CH25: F.E.A.S.T. Your Eyes.

"So that's what you look like, huh?" I muttered, looking at my Crime Board and thumbing the illusion ring. I was getting into the habit of wearing it everywhere, even in my sleep, in case the building got attacked and I had to escape with my identity intact.

James had found and sent me a photo of Mr. Negative, which I'd printed out and put it on top of his name on the Board.

I'd also managed to sneak some photos of mid-level movers in the Dragon Lords gang, which I'd put down along with their names. Since Kamala and I were still healing, our investigation mostly consisted of her going little and sneaking around to put names to faces, while I took pictures from a distance. It wasn't perfect, but it worked for now.

A knock came upon my door, and I said, "It's open, Kamala."

"That's still so creepy," she complained, as she walked in. "You could pretend to not know who's at the door, at least."

"Yeah? Well, like the proctologist told the backed-up colon: tough shit." I gestured for her to sit on the bed, which she reluctantly did. I grabbed the first-aid kit that Bruno had leant me, since medical operations in a motel where slightly less dangerous than in a cornerstore bathroom, and Kamala pulled down her shirt. "Looks to be healing fine. Does it still hurt?"

"Only when I move too much, or it gets hit," Kamala had learned her lesson about saying she was fine after last session, where I flicked the wound to prove the point. "How much longer?"

It had been a little over a week since we fought Rhino. My ribs still hurt, but not as bad as before, and Kamala's bullet wounds were almost completely healed as far as I could tell.

"Not too much. Less than a week at most." I changed her bandages, which were almost unstained, and patted her unharmed shoulder. "At least you'll get a cool scar out of it, huh?"

"Yeah, because Muslim girls show of their scars so much."

I laughed. Kamala had been getting more comfortable with me, mostly out of necessity as I she kept having to take off her shirt around me.

(Sidenote: I'd been getting to see Ms. Marvel shirtless. Good on you, me.)

"What are you thinking of doing, once we're all healed up?" She asked, as she got redressed, and I went back to glaring at my Crime Board, Board of All Crimes. "I mean, so far we know a bit of who's who in the organization, but not much about the actual business."

"We need to grab them all in one fell swoop," I said, glad I got an excuse to say 'all in one fell swoop'. "They already know we're after them, so they must be preparing. If we tip our hand too much, Negative will completely change the way he plays, or even pick up his shit and move somewhere on the other side of the country."

"Right," Kamala said. "So we gather evidence?"

"Yeah, that's the first step. You'll probably heal before me, so I'll be sending you out to certain locations to get in close and personal. As soon as I can jump around without blacking out from pain, I'll join you and we can interrogate some thugs-"

"Without throwing them off buildings."

"... without throwing them off of buildings, yes." I supressed an eyeroll, only because I wasn't wearing a mask. "From that step, we'll gather important information like how many Capes Negative has, how far his empire extends, how he launders his money, etcetera. After that, we see if we can get some outside help for the corrupt cops, who we'll hopefully have completely identified. While cops deal with cops -or as I like to think of it, a bacon vs. bacon BBQ- we'll deal with the Cape side of things, maybe with some help from some acquaintances of mine."

"You have Cape acquaintances? I mean, I know about Daredevil and Black Widow, but-"

"I was thinking Johnny Storm, and maybe Tony Stark if he's up for it. I don't wanna use my favor with Loki."

Marvel gaped at me. "Everything you just said blew my mind."

I smirked. I liked being the cool experienced Cape in a conversation, for once.

"So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Michelle raises an eyebrow at me. "Seriously? What are you, my mom?"

"I'd be seriously worried if you talked to your mother in that tone, young lady."

She gives me a smirk, and proceeds to ignore me. It's Monday again, so that means I can annoy her while she tries to paint stuff. MJ is currently doing a study on 'People in Crisis', and she's been trying to get a good angle on her teacher. I'd gotten a picture of him drinking from a flask in the middle of class, and she's been using it as reference.

"But really, what do you wanna do?"

She gives me a look out of the corner of her eye, but answers. "I've been thinking about journalism. Wanna expose racist rich people for their crap."

"It definitely has the appeal of job security."

She chuckles, which makes the teacher look over because sounds of joy have never been made in art class before.

"Hey, are you supposed to be here?" He asks me.

"Do you actually care?" I ask.

He thinks it over, shrugs, and goes back to browsing cat videos on his phone.

I watch MJ put the finishing silver touches on the teacher's flask for a while, then pipe in. "So, you want to work on a news station or a paper?"

"Well, print is dead, which has its own appeal, but I think being the one that asks politicians uncomfortable questions that makes them babble and break into tears is the way to go for me." She said. "What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Hm," I lean back and think it over. "Well, my childhood dream of being an Avenger and living off of Tony Stark might never come true, so I guess I'll be an English teacher."

She gave me a surprised look. "You'd become what you swore to destroy?"

I laugh, surprised at the reference.

"I know, I know. It's pretty low of be, but..." I make a vague gesture in the air. "You ever have that one teacher that was sort of cool and made you like a subject that you always hated?"

"Sure."

"Well, I didn't. And I guess I kinda want be that to the little shits I'll teach."

She finishes her painting and puts down the brush. "You probably won't be if you call them 'little shits'."

"What if I call them 'little turds'?"

"Oh, then you'll be their favourite teacher," she turns around the painint and shows it to me. "What do you think?"

"Haunting." And it was. She'd put a painstaking amount of detail into it, from the lines on the teacher's forehead to the single drop of scotch going down his chin. The work with the light was great, illuminating the flask but covering half the teacher's face with shadows. "You gonna show it to him? Might drive him to suicide."

"God no," she puts it down to dry and puts a different canvas she'd been carrying in a bag. This one had a half-finished painting of herself. "I'm just gonna hand this in and blame it on teen angst."

"Nice."

The painting was almost finished by the time class ended, so MJ packed her stuff and we walked out.

"By the way, are you doing anything after school?" I asked her.

"Why?"

"I'm bored and new in town, and I don't have much to do." It was even true. Marvel was completely healed, while I still had a couple days left, so she'd been finding which businesses were owned by Negative and which just paid him to not wreck their shit. Surprisingly, we'd found only two out of eighty businesses we'd looked into were owned by the man, and he barely involved himself with 'em.

"Oh, um," she shrugged. "I volunteer at this place, the F.E.A.S.T. Shelter for the Homeless?"

"Ironic name, but go on?"

"Well, it's not exactly exciting. You can come with, if you like, but I doubt you'll be any less bored." She seemed a bit awkward.

"If it's no problem, I think I'd like to go," I shrugged.

"Oh, sure! Yeah, no, it's no big deal," she gave me a small smile. "After school?"

"After school," I nodded. "Now, I gotta go pretend I understand math for a while."

"Good luck," she said. MJ still had that little smile when she walked away. I don't think she had a lot of luck with making friends before I swung around (no pun intended).

I headed off. Soon, I was stuck in the hell that was trying to remember formulas while balancing numbers in my head.

Shortly after class ended, I met on the rooftop with Kamala.

"Anything new?" I asked.

"Nothing," she shrugged. "I busted a few heads, made sure to look even more clueless than we are, but I couldn't find anything new. Everyone's too scared of Mr. Negative to help us."

"Dammit," I sighed. "This is why I throw people off of buildings, otherwise they're too scared of the Mob Boss to talk."

"We're not-"

"I know, I know!" I leaned back. "So we're stuck?"

"Looks that way. Maybe when you're all fixed up you can help out, see if you spot anything I missed?"

"Maybe." I sighed, patting my ribs experimentally. It'd been two weeks since Rhino. Patting them was a burst of pain, but it barely hurt to breathe anymore and I'd managed to do a backflip without passing out from pain. Not to mention walking up a wall to get to the roof. "I definitely hope so. I get the feeling that with me here, Negative thinks he has a shot with New York."

"We'll stop him." Kamala said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "We're the best damn team-up there ever was! Ms. Marvel and the Amazing Spider-Man!"

"Spectacular," I corrected. "You can have Amazing."

"You're sure?" her eyes sparkled when I nodded. "Yes! My own hero adjective!"

"Congratulations," I said, moving towards the back wall of the school. "If you'll excuse me, I'm supposed to meet MJ."

"Who?"

"Y'know, MJ," I looked at her. Kamala was a lot more popular than she realized, with how almost everyone liked her, but there's wasn't even a spark of recognition in her face. "Michelle Jones?"

"Oh, yeah!" Kamala made a weird face, which was super noticeable because she always stretched something on her face when she was being weird about something. "That MJ. Good ol' MJ. I thought you meant another MJ, but-"

"You had no idea friends call her MJ, did you?"

"None whatsoever." She shamelessly admitted. "How do you know that?"

"We're friends, duh." I was halfway down the wall when Kamala rushed down to meet me.

"You befriended Michelle?! Dude, I've been trying to do that for months!"

"It was more like she befriended me, honestly," I jumped down and landed with a small wince, but walked it off. "Maybe you should be less in-your-face happy and just greet her normally? And definitely don't call her MJ if you're not her friend."

Kamala went in another direction, muttering under her breath about unfair foreign Capes, while I walked to the front of the school.

"... and they're called 'I Don't Know How But They Found Me'." I said.

"Sounds like a 'Panic At The Disco!' ripoff," MJ snorted, as we walked to the shelter.

"Oh, it almost definitely is. One of their songs is called 'Nobody Likes The Opening Band' or something."

"I have to hear this," she said, already pulling out her phone and looking them up. "How'd you even find out about them?"

"Youtube recommendations. No idea why." I shrugged.

"I think you know why," she smiled at me. "Been listening to edgy tween bands, Fletcher?"

"I resent the accusation," I said, folding my arms and looking away. "I've done no such thing!"

"Yeah, okay," she said, clearly not believing me. "Speaking of music, you ever hear about how the Ramones mindwiped people?"

"No, but I guess that makes sense, since I listen to the Ramones."

"Right, so there's this theory that some secret corporations wanted the youth to act rebellious so parents could be talked into controlling them better, right? So they got the Ramones to make music with subliminal messages to get young people to go around fucking stuff up." She explained animatedly. "And then the same corporations swoop in and make the parents react by trying to control the teens, so there's this whole conflict while both sides pay the corporations for Ramones merchandise and for stuff to make the teens calm down, like bibles and stuff."

"Sounds overly complicated," I said. "I'd buy it."

We kept making small talk until we reached the F.E.A.S.T. Shelter. The sign at the front explained that 'F.E.A.S.T.' stood for 'Food, Emergency Aid, Shelter and Training'. Just from being outside, I could hear how full the place was.

I could hear men, women and children -teens not much older or younger than me- throwing up in the bathrooms and shuddering under covers, going through the symptoms of withdrawal. I could hear sobbing, arguing, and more. People going through the worst of being at the bottom of society. I even heard a few sneaking off to the back, glass objects in their hands.

I could also hear a volunteer teaching a class how to cook, and complimenting everyone on their improvement. I heard one of the homeless men helping someone he'd apparently never met through their withdrawal, rubbing soothing circles on their back and whispering soothing words. I heard two people talking and joking and helping each other write their resumes.

I remembered how Matt told me that the worst part of having enhanced hearing was that you suddenly became aware of everything you usually ignore because it's behind a wall. He told me that the only way he kept from going insane some days was that sometimes, that was also the best part. That you sometimes became aware of acts of the most senseless and generous kindness.

"We take the good with the bad," he'd told me. It was good advice.

MJ pointed me towards the front desk, where I had to do some paperwork to get a plastic volunteer badge. Once I got it, she met me inside.

The main room, where people slept, studied and pretty much lived, was what had at one point been a basketball court, modified to hold several rows of bunk beds, almost all of them in use. Michelle gave me a quick tour, showing me the kitchen area, the bathrooms, and a small room set aside to teach people the basics they'd need (math, English, etcetera) in case they needed it.

There was also a small area set aside for medical attention, which is pretty much where I stayed. Once I explained I had a bit of practice with first aid and stitching people up (which got me weird looks until I said I was from New York, at which point they turned into understanding nods) they gave me a small kit filled to the brim with everything I needed.

It was sort of a blur after that; F.E.A.S.T. gave free healthcare not just to homeless and poor, but to everyone, so there was a long stream of people that wanted to live, but not in the debt of a hospital. I had to help someone that'd gotten stabbed in a mugging, someone that got run over and had the guy that hit him drive him to the place, someone with a broken leg, and so on.

At one point, a woman that looked to be in her 30's brough a kid, who was doing his level best to scream. She explained how he fell from the stairs, and how she'd heard something crack. I quickly figured his ribs were broken, and had to stifle an inapropiate laugh.

'Oh, you broke your ribs falling down some stairs, kid? I got my ass handed to me by a twelve-foot Russian thug with fucking power armor and a code of honor!'

Instead of saying that, of course, I asked someone to get me some ice, got the kid to take something for the pain, and explained to the mother how to take care of the ribs. She questioned how much I knew, so I lifted up my shirt to show her the bruises still littering my chest and said that I knew pretty god-damned much.

She kept quiet and noted down every bit of advice I gave her after that.

After some more time helping people, Michelle came over and told me it was time for my break, so I took off the disposable gloves and joined her in the staff room.

"Was taking off your shirt really necessary?" she asked me, as she handed me a cup of coffee. I tried it, and almost cried at the taste of the first decent cup of java in weeks. Circle Q could go to hell. "I mean, we all liked the show, but it felt a bit dramatic."

"Oh? You liked the show?" I smiled.

"Don't get too flattered, Fletcher," She smirked back. "I've seen better."

"In my defense, I'm a little messed up."

"In the head, maybe."

I snapped my fingers. "I knew I left you that opening as soon as I said it."

"Yeah, you're pretty out of shape. You sure you're okay?"

Aw, she's masking worry with mocking.

"I'm fine, MJ, it was just some asshole that tried to mug me."

"Hm," she sipped her own cup, and we stayed there in companioable silence for a while.

It came to a finish when an Asian man (possibly Chinese) wearing a black suit walked in. He walked around the break room, greeting people and making a bit of small talk. He wore a kindly smile, and had laugh lines as well as worry lines on his face. There was something about him, though, that set me on edge. Something vaguely familiar.

When he reached MJ and I, he stopped to stare at me before exchanging some pleasantries with Michelle.

I tensed up in preparation to fight for my life. If I gave Michelle a small shove to get her out of the way, I could take him down quick unless he was supernaturally strong or something. Maybe if I tossed him into a wall, I'd have time to grab a table and smash it into him? Dammit, I should have brought my webshooters-

"Well, it seems there's a new face here!" he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. I loosened my muscles just before he touched me. "It's nice to meet you, Mister...?"

"Fletcher," I gave a fake little smile. "Jake Fletcher. And you are?"

"I'm Martin Li, proud founder of F.E.A.S.T." Butter wouldn't have melted in his fucking mouth. "Are you a friend of our Michelle?"

"Good question," I turned to look at her. "Am I?"

Butter wouldn't have melted in mine either.

"He's a jerk that invaded my art class," she said, tone flatter than... something really flat. I dunno, is Texas flat? Flatter than Texas. "But he knows a bit about medicine, so I brought him so he'd be useful."

"Ouch," Li said, with an obviously fake wince. "Well, I've got to go check on some stuff. Keep up the good work, guys!"

He left the break room, and I almost sighed in relief.

"Okay, what was that?" MJ immidiately asked me. "As soon as you saw him, you got all tense."

"I don't know, I just think I've seen-"

And something in my brain went 'PING!'.

I fished my phone from my pocket and started looking through the pictures.

"Um, Jake?"

"Oh, sonuva whore," I said. I looked at the picture of Mr. Negative, and compared it to Martin Li. I showed it to Michelle. "Does he look similar to Li to you?"

"What?" she looked at my phone. "Um, kinda, I guess? Isn't that a villain?"

"Yeah, he is." I selected the camera on my phone, put on the negative filter, and ran off. "Wait here!"

"Like hell," she muttered, following a bit behind me.

I rushed up to Li, who was talking to a man wearing a suit and shaking his hand. The man in a suit was thanking Li about how he got his job thanks to F.E.A.S.T., and I took the chance to talk to him as soon as the man left.

"Excuse me, Mister Li?" he turned. "I was texting to my mom, and she thinks your name sounds familiar. Could I send her a picture?"

"Oh, um, sure! You can just call me Martin, though." he walked up to a wall, crossed his arms, and made a 'cool' pose against it, which he immidiately ruined by giving me a dopey smile. "Okay, ready?"

I took the picture. "Yup, all done."

Once Li left, MJ and I returned to the break room and stood with our backs to our corner. She looked over my shoulder as I compared the pictures.

Martin Li and Mister Negative looked damn near exactly the same, right down to the suit, the laugh lines, and the worry lines. The only difference was the goofy smile on Li's face, while all Negative showed was a cold, calculating look.

"Well, shit." Michelle said.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking."

"What the fuck do we do now?" she said, in that little hiss people make when they want to shout and whisper at the same time. "Why do you even have a picture of Evil Li on your phone?"

"He calls himself Mr. Negative," I corrected. "And I can't tell you."

"The hell you can't!" she tried to grab my phone, and I tilted it out of the way. "Jake-!"

"Michelle," I interrupted. I pointed at everyone else in the break room, and she groaned with frustration. She then grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and dragged me out back. "Okay, now you can shout at me."

"Gladly," she growled. "What the hell is going on?!"

"Okay," I took a deep breath. "There's a lot I can't tell you, but the basic bullet points are: Mr. Negative's trying to move into New York. I'm looking into him. This is the biggest clue I have."

"Clue? For what?"

"How he launders his money," I pointed a thumb at the shelter. "There's buildings like this in different parts of town, right?"

"Um, yeah, like two or three? I just go to this one."

"Well, as far as I know, over fourty businesses pay protection to Mr. Negative, and that's just the ones I checked," I started pacing nervously. "There's also all his thugs, who are pretty well-armed. And this is the only place I've managed to connect directly to Negative."

"Shit. You mean I've been helping a gangster?"

"Well, you've also helped a lot of homeless people. But yeah, also a gangster."

Michelle groaned and leaned back against the wall. "I'm not even going to suggest we take this to the police."

"Already tried. Friend got shot."

"Whoa, what?" She looked at me. "Are they okay?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point." I grabbed Michelle by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. "You need to make sure no one knows that you know anything. Same for me. Same for my friend."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

I wince. She's definitely not going to let me keep her out of this. Michelle had the rare trait of being someone that regularly gave a fuck about stuff.

"... If you're up for it..." I said, hoping she'd interrupt me and shout something like 'No! Not at all! Get me away from the crazy villains!'. She didn't, so I kept going. "Maybe keep an eye on Li? I'm not telling you to break into his office or something, just keep me updated if he does anything weird."

"What if he notices?" she asked.

"Uh, fuck, um," I thought it over. "Tell him that... you... want to be a bigger part of F.E.A.S.T.? Yeah, that works!"

"A bigger part of F.E.A.S.T.? So, like, I'm following him around, trying to understand how the bureocrat side of things works?" She nodded, her enthusiasm increasing. "Actually, that can really work. If I get to peek into his documents-"

"-Then you can find evidence that he's been laundering money!" I smiled. This was actually going a lot better than expected. "Oh my god, this is a huge break in this god damned case! It's been driving me nuts to keep working with practically nothing."

"Yeah, by the way, are you Spider-Man?"

Oh god dammit.

"... and that's why MJ's working with us now." I explained, gesturing at my Michelle, who was standing to my right and behind me. "Any questions?"

"How are you so bad at hiding your secret identity, dude?" Marvel asked, somewhere between amusement and annoyance. "Also, does she know who I am? Did you tell her?"

"No!" I said, indignant. How could she think I'd go around telling people her secret-

"Yes." Michelle said, cheery. "You're Kamala Khan."

"Not as far as I knew two seconds ago!" I said, in the exact same tone, before turning to look at MJ. "Seriously, what?"

"She literally just wears a bit of fabric around her eyes. It's not what you'd call a foolproof disguise." Michelle pointed out. "I don't really talk to her that much, and I like the work she does as Ms. Marvel, so I just left her alone."

"Great," Marvel said, ripping off her mask, now firmly annoyed. "So nobody here has a secret identity."

"Yeah, we kinda suck at this." I admitted with a shrug. "I'd suggest we both get better masks and suits, but I'm already literally covering every inch of skin with mine."

"You two are fine," Michelle said. "No one really thinks about Jake 'cause he's just some crazy guy from New York, and everyone knows Kamala is some Avengers-obsessed nerd, so they don't believe she could actually be Ms. Marvel without telling everyone about how cool it is to be a hero. I'm just observant."

Ouch. For me and for Kamala.

"Well, ignoring that piece of brutal honesty," I said. "Now that we know who Negative really is, we can move forward with the investigation."

We were meeting on the roof of my apartment. Marvel had suited and Michelle was wearing a mask I'd loaned her, even though she didn't want to keep her identity hidden from Kamala, while I was still in civilian clothing.

Once we were done deciding what to do, Kamala went off on patrol, and MJ helped me carry the Crime Board, Crimiest of all Boards, back down.

"How do you breathe with that thing on, anyway?" she said, tossing the mask on my bed. "I felt like my hair was trying to kill me."

I pointed at my own undercut.

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense." She sat on my bed, while I hung up the Crime Board, mastermind of all Board-related Crimes. "So why are you doing this?"

"What part of this? Hanging the Crime Board? Dicking around in Jersey?"

"The cape part," I turned around and found her sitting cross-legged on my bed. "I mean, it's cool and all, but it seems dangerous."

"Well, yeah," I shrugged. "Sorry about lying, but the broken ribs weren't because of a mugging."

"I figured that out too, yeah." She gestured vaguely at me. "So?"

"No special reason. I figured it was the right thing to do, so I did it." I shrugged. "I got pretty good at it, so I keep doing it."

"Just like that, huh?" she laid down on my bed. "That's kind of why I want to be a journalist, honestly. I'm good at figuring out the truth."

"Well, I'm glad there's someone like you out there, hounding for news," I said. "Can I get you anything to drink? There's nothing here, but I can run to the store."

"Nah," she got up and off my bed. "I think I'll just go home."

"Want me to walk you? It's pretty late."

"... I'd like that, Spider-Man."