." Ethan leaned forward. "Richard Fisk goes to this school. Peter Parker goes to this school. I know who the faculty is. I'm not naive about what kind of environment these kids are growing up in — I grew up in it. But there's a difference between preparing them for the world as it is and handing them a roadmap for the world as it was. The neighborhood I'm building isn't the neighborhood they grew up in. Don't design the school for a Hell's Kitchen that's supposed to be disappearing."
Magneto was quiet for a moment. It was the specific quiet of a man who had heard something he couldn't immediately argue with.
"The drugs and gambling content," Ethan continued, "comes out. Not as electives, not as awareness modules, not under any framing. Those topics don't appear in the coursebook. That's the line."
"Understood," Magneto said. Not happily, but without argument.
"Everything else — the self-defense, the firearms, the tactical thinking, the driving — I can work with. This is Hell's Kitchen. I'm not trying to produce graduates who've never held a weapon. I'm trying to produce graduates who don't end up using those weapons on each other."
Magneto nodded slowly. "I can adjust the curriculum."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Magneto picked up his tea. "And I'll note, for the record, that the students themselves are not the problem you're imagining. Since you became their example — someone who came from this neighborhood, built something here, and came back — the most common ambition among our students is university. They want to contribute. They want to stay." He set the cup down. "The curriculum is perhaps more theoretical than it needs to be, given who's actually in the seats."
Ethan hadn't known that. He sat with it for a moment.
"Good," he said finally. "Keep it that way."
"That," Magneto said, with a small smile, "is entirely up to you."
Ethan stood to leave.
What he didn't know — couldn't know yet — was what those students were already becoming. The Hell's Kitchen graduates who would eventually step into the world weren't going to look like anyone's existing category of hero. Not the measured restraint of conventional heroism, not the ruthless efficiency of the criminal world they'd grown up adjacent to. Something in between and something beyond: people who knew exactly how bad it could get and had chosen something better anyway, with enough technical capability to back that choice up in any room they walked into.
The world would have a word for them eventually. It just didn't have one yet.
Ethan was almost out the door when Professor Adrian Toomes walked in, phone in hand, with the expression of a man who has found something he thinks might be someone else's problem.
"Mr. Cross," Toomes said, "glad you're here. I was looking for you."
Ethan turned. He couldn't immediately think of any business he had pending with Toomes. "Everything okay?"
Toomes held up the phone. He'd put it on speaker.
The voice coming through was, without question, the loudest thing Ethan had heard all day.
"—who gave you the RIGHT to touch that, it is MY HAMMER, get your HANDS OFF—"
"—don't care what organization you're from, I am the FUTURE LORD OF THE NINE REALMS, you answer to ME—"
"—binding me? You dare to BIND ME? When I get my strength back I will make every single one of you—"
Ethan listened to this for about four seconds.
"That's Thor," he said.
"Someone named Jane Foster got our number from somewhere," Toomes said. "She says he's been arrested in New Mexico. She says he told them he knows you."
Ethan looked at the ceiling.
Then he looked back at Toomes.
"Thank you, Professor."
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you