Chapter Text
Monday, November 13, 1989
When I arrived at the office this morning, there was a package sitting on my desk.
I peeked out past my glass door and looked at Sophie, who herself was en route to the conference room for a short meeting.
"Sophie, was this package here when you got in this morning?" I asked, slightly concerned.
"It was!" she replied. "Did you not see the letter that came with it?"
I looked back to my desk, and now that I was actually looking for it, I did see a letter. A nail under the flap had it open in moments, and I flipped the card inside open to see… barely anything, really.
Who says you can't speak ill of the dead?
—J.J.J
Well, if that wasn't a hint…
Instead of using a nail, I took a pair of scissors I kept in my desk drawer and used those to open the package. A paper envelope was one thing, but I was not about to ruin my nails on cardboard and packing tape. It was a good way to get your manicurist massively passive-aggressive at you – but more importantly it was galling, having my nails get cracked, chipped, and messy.
The package opened, and I was greeted by a fairly large frame, holding three newspaper articles and three small blurbs beside them, arranged vertically. A small brass plaque at the bottom bore a single word: Karma.
The first article held opposing pictures of a purpling Lou Young, juxtaposed with a suit-clad Captain America at the courthouse steps. Beside it was a poll showing Lou Young's approval numbers in the days after, which had fallen to a paltry 21.2 percent.
The second article covered the District Attorney race in more detail, and showed opposing photographs of Young and his challenger, our newest District Attorney, Max Collins. I didn't actually know much about Collins, save that he'd been a prosecutor for three years before resigning in protest, right around the time Young became DA. He was a fellow NYU alumnus, from twelve years earlier, so even though I probably hadn't spent more than five minutes in a room with him, he got my vote. Beside that article, a poll showed Collins leading in pre-election polls, 58% to 24%, with the remaining voters angling for some of the various non-frontrunner candidates.
And the third article?
Disgraced Judge Runs Down District Attorney
Blood on the courthouse… driveway?
In perhaps the most serendipitous example of coincidence, newly-retired Judge Philip Andrews, in his haste to leave court for the final time, fatally ran over District Attorney Louis Young earlier this afternoon—
And next to that? Lou Young's obituary.
I looked at the title again.
"Karma" indeed, John Jonah Jameson. Karma indeed. This was coming home with me, where I'd hang it on my wall. Also I was going to have to find the old articles from the end of DA Wallace's career, just so I could start my collection. Then keep track of DA Collins, and if his tenure started turning sour, maybe look for an opportunity to add that to the pile. After all, third time's the charm, and—
A knock on the glass door to my office pulled me from my musings, and I turned to see Sophie push it open slightly.
"Just waiting on you," Sophie said, poking her head into my office.
"Ah, sorry." I slid the framed articles back into the box, gathered up the folder sitting on my desk, and followed Sophie to the conference room. Joshua was already there, sipping at a massive mug of coffee, so full of cream and sugar that I could smell it from the doorway. I took my seat at the head of the eight-seat conference table, with Joshua to my left and Sophie to my right.
"Okay, let's get this started," I said, clicking my pen and opening the master copy of the case file. "Just a small meeting so we're all on the same page regarding what we're doing for this case."
"We got all the documents from Mr. Canter yesterday," Joshua said, looking over a checklist in front of him. "Financials, letters from his old sponsors, official communications from the USTA, ATP, copies of the letters Canter sent demanding retractions, the letter from his agent dropping him…" Joshua trailed off with a shake of his head. "Man. People suck."
"When there's money involved, people tend to be just as bad as cynics claim," I said in agreement. "Sophie, did you manage to find all the addresses we need? And where are they all?"
"We still need Becker's," she said, eyes on her own paper. "Prince is headquartered in Georgia, Adidas and Nike are in Oregon, the USTA is upstate here, and the ATP is in Florida."
"Damn," I said. "That means—actually?" I paused. "Joshua, where did Canter put as his home for his financials?"
"Uh…"
I ignored the rummaging of papers, and instead wrote the locations on my paper. GA, FL, OR, NY, and probably abroad in Germany on one side, so…
"San Diego, California!" Joshua said.
"Perfect!" I said. "Okay. This gives us complete diversity and an amount greater than $75,000, meaning we can file straight into federal court and not need to split the USTA off. And we get New York State law, which gives us a leg up from the get go…" I trailed off, eyes scanning over the documents Canter gave us, realizing something. The address and phone number he'd given us for case-related matters was in New York State, but it was about an hour and a half north of here (or three with traffic), if I was remembering my counties correctly. I glanced over at Joshua, and saw his eyes fixed on the same page, his pencil under the same bit of info I'd just cottoned onto. He raised one eyebrow, and I gave a slight nod.
Final nail in the coffin?
Yup.
"So what even is the argument here?" Sophie asked, rifling through the pages in front of her. "How do you even prove he isn't a mutant?"
"You can't, legally speaking," I said, not bothering to elaborate this time. "But the thing is that we don't need absolute proof here. All we need is to prove that it's more likely than not that Becker was pulling something out of his ass to purposefully make Canter look bad. Though actually," I added after a moment's thought, "that makes this case somewhat unique. Most defamation cases, whether slander or libel, revolve around something that can definitively be proven true or false, and the arguments tend to run along that line. So this is a bit different."
"Are we certain he isn't a mutant though?" Sophie asked. "He says he isn't, but he could be lying, no?"
"While I'm glad you cottoned onto rule one so quickly," I said, "as the mutant in the room, I can say with confidence he isn't. His reaction to seeing how I really look?" I reached down, wrapped my fingers around the tip of my tail, and pulled it above the lip of the table for emphasis. "Pretty much identical to either of yours. Trust me when I say other mutants don't react like that."
"He is hiding something, though!" Sophie insisted. "Two of my boys are obsessed with sports, and they both told me thirteen tournaments a year is small. So if Canter is as serious of a professional as he claims, then he should be doing more tournaments, yes?"
"So?" Joshua asked. "Muhammad Ali didn't take every fight that came his way. No reason Canter has to go to every open tennis court."
"If it was just that it wouldn't be a big deal!" Sophie insisted. "But there's this address upstate that he wants us to send everything to? That's a residential neighborhood! He's hiding something, and—"
""He's gay,"" Joshua and I interrupted at the same time.
Sophie closed her mouth.
She opened it a moment later, then closed it again.
Then her lips parted once more, only for her to not say a word, and close her mouth again.
"... how…?" Sophie's hesitance was frankly adorable, but I was more than happy to enlighten her.
"His clothes fit properly," I supplied.
"And they're color coordinated," Joshua added.
"His haircut actually fits his face shape."
"There was product in his hair too. Pomade, I think."
"Plus, his nails were clean and properly trimmed."
"Oh, and he was wearing just the right amount of cologne. Not too strong, not overpowering."
"And lastly, he didn't check me out even once. Not even a quick glance at my chest," I finished.
"He definitely checked me out though." Joshua got the last word, and when I went to give him the side-eye, he had a far-off look.
"Trust us," I told Sophie, who was caught looking between me and Joshua, some form of new understanding dawning in her eyes. "Once you know what to look for, it can be pretty obvious."
Sophie just blinked. A finger came up and pointed ever so slightly in my direction, before turning to point in Joshua's.
"... Everything you just said?" Sophie said. "That… sounds a lot like Brendan."
The names had come up enough times already for me to know who Sophie was talking about. Her triplet boys, Brendan, Kevin, and Michael.
Brendan was the youngest.
Joshua and I both turned to look at one another for a moment, and came to a silent agreement within moments. Yeah… not the time for that. Best to move the conversation along, and ignore what probably wasn't meant to be said out loud.
"Time for revelations aside," I said with a raised voice, drawing attention back to myself.
Well, mostly. Sophie still wasn't quite paying attention, unsurprisingly.
"Everybody is from different states, and we're above the dollar threshold. Federal court it is, but we get to use New York law. As for what else we're going to need… let me think real quick."
"Should I get any discovery requests prepped in advance?" Joshua asked.
"Oddly enough? Not really," I said. "Most of the evidence we could gather is public statements, and our client already provided us with copies of all the statements in question. But I do want to try and get a better idea of what the overall climate was in the sports sector before the defamatory statements came out. Which means doing a bit of research, but it's not something that needs to be done in the discovery process."
"Alright," Joshua said. "I'll draw up a template I can work from once they deny everything in their answers and you come up with seventeen new things to ask for, got it."
I favored Joshua with a stink-eye, but he offered a disarming smile in return.
"As for the actual evidence we need to make our case, I have an iron in the fire for that," I revealed. "I just need to wait on certain parties to get back to me, or follow up with them later this week."
"Another idea?" Sophie piped up, drawing eyes to her. "You just received a package from the Bugle, and you spoke face to face with John Jonah Jameson this past summer. If we care about public opinion in the sports sector, would it be worth reaching out to him about an interview with the client?"
I pondered that for a moment, then realized that she had a very good point. As much as I wasn't a big fan of media circuses… this was actually a case that would absolutely benefit from one. Especially if we managed to get a jury that read an interview from a favorable interviewer.
Such as John Jonah Jameson, who was famous for giving everybody a fair shake.
(Except for Spider-Man. Never Spider-Man.)
"I like that," I said. "Great idea, Sophie. I'll run it past Canter and get back to you."
"Thank you," she said. "I'll get that scheduled once we have permission!"
"Excellent. In that case, I think we're almost wrapped up."
I gathered up the files and papers in front of me, making sure they were sorted how I liked them.
"So, here's the plan," I said, standing up to draw both Joshua's and Sophie's attention. "The Australian Open runs from January 15 to 28. Depending on how long it takes to get the evidence we need, we file that same month, preferably on the eighth, otherwise on the fifteenth. We want to bracket the Australian Open, since that will give us the most attention. Preferably we get this in before the Open starts. That way, our case is the very next topic in line for discussion on the news."
"I'm sorry," Sophie said, hand half-raised to keep me from continuing to talk. "But why the eighth?"
"Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a defendant is given twenty-one days to respond to legal service of process," I answered, a small smile growing on my face. "So if we file on the eighth, that means the ATP and Becker both need to have their legal teams work on their responses during the Open, and means any hiccups either of them experience during the tournament will probably draw more attention to the suit.
"Now Sophie," I turned to her, still smiling. "If you saw somebody make constant mistakes when they normally didn't, and you'd just heard through the grapevine that they were being accused of something nasty, what would your first thought be?"
"I'd say that they were having a guilty conscience," she said with a shrug.
"Exactly." I gathered up my materials from the conference room table, and picked them up. "As for the rest of the plan. Joshua, keep working on our complaint, and feel free to use examples from other cases; unlike in academia, plagiarism isn't just allowed in the law, it's outright encouraged.
"Sophie, if you could work on getting back issues of the major Sunday papers' sports sections from the two months surrounding the US Open, or at least get me an appointment to go in and make copies of them myself, I would appreciate it. Other than that, just be on the lookout for a call back from either the NYU alumni office or the athletics program people. It'll be one of them."
"After I do a coffee run," Joshua said as he stood up and grabbed his jacket.
"Ugh," I wrinkled my nose. "Hot bean juice."
"And your hot leaf juice is so much better?" Joshua asked, all while Sophie hid her giggles at what was probably the… hm, was it the fifteenth or sixteenth time we'd had this debate?
"Yes," I said. "It at least tastes like something other than bitter."
"That's only bad coffee, and you can say the same of bad tea!" Joshua fired back.
And so the debate continued for another five minutes, during which nothing got done and nobody complained.
Saturday, November 18, 1989
Note to self: when hiring more people, do not tell them that I have a habit of working weekends.
All that did was give secretaries the idea that Saturday was an okay day to schedule meetings with people. Granted, this was a meeting with a reporter, who was busy working on a major Sunday newspaper. And I didn't exactly have anything planned for this time of day. Nor was there a major Jewish holiday this weekend, which would have seen me going to the synagogue, and then calling my dad to complain about the rabbi (again). But this was still a Saturday! It was the principle of things!
(And I lost my chance to scope out the department stores in preparation for Black Friday!)
Unfortunately, work waited for nobody, and so here I was, riding an elevator up to the Daily Bugle's offices at 10am on a Saturday morning.
But I did break out the one pantsuit I had in my closet, one that I'd had to pay an additional five hundred dollars to have a tail hole tailored into it, because if I was going to work on a Saturday morning, then to hell with the expectation that I wear a knee-length skirt this close to winter!
The elevator dinged, and I stepped out into a busy, bustling office floor. Phones were ringing off the hook, fingers hammered away at typewriters and keyboards, and I spotted a few harried interns carrying somewhere between three and four coffee pots at a time around the various desks. The air reeked of ink, printer toner, and worse: cigarette smoke.
I reached into my purse and pulled a couple of tissues out of a small disposable pack I carried, then held that over my nose. Cigarette smoke was one of the few things in this world I well and truly loathed. It reeked. It gave me headaches just smelling it. It irritated my eyes and made my contact lenses itch. And the worst part?
Cigarette smoke makes your boobs sag.
I eyed the floor, and looked over to the corner, where my destination lay. The chaos died down for a short instant, and I took my chance to swiftly walk through the space between desks towards the office space in the back.
A yelp sounded from behind me as I passed, and I realized that I must have stepped on someone's foot. With three-inch heels.
Oops. Maybe that would serve as a lesson not to have feet in walkways…
I did manage to make it unscathed to the far edge of the floor, and pushed past the mayhem into the eye of the storm. A stern brunette sat at the desk, her hair in a perm that was probably barely holding on two months ago but was now desperately in need of a salon, typing away on a keyboard, and occasionally reaching over to pick up a handset, press hold, and put it back down. The nameplate on her desk read "Elizabeth Brant" – but she didn't actually respond to that name, which was the first line of defense for actually getting to see the man in charge.
"Hello, Betty?" I asked, stepping up to the desk. Betty looked up at me, flicked her eyes down to the trousers of my pantsuit, and frowned.
I countered with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow. We both knew why I was here, and I wasn't going to let her judgment bother me. After all, she was the one who made the decision to get a perm, even knowing Jameson would have her too busy to maintain it.
Sure enough, Betty didn't even bother to greet me with words. She just stood up from her chair, walked out from behind the desk, knocked twice on the boss's door, and pushed it open.
"Sir, your ten o'clock is here," she said, pushing the door open wide enough for me to get past before just… letting it drop as she went back to her desk. Luckily for her, I was small enough to slip past her before the door even started closing, so I didn't have to say anything about that conduct.
"Huh?" The man at the desk in the corner office looked up from the bundle of papers in his hand, an unlit cigar in the other being used as a pointer. Once his eyes fell on me, his expression lit up, and a devilish smile crossed his face. "Schaefer! Pantsuit? Daring, I like it. Heard from your secretary my gift arrived. Couldn't have happened to a nicer man, could it have!? Go on, take a seat. Coffee?"
"Good morning, to you too, Mr. Jameson," I said, once he finally let me get a word in edgewise, and slid into one of the chairs in front of his desk, resting my purse on the ground beside the chair. "Thank you for the compliment, by the way. And no thank you for the coffee, but don't hold back from a cup on my account."
"Good choice. Robby's on coffee duty today, his brew tastes like ground dirt!" Jameson laughed, and I couldn't help but chuckle a little in return.
"And as for your little gift," I continued, "it's taken a place of honor in the front hall of my condo. Next to a framed copy of the article about former DA Wallace's resignation. Who knows," I said, inspecting my nails. "Maybe I will have to go for the hat trick."
"You'd best be sure to give me advance warning on that one!" Jameson crowed. Then he leaned back in his chair, put his feet up on the desk, and turned his head to look me in the eye. "So, Betty says your secretary was calling after the sports section. Let me guess, you're working for Canter, or however you say it," he said, pronouncing it 'Khan-Tay'.
"Close enough to the pronunciation. And yes," I confirmed. "I'm representing him in a defamation action."
"Pfft, had a feeling that shit was libel when we printed it," Jameson said with a scoff. "Hell, it looks worse for Becker if your man is a mutant!"
"How so?" I asked, curious about Jameson's take.
"Well let's put it this way," he said. "Either your guy isn't a mutant, and Becker is the world's biggest sore loser. Or your guy is a mutant, and Becker now has to contend with the fact that the only reason he's won anything in the last… how long has your man been active, four years?"
"Five," I corrected.
"Five!" Jameson said. "Either Becker's a sore loser, or the only reason he won any title in the last five years is because your man decided to not play at his best. Not a good look, is it?"
I shrugged. That wasn't exactly how I would put it, but I could see where Jameson was coming from. After all, what was worse: realizing that you were simply incapable of accepting a hard-fought loss, or realizing that every victory you'd attained was at the sufferance of somebody who was capable of trouncing you right from the start?
Personally, it was the former, because it spoke more about your character, or lack thereof. But that was just my take, perhaps due to the fact that I cared about my image more than most.
"Regardless," I said, "we're in the process of acquiring the evidence we need to prove our case and readying our materials. Our plan is to file right around the time of the next Grand Slam tournament, and I was wondering if, during the first week of the new year, the Bugle wanted an exclusive interview from a man who should have been competing, but isn't being allowed due to… let's call it organizational fuckery."
Jameson stared at me for a moment before he spoke, and I could see the gears turning over in his mind.
"You know, I'm not sure why I didn't expect this from you of all people, Schaefer," Jameson said, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. "That is dirty, and cutthroat, and I like it. Hell, I can even see the spin!" He raised a hand as if framing, moving it to the right as he spoke. "They got Canter, who's next? Jordan? Ali? Gretzky? Or better yet, who's next on Becker's hit list, McEnroe? Ha!"
"Oh trust me, Jordan, Ali, and The Great One are all slated for my opening arguments," I told him. "My client has already told me that he wants his case to make as much noise as possible. And that includes no settlement, not unless it comes with much fanfare and public shaming."
"Ballsy," Jameson said. "Taking the coin toss of a jury. I like it."
"I'm glad you think so," I said. "Now, obviously I'm not well versed on how to go about setting up an interview, or who you'd even want on it, so I figure it would be best to leave that ball in your court, as it were."
"Schaefer, I like a good pun as much as the next person," Jameson said with a sudden scowl. "But I swear to God, if the next words out of your mouth are anything other than 'pun not intended', then—"
A pair of loud knocks on Jameson's door interrupted his admonition, and I must admit that I jumped a little in my seat.
"What!?" Jameson yelled. "I'm in a goddamn meeting!"
The door opened, and I could hear Betty's failing perm rub up against the door.
"Sir, it's Parker."
And just like that, it was like a switch flipped in Jameson. His expression suddenly became eager, almost hungry.
"Well why didn't you lead with that!?" he said, completely (and likely deliberately) ignoring the fact that he hadn't given Betty so much as a chance to say anything in the first place. "Send him in!"
I turned around in my seat in time to see Betty roll her eyes and hold the door wide open. Moments later, an overeager teen bounded in, glossy photo paper printouts in his hand, and I caught my first glimpse of Peter Parker.
He was a lanky teen, dressed in an old and worn bomber jacket, faded blue jeans, and well-loved sneakers. Glasses that had met with the concrete a few too many times adorned his face, but a particularly close look was enough to see that they were clear lenses, no prescription at all – not that the average person even knew to look for that, let alone how or where to look. Peter Parker's gaze flicked to me for a moment, eyes widening with slight alarm, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was his genuine response at realizing he'd interrupted my meeting with Jameson, or a result of his Spider Sense latching onto something I couldn't fathom.
"Parker! Quit gawking and get over here!" Jameson yelled, which left me wincing slightly; he was loud when he wanted to be, and my hearing was quite a bit more sensitive than the average human's.
Peter, to his credit, practically glided over the floor, his footsteps making no sound as he approached Jameson's desk and handed over his photographs.
"Alright, let's see… crap," Jameson flung the photograph over his shoulder. "Crap, crap, has some promise, crap, blurry, crap, aperture's fucked, crap—hold on, I think we got a winner!" Jameson pulled one photo out of the stack and turned it towards me. It showed Spider-Man swinging by a row of police cars, the police turned with their guns pointed at him, the New York Stock Exchange clearly visible in the background. "Front page material! I can see it now: 'Masked Maniac Menaces Monetarists'!"
"Isn't that the Shocker?" I asked, injecting as much sarcasm as I could while pointing at the figure on the steps before the Exchange, still clearly identifiable despite the distance.
"That out of focus little blob?" Jameson asked. "Bah! Don't you see where the cops are aiming? It's clearly Spider-Man at fault here!"
"Jameson, while you know I'm not one to defend Spider-Man," I started, being very mindful of the teen still in the room with us, "even I think you're a little out on a limb with that one."
Jameson frowned at me, turned the photograph back towards himself, and inspected it.
"Hm. Maybe not front page, then. Page two!"
He put that one photo down on his desk, scribbled out a note, put it atop the pile of other photos. He then proceeded to fling the lot at Peter, who managed to grab all of the papers out of the air in one graceful movement, disguised with a bit of gratuitous flailing afterwards. Again, it was a lot easier to notice if you were one, aware that's what was happening, and two, looking for it.
"Alright Parker, drop off your negatives and get that note to Robby, he'll handle your pay. And don't forget to say if you developed anyone else's film for them!" Jameson added on, even as Peter was already turning to leave. "If you did the work, you get the pay!"
"Thank you, Mr. Jameson, sir!"
And with that, Peter Parker left the room, just as quickly as he entered.
I turned back towards the desk, and saw Jameson holding back up his new 8x10 glossy of Spider-Man, smiling and laughing as he looked at it.
"Your premier photographer of Spider-Man is a teenager," I said, my tone matter-of-fact. I knew exactly what was going on there, but I had a chance to needle John Jonah Jameson. And I'd be damned if I let that slip.
"Not by choice, I assure you," Jameson said, dropping the glossy, and with it, his grin. A deep frown now crossed his face, his brow furrowing heavily along with it. "I don't know what the webhead has on Parker, but mark my words, one day I will get that disguised dastard what's coming to him!"
"What Spider-Man 'has on him'?" I asked, leaning forward with concern. "You're sounding a little paranoid."
"Nah," Jameson said, with a shake of his head. "I know my photographers, Schaefer. I've sent them into firefights, the middle of nowhere; hell, I've sent them into warzones. These people are consummate professionals, and I've seen them get photographs I would've called impossible. But Spider-Man?" Jameson groaned. "He knows. I don't know how the webhead does it, maybe he's got eyes in the back of his goddamn head. But every time one of my guys gets in position, their camera lens gets webbed!"
"And then here comes this young Mr. Parker, with actual pictures of Spider-Man," I said, giving Jameson what he wanted.
"Which he can't possibly be getting unless the webhead is letting him!" Jameson almost yells, and then falls back into his chair. "So of course I take the photos. Nobody else has photos of Spider-Man either; they all have to buy the rights to them from the Bugle. And Parker, bless his heart, but that poor kid hasn't got a goddamn clue that he's dropping gold on my desk."
"If you're taking advantage of him…" I trailed off in warning.
"I have an account set aside for when Parker turns eighteen and can legally claim it," Jameson revealed. "His royalties. Is it the biggest? No, but it's enough to get his ass through college, and away from that damned menace! Even if I have to give up all pictures of Spider-Man!"
I sighed. While the ultimate sentiment was of a particularly altruistic bent? Well… it was ultimately soured by the source. Namely, the vendetta John Jonah Jameson held against a man he'd never met, nor encountered, nor had an ill word spoken towards him from them.
Jameson's hatred of Spider-Man was a ridiculous thing, and in my opinion, it was bringing down the reputation of the Bugle as a news source. It was particularly noticeable when everything else was top-notch, unbiased reporting, without the liberal bent of the Times or the conservative slant of the Journal. It gave the facts, it offered both sides of an argument, and if one side ever strayed too far, it rebuked them in the op-eds.
But all that objectivity went right out the window where Spider-Man was concerned, and frankly, it was annoying.
"Why do you have such a problem with Spider-Man anyway?" I asked, somewhat expecting that my question would wind up being rhetorical.
"His face!" Jameson pulled his still-unlit cigar out of his mouth, and pointed it at me. "He won't show his face. Can't trust him!"
"And what about the Avengers' Iron Man?" I asked, drumming my fingers on the arm of the chair I sat in. "His face is obscured entirely, too, and he's never been seen without it, nor do we know who he is under the suit."
"Ah, but the difference there is he's held accountable!" Jameson crowed. "If the Iron Man fucks up, Stark has to deal with it. After all, he's the one who hired him, made his stuff. But the Spider-Man?" He scoffed. "None of that. Cause you see, it's not just the webhead's face. It's that one day, he could screw up, get people killed… and then the Spider-Man disappears, and now there's nobody left to blame."
I could see the points Jameson made. The way he got from start to finish, the rationale he used to come to that conclusion.
But that didn't mean I agreed with it.
"Regardless," I said, standing up from my chair and picking up my purse. "If I could offer some unsolicited advice that I expect you'll also hear from your in-house counsel? Tone it down," I told him. "The Bugle's coverage of Spider-Man is almost libel, and the only reason it isn't is because, legally speaking, Spider-Man doesn't quite fit the definition of a public figure."
"So don't try to make the webhead part of a scandal, that's it." Jameson opened up a drawer and pulled out a large matchbox, withdrawing one to strike, then glanced at me. "What? I know the definition of defamation too, you know. I've had legal breathing down my neck for decades, Schaefer. I can handle myself."
"If you insist," I said, holding back my sigh. "Have a good day, Jameson. Enjoy your pictures of Spider-Man."
"We'll call when it's interview time!" Jameson said by way of reply, even as I pushed open the door to his office and left.
Sunday, December 3, 1989
9:07 am
While NYU was quite the university, there were a few things that it lacked.
Good dorms were one of them, at least back in the mid 70's. I'd managed to finagle a single dorm for myself as a freshman and sophomore due to 'religious' reasons (having a rabbi at the ready came in handy for that), because otherwise I'd have been outed as a mutant within five minutes, but even that had been… well, a shoebox at best. It was a tight squeeze as it was, even with me being less than five feet tall, and I'm fairly certain I poked a couple of holes in the walls with my horns.
If it was small enough for me to have space issues, I couldn't imagine what taller people had dealt with.
But enough reminiscing about the early days of college life. Back to the university's deficits, and for one that actually mattered… the NYU tennis teams did not have courts available on campus to practice.
Instead, they needed to go out to the Bronx, to the Stadium Tennis Center. Which, thankfully for all of us involved, had twelve indoor courts, and a heated entryway-plus-administrative-area, leading to the locker rooms. It was far too cold outside to be playing tennis, and it was also threatening freezing rain. I would have to be exceptionally careful not to trip on my way, lest I slip, fall, and need to find a lawyer of my own.
And so it was with the front desk and locker rooms behind me that I watched the NYU men's and women's tennis teams filter into the building. The first few arrivals quickly filed to the sides and stripped off heavy winter wear before turning to see the duo awaiting them: Jacques Canter, and myself. Beside us lay a folding table. Upon that folding table rested a single stack of paper, a can of tennis balls, twelve camcorders, five dozen blank tapes, thirty identically-labeled VHS tapes, and a large, hard-walled briefcase.
The contents of that table had cost many thousands of dollars. They would have cost more if not for Black Friday, so thank goodness for small mercies.
Once everybody had filed in, and the head coach came up to confirm with me that this was everyone, I blew into a small whistle I'd brought along to get everybody's attention. Well, not really to get their attention, Jacques and I had that already.
More to get the murmuring to quiet down.
"Good morning everybody," I began. "My name is Noa Schaefer, and I am an attorney. I'd wager more than a few of you recognize my companion here; this is Jacques Canter, the rightful winner of this year's US Open."
"The mutant cheater?"
"Who said that?" I asked, immediately looking over the assembled student athletes with a Look (trademark pending). Sure enough, the power of The Look (trademark pending) forced the speaker to the front. "And this is?" I asked the coach, who stood next to Jacques and me.
"Ricky," the college student said before his coach got a chance to answer.
"Alright then," I said. "Ricky. You called him the 'mutant cheater'." I reached behind me, took the can of tennis balls off the table, and walked forward a few paces. "Answer me this then. How did he cheat?"
"Huh?" Ricky asked, quite intelligently.
"I mean," I continued, opening up the can of tennis balls, pulling one out, putting the lid back on, and tossing it behind me to Jacques. "I know how I, specifically, would have cheated."
I flicked out a hand, called on my magic, and sparked a small orb of light into being. Pretty much everybody flinched at the display, even as all I did was take the light and bend it around the tennis ball, which had the fun effect of guiding all other light around it as well, and left me with a near-invisible tennis ball in my hand.
"This is how I would cheat," I said, holding out my hand so everybody could, well, not see the almost-invisible tennis ball. "But that's me. So how did Jacques Canter cheat, Ricky?"
I received no answer. The seconds ticked by, and still no words were forthcoming from the young student athlete I'd put on the spot.
"How about the rest of the class?" I asked. "Can any of you tell me how the mutant cheater Jacques Canter used his powers to cheat?"
Once again, silence.
"I didn't think so."
I tossed the invisible tennis ball in my hand upward ever so slightly, turned around to walk back towards the table. When the ball hit the floor, the glamour I'd placed on it shattered into fragments of rainbow static, drawing sharp gasps and hisses of surprise from the students.
"Ladies and gentlemen, today I am putting forward a challenge." I approached the table and pulled the briefcase off of it, holding it in front of me. "In the official announcement from the Association of Tennis Professionals that stripped my client of his title and banned him from the sport, the organization cited Boris Becker's statements. In those statements, Becker pointed out five specific points that my client won, and said that the five shots he made were, and I quote, 'impossible to make without using his mutant powers'. I disagree."
I popped the latches on the briefcase, grabbed it by one handle, and let the briefcase fall open.
Bundles of cold hard cash fell out and scattered across the floor, hundred-dollar bills bound together with paper bands.
"On the table behind me are camcorders, blank video tapes, video tapes with the full Becker v. Canter finals of the US Open, and templates to write reports," I told them. Some part of me was surprised that none of them had lunged for the cash littering the floor.
Another part of me rationalized this failure in one of two ways: either they were shocked into inaction, or they were too scared of the mutant to make a go for it.
"My challenge to you is this: I want you to partner up and work together to recreate each and every one of these so-called 'impossible' shots, and I want it on video. For each and every successful recreation of one of my client's 'impossible' shots, and an accompanying report filled out, I will award five thousand dollars to both of the athletes involved." My smile turned downright feral. "For those of you who are still trying to process that: if you manage to recreate all five shots, then you will get twenty. Five. Thousand. Dollars."
I dropped the briefcase on the ground. About half of the athletes jumped at the sound.
"You have until the opening day of the Australian Open to undertake this challenge!" I yelled. "I trust I don't need to tell a team of collegiate tennis players when that is, no? Camcorders and blank video tapes are on the table behind me, one camcorder for each court available. Now hop to it!" I said, clapping my hands.
Ricky, the student who'd first been called out, impressed me by being the first to step up. After him, a trickle turned into a flood, and soon, nothing was left on the table behind me. Amazingly, however, all of the money was still left on the floor in front of me.
I guessed they just didn't want to risk tangling with a mutant.
"You know you could be out most of a million on this, right?" The team's coach murmured this from behind me, even as I knelt down to collect the money and put it back in the briefcase.
"I honestly hope so!" I replied, chipper as ever. "Consider this an investment, Coach."
"Into what?" The coach asked.
"Something oh so simple, dear sir."
I clicked the briefcase closed, and turned to flash the coach a smile, full to the brim with too many teeth.
"Coffin nails."
Notes:
So before I forget: one of my readers on a different site (the forum Sufficient Velocity) is a wonderful artist, and did some incredible FANART!
So please, enjoy some artwork, and if you want to check out this reader's artwork, a link to their Twitter is below! (and if somebody could teach me how to properly embed links in these note boxes... I would appreciate it?...)