The presses downstairs were still rattling when Ethan stepped into the Insight newsroom. It smelled of ink, coffee, and late nights — the scent of ambition baked into paper and exhaustion. Most of the staff had gone home, leaving the place dim and echoing, computers asleep, printers murmuring like they were dreaming.
Peter and Felicia were already waiting in the Chief Editor's office, leaning against opposite sides of the desk like two magnets determined not to touch. Felicia had a lollipop in her mouth and the bored expression of someone who'd rather be anywhere else, though her restless hands betrayed her excitement. Peter stood with his arms folded, trying for calm professionalism and failing miserably.
Ethan closed the door behind him, locking it. "All right," he said softly, dropping a messenger bag onto the desk. "Let's go over this one more time."
The tone in his voice was surgical — the calm before the incision.
He unfolded a blueprint of the Oscorp building, sleek lines and red annotations glowing under the desk lamp.
"Felicia, you're our key player underground," he said, pointing to the sub-basement levels and then sliding a keycard over. "You'll use the harvest ring to extract everything from the server cluster in R&D. That's ten floors down, sub-level C. You'll need an employee ID with at least Class Three clearance to operate the elevator and get through the door. Sadly, I wasn't able to find any Class Three clearance, but I did manage a Class Two clearance. I've already embedded the credentials on this badge, but you'll need to swipe it manually at each checkpoint. That should get you into the deeper levels, such as the labs, but you'll have to find the Class Three clearance on your own."
Felicia leaned in, eyes gleaming. "So, I'm the one breaking into the candy vault."
Ethan smirked faintly. "If you like your candy guarded and classified, then yes."
She grinned. "My favorite kind."
Ethan's gaze shifted to Peter. "You'll be escorting her — bodyguard, assistant, whatever you want to call it. You're on call for neutralization if… no scratch that, when things go sideways. Your secondary job is the distraction on exit. Lights, systems, or something theatrical — I trust you to improvise. It will be to trigger a mass evacuation so that Osborn is forced to let everyone out of the gala without security checks."
Peter tilted his head. "Theatrical, huh? You mean 'explosive.'"
Ethan's mouth twitched. "I mean 'convincing.' But yes, Explosive will work. Although I'd prefer something more subtle."
He turned back to the map, tapping the top floor. "And me — I'll be heading the upper level, in Norman's personal office. His terminal is the only place with the master encryption keys for the private accounts and black projects. Once I'm in, I'll start the copy and coordinate both of you from the comms. If either of you hit a wall — digital or otherwise — I'll walk you through it."
Peter looked down at the blueprint, then back up. "That's assuming Norman doesn't come back to his office early."
Ethan shrugged lightly. "Don't worry about me, I'll improvise."
Felicia raised a brow. "That your code for 'panic quietly'?"
He didn't answer, just smiled — a small, eerie thing that meant he'd already calculated a dozen escape routes.
They went through patrol patterns, floor transitions, and emergency contingencies. Ethan's voice was steady, methodical. He moved magnets around the blueprint, showing guard rotations, camera dead zones, and access points.
Felicia's jokes came sharp and fast — a verbal tic to disguise the thrum of adrenaline. Peter countered with his usual humor, dry and slightly offbeat, but Ethan saw the tension behind both. He didn't need telepathy to read them; they were all mirrors of one another in different ways.
Felicia hid excitement behind sarcasm.
Peter hid guilt behind jokes.
Ethan hid nothing behind precision.
When the last route was memorized and the last contingency drawn, Ethan reached into his bag again.
"Almost forgot."
He lifted three garment bags onto the table. Peter's was charcoal-gray suit, Felicia's black satin sleeveless evening dress, his own a simple nondescript black suit.
Peter blinked. "You're giving us—?"
"Our attire," Ethan interrupted. "We're not sneaking in through a vent, Peter. We're attending a gala as guests."
Peter unzipped his bag halfway and froze. The suit inside was expensive — something out of a Wall Street catalogue, the kind of brand that made him feel poor just looking at it. "Ethan, this is—"
"Authentic," Ethan said, waving off the protest. "You'll be going as Peter Marks, senior financial consultant for Insight. You'll find your driver's license and ID in the breast pocket. Try not to lose them as it was hard work getting them ready by today."
Peter pulled out the small leather wallet tucked beside the suit. The ID card gleamed: Peter Marks. His photograph. His signature. The holographic security seal shimmered like the real thing.
Felicia had already unzipped hers and was smiling. "Felicia Harper, hmm?"
"Your other identity," Ethan said. "Security consultant for Insight. You'll fit right in. I took the liberty to attach that identity to Insight, so if you'd like a clean identity, then please inform me after all this is done."
Her black dress caught the low light — sleek, sleeveless, form-fitting, slit at the side, cut just enough to look expensive but not obscene. It was beautiful, professional, and quietly lethal.
"You've got good taste, kid," she said, holding it up against herself. "This isn't some knockoff from Fifth Avenue."
"Of course not," he said dryly. "If you're going to commit corporate espionage, you might as well look fabulous doing it."
Peter rolled his eyes. "So, let me guess — you hacked the guest list too?"
Ethan's grin widened, boyish and unapologetic. "Naturally. I remotely accessed their event roster on their servers and added Insight to the confirmed invite list. Then I attached our identities to the RSVPs. Simple enough."
Felicia raised a brow. "Simple enough? You just rewrote a high-security guest list for a corporate gala."
He shrugged. "That file wasn't encrypted — just hidden under a mountain of bureaucracy. The real work's in their black projects and private network. Those are locked down tightly. The moment I even sniff those directories, Oscorp's intrusion alarms will light up like a Christmas tree. The gala list? No one even noticed it change."
She leaned against the desk, arms crossed. "So why bother breaking in at all? If you can stroll through their digital front door, why risk your pretty face?"
Ethan looked up at her, eyes sharp. "Because the front door only leads to the lobby. The good stuff's down below."
He snapped the blueprint closed and slid it into his bag. "This is our only clean shot before the shareholder meeting. Norman's too busy selling his saint act to the press to notice us slipping through his ribs."
He stifled a yawn, rubbing his eyes. "And with that, my parting words: don't be late. We synchronize at 19:30, Friday. Peter, you handle transport, I'll have a rental car waiting here, so grab it an hour before. Felicia, you bring charm. I'll see you both there."
He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the door.
Felicia called after him, "You really are the strangest kid I've ever worked with."
Ethan glanced back, that faint, unreadable smile returning. "I doubt you've even worked with many kids, besides I'm a growing boy," he said simply. "Who needs his sleep, so I'll leave you two now."
Then he was gone — the sound of the front door locking behind him echoing like punctuation at the end of a spell.
Felicia stared after him for a long moment, twirling the edge of her garment bag between her fingers. "Kid's quite the sociopath," she muttered, half-admiring.
Peter chuckled under his breath. "Yeah. But luckily, he's a sociopath on our side."
Felicia's smirk returned. "Guess that makes us the weirdest trio in all of New York."
Peter's smile faltered. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Guess it does."
They looked out the office window, the city glimmering beyond — bright, restless, oblivious to what was coming.
The night before a heist always felt like calm before thunder.
And tomorrow, the storm would break.