'Is she bluffing?'
Felix couldn't tell with her. Emma claimed to not be able to read his mind. She revealed that had superpowers. Yet...this could be a lie. A deception to get him to drop his guard. He didn't know. He couldn't tell. So far, he had done a decent job hiding his thoughts.
Moreover, his Spider-Sense wasn't going off. She wasn't endangering him.
But…not being able to read his mind…
'How is that possible…?'
Was it Extremis? Was he adapting? No, it couldn't be the adapting. Against the Sleeper, he figured out the condition for adapting: adrenaline, a pumping heart, and cause of threat. He felt none of those. He wasn't nervous. He was just...sitting.
So what could it be? How was he...
Wait...
It was Extremis but not in the way he thought it was.
'My brain was rewired,' Felix realized. 'My brain prevents telepathy from working on me.'
The Extremis liquid biotech complex inside a carrier fluid and stored in an applicator that was sent into the brain upon injection. By doing that, the Extremis injected information to the brain that the entire body, externally and internally, was wrong. Put simply, the brain was the first and biggest change. Ordinarily, the change was so drastic that it would put the patient into a coma.
But Felix was able to bypass the coma due to the spider-bite.
'So maybe…she's not lying. Maybe I am immune.'
But because he was immune, Emma Frost found him; found Spider-Man and Felix Faeth. Either he denied this or...
"So?" Felix calmly drank his whiskey. "What are you going to do about it if I am?"
"Preferably for you to be my servant."
Emma said those words without a hint of being faux about it. When she said servant, she meant it.
"Be your servant, huh?" Still calm, Felix sipped on his drink. "What makes you think you have an advantage over me, Ms. Mutant?"
Emma didn't react either, smiling the same as always. "Ah-ah. I'm rich. Being a mutant would make no difference to me. But you? If I'm not mistaken, you are a run-of-the-mill worker. No connections, no government background, nothing. Meanwhile, I could come out as the worst tax evader in the history of America and still come away scot-free. That's just how the world works, my spider friend."
Now this wasn't a bluff. This was the unfortunate reality. Combined with her telepathy, she could squirm her way through any situation. Manipulate the courts to subtly veer toward her side. Bribe or mind control the members of the police and prosecution handling evidence.
'Her confidence is warranted. However, the fact that she is saying this confirms that she can't read my mind. She has no clue about Herbie. She has no clue that I can do some of the things she can with the power of a supercomputer.'
"But…unfortunately, I think we can be much more."
Felix tilted his head, intrigued. 'We?'
"You were there at Starks, remember? With that blonde reporter and your detective girlfriend."
Ah, she was talking about Maria. "Not my girlfriend but continue."
"Stark is building a supercomputer known as JARVIS," Emma said. "I want the schematics and the computer destroyed and the blueprints handed to me."
Felix wanted to scoff. "Do I look like a mercenary to you?"
"You look like a man searching for something. You don't go out at night dressed in black for fun. You have a reason. As you pointed out, I am a mutant. Whatever you need, I can help with."
"A favour for a favour." Felix leaned back and took his time drinking. If he helped Emma Frost, Stark would lose the massive progress on his incredible supercomputer. A supercomputer that could potentially read the details of his blood. Assuming SHIELD still had the blood, that was a risk.
'But if I give the blueprints to Emma Frost, then…'
It would happen later. Way, way later. Years of time to come up with a contingency against SHIELD or destroy the blood they had in possession.
"A favour? No, no, I mean something more. A queen and a spider that fight against injustice wherever it is." Emma, as if suddenly realizing something, smiled. "That's why you went to Stark's house. That detective was there because you were searching for the traitor. You were searching for the traitor."
Figured she knew. If she read Maria's mind, that meant all his interactions with her were exposed.
"Consider my offer. Stark will know about the theft and destruction—and he won't be able to do a damn thing about it. Project JARVIS is under wraps. Do you know why? Stark has been exploiting third-world countries to get the resources he needs. Argentina, China, Bangladesh, and India. He uses the children of those countries without thinking twice. His morality is as pathetic as his eye for women, even if he pretends otherwise."
Emma seemed genuinely irritated by that. Children. Children being used. Children in suffering. She hated it.
"If it gets out that he's been abusing sweatshops to the scale he has, Stark will lose face. His company's stocks will drop and Frost International will sweep away every deal he loses. Another terribly powerful man will weaken. All that generational wealth and yet the two of us could topple it over like it's nothing."
Saving children...
Getting rid of Stark and his company who had turned his father into a terrible person and made his mother's life a living hell...
'If I go with this, Emma might be able to find out who the traitor is immediately. She's the perfect person for it.' Felix grimaced. 'However, getting caught...putting trust in another person...'
Emma extended a hand, smirking. "Come on. Think about it, Spider-Man. Whatever it is you desire, information, money, justice; whatever it is, we can get it together. You are the strongest man on this Earth and I am the most powerful woman. If we join hands, we could be so much more."
"So that's why you sought me out."
"Yes!" Emma's eyes were full of excitement. "You and I, we could do anything. If there's an old man standing in our way, I could read his mind, find his dirty little secret, and then you could take him and his legions out. We would be perfect together. Entire nations would bow to us. We could save innocents. Millions of them. Billions."
Emma got off her seat and sat next to Felix. Her hand ended up on his thigh, rubbing it in gentle circles. Her lips came way too close to the side of his ear. "Norman Osborn…Anthony Stark…we could take them down together. We could add more to our cause like that detective friend of yours and Pepper Potts. We can change this world at last. The two of us."
They could. The two of them really could.
Felix grabbed her wrist, forcibly stopping her. For a moment, Emma thought she went too far.
"I accept the deal—"
"I knew it—"
"But only for this one mission. Whether we work together and go beyond this…" Felix looked at her. "That will depend on how much trust you earn."
Emma smiled. "That's fair. I expected as much."
"As for my favour…you'll know when I tell you."
"Oh?"
"It wouldn't be wise of me to reveal all my cards. As it stands, if I tell you what I want, you would have an overwhelming advantage."
"I'm honoured to receive your mercy then," Emma said. "When will you complete my little mission? A month?"
"A month," Felix agreed.
Emma raised a hand. Suddenly, the limo stopped. She must have ordered the driver telepathically.
"I'll keep in touch."
"And how will you do that?"
"You said you don't trust me or my abilities. You will. Just watch and witness my greatness."
Felix emptied the whisky to the last drop. Emma whisked it away from him, smiling. She watched as he got up and opened the door. As soon as he was out, the limo drove off. Felix analyzed his surroundings.
She dropped him off at the Bronx. Great. That was when Felix's phone buzzed and he received a message.
> Shuri: Heard you're not at work. Come over to the lab
'I bet Liv told her.'
The lab was pretty far. Luckily, he was Spider-Man and the job would be a good exercise while his suit was under construction.
As for Emma Frost and her little deal...
'I'll think about it later.'
In the pit of his stomach, he felt that something had changed. That after defeating the Sleeper and Crossbones, he found himself at the next stage of something. What that was, he did not know.
***
Felix arrived at the black cube-like building in Manhattan, home to Shuri's lab. He sped up and halted when he saw Okoye standing guard. She was as stoic and imposing as ever, but her expression softened slightly when she saw him.
"Did you jog here?" Okoye asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.
Felix nodded, slightly out of breath. "Yeah, you could say that."
Okoye raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. "Come, Shuri is expecting you."
She led him inside the building, and they made their way through the receptionist area and into the laboratory. Even after working with Shuri for a while, the Wakandan tech never ceased to amaze him.
Docked on a table at the centre of the room was the complete particle accelerator. It dominated the room, a complex array of machinery and glowing components that seemed to hum with potential energy, a combination of Reverbium, True Adamantium, and Wakandan Vibranium. An impressive feat of engineering.
Shuri appeared from behind a console, her face lighting up when she saw him. "Felix! You made it."
"Yeah, got your message," he said, smiling. He glanced over to where the particle accelerator was pointed, a wall and table that was black and damaged from the machine gun's operations. "I see you've been hard at work."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, my failed attempts are amazing, but! I think I found the correct base element we need!"
Felix's eyebrows shot up. "That's amazing! How did you—"
"I'm a genius! Geniuses always have breakthroughs!"
He rolled his eyes, laughing. "Right, well, what is it?"
Shuri led him to a console and pulled up a series of schematics and data points. "A hundred elements, seventy of them being metals, on top of three hundred thousand chemical compounds, it was a process of elimination. We're trying to make renewable energy here. So…"
"So…?"
"It's Palladium. It has the perfect properties we need for the synthesis."
"Palladium… It makes sense. Not tarnished by the atmosphere at ordinary temperatures and can absorb over nine hundred times its volume of hydrogen gas."
"Precisely. Buuuut I had to modify it a little."
"Oh?"
"It's my little secret. Something for when I negotiate with Norman Osborn." She shut off the console. "Sorry."
'Unfortunately for you, Herbie already hacked and retrieved all the information.' Through his glasses, he read the specifics of the modified Palladium. 'And according to Herbie's simulations…this might actually work!'
"So, are we ready to activate the device? Wait, shouldn't—"
"Bring Octavius? Hell no. It'll be night by the time she's done with work. And let's be honest—you and I carried this project."
"...true."
Shuri smiled, her enthusiasm infectious. "Let's make history, Felix. Right here, right now."
They moved to the control panel, and Shuri began the activation sequence. The room buzzed with energy as the machine gun-like particle accelerator powered up, the Reverbium, True Adamantium, and Vibranium components glowing in unison.
"The particle accelerator is on," Shuri said. "Want to push the modified Palladium in place?"
"With pleasure."
There was a cart-table at the side that needed to be pushed. Felix went over and pushed it to the correct location. Resembling platinum, being pure white, the large Palladium cube was the perfect elevation for the particle accelerator five feet away. Felix returned to Shuri's side. He watched in awe as the machinery hummed. They were finally doing this.
"Three…"
The modified Palladium was shining a little.
"Two…"
Shuri's typed away while she did the countdown. The tip of the particle accelerator glowed.
"One…" Click! "Activate!"
The particle accelerator shot out a line of blue-purple swirling energy. It was faster than even Felix could see. The line of particles and their collisions began. The sound was like a laser against an energy barrier.
The accelerator emitted a brilliant light as the Palladium was transformed, its atomic structure altered to create the new element. Felix held his breath, feeling the weight of the moment. This was the culmination of months of hard work and collaboration.
This was the advent of a new element that could change the world.
After what felt like an eternity, the light faded, and the machinery powered down.
"It's done. Thirty seconds have gone by."
Shuri approached the chamber where the newly synthesized element was contained. She carefully extracted the small, glowing sample of the new element, holding it up for Felix to see. The white Palladium had turned blue, shimmering and in the shape of a pyramid.
It was a miracle.
"We did it," Shuri said, breathing with pride and wonder. "We've created a new element."