It seemed impossible, didn't it? How did he get from America to India in what must have been a handful of hours? Spider-Man was many things; omniscient and divine he was not.
Really, it was a matter of science and mathematics.
New York City to New Delhi: about 7,300 miles (11,700 km) in a straight line. For a commercial flight, that would last up to 14-16 hours.
The very best jets of the world that the military possessed cruised at Mach 2.0 and could do New York–London in ~3.5 hours, but still far short of what Spider-Man did. The top military jets like the SR-71 Blackbird could reach Mach 3.3 and was exactly the kind of speed needed. Unfortunately, the plan wasn't designed for passenger transport. Not like Felix's jet.
Yet he did. He did what was impossible to most. He and his Herbies did major modifications to the jet, removing all stealth features and banking on speed alone. As a result, he could reach over Mach 8. His supercomputer Herbie rendered all satellites and air force detection systems immobile. And not the quiet type either, he didn't have enough time for a discreet hack, Herbie planted a virus into the air force systems and kept Felix and his jet off the radar that way.
By doing so, he arrived in roughly three hours. Parking was done with rough hacking and by rewriting digital document dates. It was dark, so Felix got lucky. There were no inspectors. The only issue was the morning. Once the sun came up, whoever owned or managed the jet hanger would count an extra jet.
Well…he'd deal with that later.
"You really had to bring me back here, hm, Spidey?"
Felicia's comment was emphasized with a sigh. He had not put her down and in fact carried her like a princess to the top of another building. He needed her for two reasons: one, to get more insight into the leader of her auction operation; two, she was innocent and every available Latverian and Indian agent/officer was after her. If he understood her powers now, it was dependent on numbers.
'The more people there are, the more bad luck she can leverage. The less there are, the less misfortunes will happen. If she starts running around with people hot on her trail, I can't imagine the damage she'll leave behind. And knowing her…'
Her arms were laced around his neck. She intentionally put on a coy smile.
'She won't care.'
So, where were they?
The top of the Fortunov Hotel, that was where. Below them were the flashing blue and red lights of the police. The orders from up top must have trickled in at last. This was no longer an ordinary murder: this was a high-stakes political issue.
"..."
"What to do, what to do…" Felicia hummed as if reading his mind. "You want to investigate, don't you? I do too, I mean, why in the world would they take little ol' me?"
'Right. Why did the Ambassador Yvan frame you? How come so many people are involved with this? Me, you, King T'Challa, the Dora Milaje, Peggy Carter, SHIELD…'
"So…are we just gonna stand here dramatically with my arms around you or are we investigating, darling?"
"..."
His head jerked to the left. Felicia stopped and blinked. There was a change in him. An announcement in his head. He was not standing here to ponder, he had been waiting. See, his Spider-Bots had been investigating every nook and cranny of the hotel. Every single guest unit, every office, every janitor supply room, and every garbage chute. He had twenty-eight of these bots placed in advance. It was better to use them to find something.
They did and they didn't.
'DR. FAETH—FULL SWEEP OF THE HOTEL HAS BEEN COMPLETE. WE CAN CONFIRM THERE ARE ONLY TWO DEAD BODIES: PEPPY CARTER IN ROOM 1007 AND TEELA IN ROOM 907.'
Any floor unit starting with "100-" or—in other words, floors ten and above—were the start of the luxury rooms. The floors below, such as nine, were reserved for, well, still rich people but not that rich. Floors one to nine were for millionaires. Floors ten and above were for billionaires and politicians. It was classic classism. Disparity even among the wealthy.
'And did you find out who owns it?'
'NO. DIGITALLY, IT IS THE ONLY HOTEL THAT DID NOT HAVE A RESIDENT.'
'Fascinating. Rooms 1007 and 907. One floor apart and two dead bodies. Can't be a coincidence'
It was time to investigate. The shimmer of invisibility was already swallowing them whole. He crept off the edge and Felicia clung tightly to him, hoping he wouldn't just jump off and kill them both. Obviously, that wasn't what he planned to do. He simply walked down the building, back straight and one foot going after the other. He defied gravity completely. Felicia didn't understand and clung to him even tighter, until she understood that somehow, with his powers, everything clung really, really tightly.
"This is so weird," she murmured.
They arrived at the
Spider-Man padded down the building soundlessly. He only stopped when the balcony of room 907 arrived. He hopped off, Felicia shut her eyes, and they landed normally.
He set Felicia down with deliberate care, gloved fingers tightening briefly before letting go. She adjusted her dress, cocking a hip. "Finally putting me down? What, am I getting heavy?"
The invisibility came undone. The balcony door was ajar. Wrong. Too wrong. Felicia rolled her eyes but followed his gaze. She cocked her head and noted it. "Huh. It's open." So she slid open the balcony door completely.
Then she froze. The room smelled faintly of iron.
Her voice caught in her throat. "Oh…"
On the carpeted floor, sprawled near the bed, lay the body of a woman. Dark skin, shaved head, proud jawline, but all the fire gone. Her red armor was cracked, blood staining its once-brilliant fabric.
Felicia squinted, not daring to go inside. Recognition flickered in her eyes.
"…I've seen her before," Felicia whispered. "She was with the king. Personal detail. One of the Dora Milaje. They all kinda look the same but…I have a decent memory," she tried to joke and wink at him. It was a decently-timed remark.
Spider-Man's mask tilted down, not surprised. Teela, one of Wakanda's most devoted warriors, now reduced to this silence. But for him, curiosity pressed deeper than shock.
He actually went inside the hotel unit. He knelt beside the body. His fingers traced the torn armor, the jagged edges of the wound. His lenses narrowed, magnifying. The cuts aligned perfectly with small circular tears. Entry points.
Three.
Three bullets.
All clustered in the lung.
'The Spider-Bots already did an autopsy, right? What bullets?'
'AK-47,' came Herbie's reply. Felix was a tad confused. An AK-47 did this? These bullets were not scattered or messy. The chaotic spray that an AK-47 usually left behind did not materialize in this murder.
He angled her body slightly, studying powder burns, trajectory, spacing. Fired from the front. Close enough for precision, not a random spray.
Felicia stood back, arms folded across her chest, but her eyes lingered. She wasn't smiling now. "Clean work. Whoever it was… wanted her dead fast."
Spider-Man didn't answer but he agreed. 'They definitely did want her dead fast.'
An AK-47 was a soldier's tool, not an assassin's. Bursts, recoil, chaos. Yet here were three rounds, each carving into the lung like a surgeon's knife. No splatter across the chest, no grazing misses. No evidence of a struggle.
It was too… neat. Whoever pulled the trigger didn't just kill Teela. They made sure her death wasn't slow. Almost merciful.
His hand hovered over the wound, the black sheen of his symbiote rippling faintly. His head dipped.
Hrm.
"Why is she dead?" Felicia asked curtly.
'Why ARE you dead, Teela?'
"She has something to do with my set-up, doesn't she?"
Spider-Man rose to his full height and gave her a nod. Felicia inhaled sharply. She marched over to the closet and opened it. "I need new clothes," she murmured. "An old woman with an eyepatch and a king's guard dead? This is not my day. A cat's only got so much courage."
She pulled out clothes and clicked her tongue. Her black dress was ripped and she was no superhero, so he couldn't blame her. Spider-Man looked around. It was his job. First he examined the bed. Queen-sized, as expected of a fancy hotel. He lifted the blankets and sheets carefully. He did not want to make it obvious he ruffled with it.
Especially because clearly, nothing other than Teela had been touched. There was only a single trail of blood in this whole room. It went from Teela herself to the front door. Specifically, the blood wrapped around a certain weapon: an AK-47. Spider-Man approached it after checking everything else.
'No sign of human activity aside from this corpse. Can't be a coincidence.'
His Detective Mode analyzed the gun as he picked it up.
'Look at the marks, it was fired off a little before Peggy Carter's death. More importantly…'
FINGERPRINT ANALYSIS CONFIRMED. FINGERPRINT BELONGING TO KING T'CHALLA OF WAKANDA.
This gun was supposedly held by King T'Challa at some point.
'The king killed his own bodyguard…?'
Felix tried to think: what possible motive could the king have. He was a supersoldier now. Did he get drunk on power? Was his character really that fragile? Felix suspected not.
But the evidence suggested otherwise.
King T'Challa killed Teela and then a little while later, ended up unconscious in the same room as the dead Peggy Carter.
'This is just my gut speaking. I don't have any evidence to back it up yet but…I'm getting the feeling someone is trying to frame T'Challa. Badly.'
This room had no one staying here. It felt like this corpse was dropped off here rather than killed here.
'Not enough blood underneath Teela for it to have happened here. Herbie, go through the Spider-Bots and their recordings, did you find any blood splotches?'
'NEGATIVE. THERE ARE SMALL BLOOD TRAILS FROM ROOM 907 TO ROOM 1007, HOWEVER. THROUGH THE STAIRCASE, NOT THE ELEVATOR.'
'In other words…'
Spider-Man walked back to Teela's corpse.
'You likely died in Room 1007, same as Peggy Carter, didn't you Teela?'
He cautiously opened the door to check. Yep, the Spider-Bot recordings weren't lying, there were tiny droplets of blood in the hallway carpet. Somebody wiped them finely, albeit not enough to hide from his Detective Mode. The world turned a grey colour and blood appeared in blue tints. Droplets but unmistakably in the hallway carpet.
'Not exactly sloppy but...definitely in a rush,' Felix thought. 'The fact that my enhanced vision couldn't see it indicates that the cleaner or cleans were experienced.'
Meanwhile…
"I'm so picky today. Should I be? Mm…"
Luxury dresses, suits, and lingerie still wrapped in tissue paper. Expensive, pristine, and Felicia had changed through a third fit. She flicked through them with nimble fingers and plucked a short black cocktail dress and held it up to her frame, cocking an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror. Then, as Spider-Man returned, she unzipped her torn dress and let it fall to the carpet.
"Don't look too hard, tall, dark, and scary," Felicia teased, half-dressed now, pulling the new fabric up her thighs. "Or do. I don't care."
Felicia tugged it over her shoulders, the silk hugging her curves. Her old black dress was damp, ruined by sewer water and blood — this one fit like it had been waiting for her.
"Mm. Better," Felicia said, brushing her hair back from her face. Her eyes slid toward Spider-Man. "Though I'm guessing this untouched wardrobe is more than just a perk. You're thinking the same thing, aren't you? No one's been staying here. Not really. Which means…" She nodded toward Teela's body. "She was brought here. Dumped. This isn't the place of murder."
That was when his Spider-Sense went off.
'Hm?' His nose then picked up a stench. 'Wait, is that…?'
Before Spider-Man could turn his head, the balcony doors rattled.
Clink.
The handle twisted. The glass slid open.
A figure vaulted in, moving with the predatory smoothness of someone used to ambushes. Long black hair whipped around her face, her eyes flashing with rage.
Metallic claws extended with a snikt, gleaming in the dim light. She growled.
Felicia froze, half-adjusting the dress's straps. "…Oh, wonderful."
The woman's gaze flicked across the room in a split-second scan: Spider-Man hovering over a corpse. Felicia Hardy half-dressed. And the Dora Milaje warrior lying dead.
Her lips peeled back in a snarl and she lunged. Spider-Man moved before Felicia could blink.
WHAM.
He twisted his body, caught the clawed woman mid-swing, and slammed her hard into the wall beside the balcony. Plaster cracked under the impact.
Four black symbiote limbs snapped out from his back, coiling around her wrists, ankles, and throat. She was yanked back and pinned to the wall, claws sparking against concrete as she struggled.
It was over. Just like that.
Felicia exhaled, impressed. "Damn. Took her down in one move. And here I thought you only got handsy with me."
Pinned, the black-haired woman snarled louder, thrashing against the alien limbs. Her claws screeched as they scraped, but the symbiote held firm.
"And who are you, darling?" Felicia asked, adjusting her straps with a huff. "You come crashing into a hotel room, claws out, looking like you're about to skin us alive. Rude."
The woman spat onto the floor, her eyes locked on Felicia. "Who are you? Why are you here? Why are you standing here!?"
Felicia's lip curled. "Excuse me? I just got dragged into this circus act, thank you very much."
Spider-Man's thoughts? It was something he had been wondering for a while. 'I wonder where you've been, Agent Shadowcat. So you were somewhere here, huh?'
Katherine Pryde AKA Agent Shadowcat, one of the best SHIELD agents around. Most importantly, kept on a tight leash by Director Carter. She was a wildcard and it seemed only Carter and Nick Fury knew how to use her most effectively.
So if Agent Coulson and Agent Blade had been in India in the same vicinity as Agent Carter, why wasn't Shadowcat? Unless she was and something happened to her. It seemed to be leaning that way.
"Grrrr...!"
Adamantium claws and an aggressive personality. He knew it was her from the moment she appeared. His limbs tightened as she struggled and tried to break free. The claws flicked desperately but were locked in place. Agent Shadowcat's voice, strained but bitter, spat out:
"…I was tracking her. With my nose." Her head jerked toward Teela's corpse. "I smelled her blood. That led me here."
Felicia's smirk faltered. She folded her arms. "Your nose, huh? Cute party trick."
"And why are you people here!?"
"To investigate. Duh," Felicia retorted.
"Why!?"
Spider-Man leaned closer, lenses narrowing. He didn't loosen his hold. Agent Shadowcat's breathing came rough, her chest heaving as she stared between him and the body on the floor.
"This...this is official SHIELD business, Spider-Man! I have no idea what you're doing here but you better stick to New York cats!"
Felix wanted to sigh. The scent he wore while wearing the Symbiote was naturally drastically different than when he was Felix. And if he was talking to her as Felix Faeth, her tune would have been much, much different.
"And why is that?" Felicia asked, a hand on her hip. "Come on, spill the beans. Look, if it helps, we didn't kill her."
Agent Shadowcat didn't say a word. She just growled. As if...
"Wait, you knew she was dead?" Felicia realized, blinking. "Wait, how?"
"Tch." Agent Shadowcat seemed to understand her mistake in her silence. In that look she gave.
"Hey, hey, how about we make a deal? This tough, strong bastard who took down a kaiju and can clearly crush your skull lets you go and we have a simple chit-chat," said Felicia. "Come on, it doesn't sound that bad, does it?"
"Yes, it does! I don't follow orders from bastards!"
"Aww, come on. How about for a Scooby snack?"
"I am going to KILL you!"
"Maybe two Scooby snacks?"
Giant black tendrils covered Agent Shadowcat's mouth, muffling her pissed screams. Felix rolled his eyes under his mask. Why was it that crazy seemed to scale with how hot a chick is? These two especially…
But Felicia was ultimately right.
'How did you know Teela was already dead in Room 907, Katherine Pryde?'