The rain had turned into an unholy sludge by two in the afternoon, clogging the storm drains along 9th Avenue until the alley behind the safehouse smelled like wet zinc and cold takeaway.
Inside the basement apartment, the air was worse. It reeked of rubbing alcohol, stale coffee, and Jack.
"If you say the word 'dare' one more time, Jack, I am going to sew your mouth shut with stainless steel wire."
Natasha Romanoff stood by the laminate folding table, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Her face was a sculpture of absolute neutrality, but the small muscle twitching beneath her right eye betrayed the truth: after two continuous hours of Jack’s feverish, rhythmic humming, the KGB’s finest stress-resistance training was cracking at the seams.
Jack lay sprawled across a saggy, secondhand sofa, his dark coat thrown over the back. His grey thermal shirt was unbuttoned to the sternum, revealing a fresh grid of white gauze taped tight across his ribs. In his right hand, he was lazily spinning a jagged piece of green glass from a broken soda bottle between his knuckles.
Flick-spin. Flick-spin.
"...dare..." Jack rasped under his breath, letting out a wet, breathless hehehe into his collar. "...dare to... hey, Red, be a doll and hand me that Coke from the mini-fridge."
"I am not your nurse," Natasha said smoothly. Her voice remained dead-pan, but her gloved fingers tightened over her forearms until the leather creaked. "And sit still. You're bleeding onto the rug."
From the corner of the room, Felicia Hardy didn't even look up from the workbench where she was field-stripping her grappling gun. She just let out a long, loud sigh that sounded like an exhaust pipe leaking steam, reached into a plastic grocery bag on the chair, and hurled a cold aluminium soda can straight at Jack’s head.
THWACK.
The can caught him right on the collarbone.
Jack didn't wince. He burst into a loud, barking HAHAHA, catching the bouncing can with his bad left hand and popping the tab with his teeth.
"Ah, service with a smile!" Jack cackled, taking a long swig that sent a trickle of dark foam down his chin. "See that, Red? That's true love right there. Dare to care, Kitty... dare to care..."
Felicia closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, and counted silently to three.
"Jack," she purred, though her emerald eyes were cold enough to freeze water. "If you don't shut your mouth for thirty consecutive seconds, I am going to borrow Natasha's stun baton, jam it down your throat, and leave you in an alley for the street sweepers."
"Oh, come on!" Jack sat up with an ugly, lurching motion that made his bandages stretch, his face going pale for a fraction of a second before the wide, crooked grin slammed right back into place. "You girls have zero sense of theater! It's not just a word, it's... it's branding! You think Fisk is sleeping right now? Every time a radiator clicks in his penthouse, he thinks it's me! 'Dare, Wilson... dare!' HAHAHA!"
Natasha turned her head toward Felicia. "Was he like this on the boat?"
"The entire way," Felicia muttered, snapping the grappling housing back into place with a sharp, violent CLACK. "He hummed that stupid chant into my ear while I was trying to steer through two miles of fog. I almost threw him overboard three times."
"I heard that!" Jack grinned, pointing his soda can at her. "And I noticed you didn't do it! Which means you like the signature scent of sulfur and poor life choices!"
Natasha stepped forward, her heavy boot striking the edge of the coffee table hard enough to rattle his glass of water.
"Bullseye is dead, Jack," Natasha said, her voice dropping into that flat, authoritative register that usually made mobsters start sweating. "The Fulton plant is a pile of ash. The DA's office is in total lockdown because nobody knows if you're an unregistered vigilante or a bio-weapon. So stop playing the court jester for five minutes and tell us: what is your actual objective?"
Jack tilted his head, his wide, bloodshot eyes locking onto hers. The fever had burned down, leaving behind that icy, unblinking clarity from the [10.8% SYNCHRONIZATION] threshold.
He set the soda can down on the armrest, leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees.
"Objective?" Jack rasped, his voice dropping into a low, conversational purr. "Red, darling... you think I have a PowerPoint presentation? I don't want his money. I don't want his territory. I just want Wilson Fisk to look out his bulletproof window at four in the morning... and realize that all his billions can't buy him a single minute of peace."
He stood up from the sofa—unsteady, a little bent at the waist, but completely unbothered by the pulled stitches.
"He's hiding in his Midtown Tower, right?" Jack chuckled, his hands sliding deep into his coat pockets. "Sitting behind three inches of reinforced steel and forty paid shooters. Sounds boring. Let's go throw a party."
Felicia raised an eyebrow. "A party?"
"Yeah," Jack grinned, his blood-stained teeth flashing under the dim bulb. "And we're not bringing cake."
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