Time moved quickly.
Hospital.
Jack Kadere sat in a chair, idly peeling an apple with a fruit knife. In the room, two very familiar figures occupied the beds: Tony Stark in the one to the left, and Stephen Strange in the one to the right.
It was ironic that the two men, both geniuses in their own fields, had ended up as roommates in the same ward. At least, Jack thought, they wouldn't be bored.
Tony's condition wasn't particularly bad—just a minor concussion from the chaos in Monaco. Still, the hospital checkups had revealed something far more serious: palladium poisoning steadily worsening from the arc reactor embedded in his chest. Pepper Potts had chewed him out so thoroughly the billionaire playboy had been forced to stay put and "rest."
Strange, however, looked far worse. His hands were wrapped in thick bandages, the damage severe. He lay there looking miserable, his voice raspy and filled with regret as he cursed Ivan Vanko.
"That damned Russian psycho! I swear, I'll sue him for everything he has! Prison for life isn't enough—I want him locked away in the darkest hole on Earth!"
Tony, who had originally intended to start sniping sarcastically at Jack for meddling in Monaco, held back his tongue. He glanced at Strange's ruined hands, and instead of mocking, offered a few awkward words of comfort.
Jack smirked. No comparison, no harm. These two really are something else.
"Try to look on the bright side."
He casually handed the apple peel, not the fruit itself, to both beds. "Want some?"
"Get lost!"
"Scram!"
Two indignant voices snapped in unison.
"Nurse! Nurse!"
"Kick this guy out already!"
Jack ignored them, bit into the apple, and chewed happily as a stream of notification chimes rolled from his phone.
No, they weren't messages for Stark or Strange—they were for him.
Jessica Jones: [Brother, I saw the news! Are you okay?!] Gwen Stacy: [Jack, there was a terrorist attack at the Monaco Grand Prix—tell me you're safe!] Felicia Hardy: [Master~ do you need me to come keep you company~?] Skye: [I dug into it—the attacker's name is Ivan Vanko, son of Anton Vanko. Not some random thug.] Cindy Moon: [I saw the footage! You spelled out letters on the track! So cool!]
And so on.
Sitting there with his phone buzzing with warm concern and playful voices, Jack couldn't help but grin.
Tony, on the other hand, was furious. "Are you kidding me?! We're the ones lying here injured, and you're getting love letters?! Give me that apple, dammit! Give it here!"
"Easy, Tony." Jack shoved a banana into his mouth. "Eat this instead."
"Mmph—hey!" Stark spat out the fruit. "At least peel it first, you lunatic! I'm a patient, show some gentleness!"
"Don't say such effeminate things, Tony," Jack shot back.
Then he noticed Strange had gone quiet. With a flick, Jack produced a folded parchment and placed it on Strange's lap. "Don't sulk. A woman asked me to give this to you."
Strange blinked. "A woman?"
Stark perked up instantly, zeroing in on the keyword. "So while we were nearly killed, you were out meeting another beauty?!"
Jack shook his head. "Not like that. She just insisted this was for Stephen."
Strange struggled to unfold the map using his mouth, then cursed at his bandaged hands. "Nurse!"
Jack sighed, unfolded it for him, and revealed a map of Nepal. A specific location had been circled in red.
"What's this supposed to mean?" Strange asked, clearly puzzled. He hadn't yet begun his desperate, globe-trotting search for a cure, so magic was nowhere near his belief system.
"Magic, Stephen," Jack said simply. "When you hit a dead end, give it a shot. But don't come running to me—I've got my own problems."
Strange frowned. "What the hell are you talking about…?"
Before Jack could answer, Tony shoved two folded papers at him. "Here. Don't ask questions—just take them. And one of them, pass it to Black Spider. You're always in contact with that masked freak anyway."
Jack looked at the slips and blinked. Checks. A lot of zeros.
"Wow. Mr. Stark, you're generous today. Still alive and already distributing your fortune?"
"Don't push your luck, Kadere," Tony muttered.
Jack slipped the checks into his jacket. "Alright, fine. Listen carefully, because I'm not repeating this. The cure to your palladium problem lies in the city model your father left behind. Look at it again. That's where the key to synthesizing a new element is hidden."
Tony froze. "What? How the hell do you know that?"
"I told you not to ask." Jack grinned. "Cindy's Spider-Sense doesn't just detect danger. Sometimes she glimpses fragments of what's to come. Think of it as… future static."
"Cindy Moon… Silk?!" Tony scribbled another check on the spot and shoved it into Jack's chest pocket, eyes burning. "Give that girl my thanks. Whatever it costs, make sure she knows."
Jack groaned and patted his pockets. Three fat checks now. Money really was chasing him.
.....
Some time later…
"Help! Save us!"
"No! Please, no!"
Women screamed as they were dragged by a group of rough-looking gang members toward a line of shipping containers at the docks. Their cries were drowned out by laughter.
"Hehehe, shut your mouths!" the gang leader barked. He carried a metal bucket in one hand and a stun baton in the other. "Each of you's worth a grand on the market. So either stay quiet and I hand you water… or don't, and I hand you pain."
He flicked the switch, and the tip of the baton crackled with blue sparks.
"Ahhh!"
The women screamed again, trembling, their fate clear—shock therapy if they resisted.
"No, stop! Please!"
"Don't hurt us!"
The women screamed, terrified.
Their cries only fueled his cruelty. He grinned and said, "That's right, scream! Nobody here cares. Your voices won't reach anyone."
But arrogance makes blind men.
The gang leader failed to notice the shadow crouching silently above him on a container—the figure of a man in a dark red skintight suit.
Bang!
Matt Murdock—Daredevil—dropped like a hawk. His fist slammed into the thug's jaw, dropping him instantly. The fight erupted as Daredevil launched himself at the gang members.
Gunshots rang out sporadically, but against his heightened senses, none of their attacks landed true. Matt's billy club cracked skulls, his fists and kicks dropping thugs one after another. The sound of the melee filled the dock.
From a short distance away, someone else was watching.
Jack Kadere sat casually atop a shipping container, legs dangling, arms folded, an amused smile tugging at his lips. He had no intention of helping. Watching heroes deal with scum in Hell's Kitchen had become something of a pastime for him—like catching a late-night street performance.
"Not bad," Jack muttered as Daredevil dispatched two gangsters with fluid precision. "The Devil of Hell's Kitchen lives up to his name."
Still, after a while, the entertainment lost its luster. With a sigh, Jack tapped into his suit's systems, switching to another source of amusement—the Beyond Broadcast Channel X, which streamed news across time.
....
[Yesterday's News] "…An unidentified object fell in New Mexico. According to eyewitnesses, it appeared to be…a hammer."
[Today's News] "…Hammer Industries unveiled its new Iron Soldiers at the Stark Expo. The demonstration spiraled out of control. Iron Man, Tony Stark, was forced into combat against the rogue machines…"
[Tomorrow's News] Just as Jack was about to tune in further—
Beep.
A call came through his suit. He accepted.
"Hello."
"Jack~"
The voice was soft, unmistakably Cindy Moon.
Her gentle, teasing tone flowed through the comm. "Why'd you suddenly transfer such a ridiculous sum of money to me? What are you trying to do, keep me?"
Jack smirked. "Originally, the money had nothing to do with you. But now… I'd say it does."
"Oh~ Is that so? But… I don't need all that money. I should just send it back—"
"Keep it. Doesn't matter if it's with you or me. Same difference."
Cindy paused, her voice sweetening. "…Alright. If you say so."
They chatted idly for a while longer before ending the call.
....
Buzz.
Jack froze mid-step as his Spider-Sense tingled sharply. Without hesitation, he swept his trench coat aside and stepped backward just in time—
A high-explosive grenade clattered onto the spot he'd been standing.
Boom!
The explosion shook the docks, debris scattering. A hail of bullets ripped through the night air, but strangely enough, none of it was directed at Jack.
He looked up.
Overhead, the sky blazed with streaks of repulsor light.
Tony Stark—in the red-and-gold armor of Iron Man—was flying hard, pursued by James "Rhodey" Rhodes in the War Machine suit. Except Rhodes wasn't in control; his armor had been hijacked. Behind them, several Hammer drones—the Iron Soldiers—chased like mechanical predators, one of them firing the grenade that nearly took Jack out.
"Tch. From the Flushing Expo all the way to Hell's Kitchen, huh? Lucky me."
Jack narrowed his eyes, extended a hand, and seized one of the drones with his power. A blazing kamehameha erupted, disintegrating the bot into molten ash.
With that, he dusted his hands. "Problem solved. You boys carry on."
He didn't intervene further. With Daredevil distracted by the commotion, Jack melted back into the shadows.
....
Meanwhile, Iron Man's comms crackled.
"Tony! Good news!" Rhodey's voice sounded over the shared channel.
"Good news? Really?" Tony swerved to avoid missiles, his voice sardonic. "Don't tell me you've suddenly broken free of the control software. Nope—you're still blasting at me."
Rhodey chuckled grimly. "Yeah, still blasting. But listen—one of Hammer's drones just dropped out of the sky. It didn't look like a malfunction."
"Please. With Justin Hammer's tech? Malfunctions are a feature."
"No, I'm serious. It looked like someone pulled it down. Maybe a superhero's helping. Ghost-Spider? Silk? It could be one of them."
Tony scoffed. "At this hour? They're probably hanging out with Jack Kadere instead of dealing with Hammer's junk."
"...What?" Rhodey muttered, confused, before launching another salvo Tony narrowly dodged.
....
Elsewhere, Jack emerged from a dark alley, the nanotech Knight-Spider suit peeling away from his body and receding into his wrist like a tide.
To anyone watching, it looked eerily similar to Venom's symbiote transformation. But this wasn't alien biology—it was advanced technology under Jack's control.
He strolled into the neon-lit street, hands in pockets. His plan was simple: wander a little longer, then head home to crash.
But fate had other plans.
As he passed a worn-down apartment building with a spiraling staircase, the sharp rhythm of gunfire tore through the night.
His senses flared instantly—shotguns, revolvers, submachine guns… chaos inside.
Bang! Bang! Da-da-da-da!
He sighed. As expected of New York's slums. A gunfight every night.
Just then, his senses caught something familiar. A woman, dressed like a detective, hurried into the building.
Jack blinked. "No way."
That familiar dark-haired, sharp-featured face—Jack Kadere recognized his younger sister Jessica in an instant.
He shook his head with a smirk. "Do amateur detectives just walk into crime scenes now?"
Still, despite Jessica's resilience, it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on things.
He turned toward the building—
Only to collide with someone rushing past.
"Ah—sorry!" the girl gasped, nearly dropping two bottles of soda.
Jack's hand shot out, catching them before they hit the pavement. He handed them back smoothly, eyes flicking over her in quick appraisal.
"Well, well…" Jack murmured, curiosity piqued.
The girl looked much younger than Jessica, perhaps five or six years her junior. Slender, with delicate features, her face was marred by fresh bruises and red marks. There was still dried blood beneath her nose and at the corner of her lips.
She looked like she had just been beaten.
…
Her clothes made her stand out. Around her neck was a black choker with a silver pendant shaped like a human face under a stylized sun. She wore a rumpled black undershirt under a mesh white top, topped with a green jacket. Her shorts were paired with gray-and-white tights patterned with comic-style designs.
Jack frowned slightly.
"Such a familiar image…" he muttered, digging through his memory.
The girl accepted the bottles with a shy nod. Her voice was soft, slightly hoarse. "Sorry… thank you."
She looked up at him with wide, cautious eyes and asked, "Excuse me… did you hear the gunshot just now? Did it come from that building?"
Bang!
Before Jack could answer, another gunshot cracked from inside the old structure. That was answer enough.
The girl shivered at the sound and immediately quickened her pace toward the building.
Jack followed her calmly, his long strides making her glance back nervously twice. "What do you want?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"Going inside," Jack said simply, passing her as if it were nothing. He wanted to find Jessica anyway. As he walked, he asked over his shoulder, "What's your name?"
"…Matilda," she murmured, clutching the sodas tightly. Her eyes carried a timidity she was trying to hide.
…
Elsewhere—
A silver Audi screeched to a halt outside Hammer Industries' R&D facility. Happy Hogan, behind the wheel, glanced nervously at his passenger. Natasha Romanoff—already clad in her tactical suit as Black Widow—was ready to move.
"Stay in the car," Natasha ordered curtly.
"I don't want to stay in the car. And hey—what are you even wearing?" Happy asked, still surprised at seeing her in full S.H.I.E.L.D. field gear.
The alarm blared as soon as they entered.
Natasha moved like lightning, tearing down the corridor. Guards barely had time to raise their weapons before she had floored them with lethal precision.
Happy, on the other hand, was stuck wrestling with a Hammer Industries security guard in a far less elegant battle.
"Ding-dong, ding-ding-dong—!" the alarm kept ringing as fists flew.
"Bang, bang!"
"Ow!"
"Ow—ow!"
The two bumbled around like clumsy fighters in a schoolyard brawl. In the end, Happy somehow won—resorting to an unorthodox "ear-biting" tactic.
Panting heavily, Happy grinned at the unconscious guard. "Mr. Kadere was right… sometimes you can't be constrained by proper moves."
…
"Matilda?"
Jack's mind finally clicked. That was why her image had felt so familiar.
But then he froze.
This was the Marvel Universe. What was she doing here?
"Léon: The Professional" was just a movie back on Earth, a world where the deadliest thing was a gunfight. Compared to alien invasions and super-soldiers, it was child's play.
Yet Matilda's appearance here could only mean one thing—other worlds were starting to bleed into this one.
If she could appear, what else might follow?
"Matilda! Big brother! Why are you two together?"
Jessica's voice rang out. She flipped gracefully down the spiral staircase's handrail, landing right in front of them.
"Jessica, be careful!" Matilda blurted, stepping forward. Then she froze, her wide eyes darting between the siblings. "Big brother? You're Jessica's big brother?"
"You two already know each other?" Jack asked, his gaze shifting curiously from Jessica to Matilda.