The fortress had a pulse you could set a watch to. It thumped through cinderblock and old copper like a heartbeat that refused to learn about rest days. Downstairs, 02 put 07 through sparring until 07 forgot what quitting felt like and started mistaking forward for oxygen. On the firing line, 03 ran 08 on reload drills until magazines became metronomes and the sound of click–seat–tap–rack turned into music. On the mats, 04 and newly sharpened 09 repeated takedowns until even the concrete learned their names and decided to cooperate. At the racks, 05 turned 10 and 12 into pendulums under the bar—tempo, pause, breathe, rise—until gravity gave up on arguing and started filing complaints.
Eleven shadowed 01 like a reflection that had upgraded to intent. Step for step, weight for weight, the apprentice mirroring the mountain. If 01 is a cliff sculpted by patience, 11 is the first wind that learns the shape and comes back wiser.
I leaned on the basement rail, soda sweating in my hand, and watched the whole machine run itself. "Regular boot camp," I announced, because commentary is free and morale is a renewable resource. "Only problem? No one smiles."
More fists. More steel. More brass singing against rubber. Zero laughter. Tragic. The Marvel Cinematic Universe does great soundtracks; our playlist is all discipline and breath.
We'd skimmed the city long enough—muggers, throwaway gangs, neighborhood toughs who thought Hell's Kitchen was a brand and not a warning. Points flowed, but they trickled. The System likes good deeds, but it loves leverage. If we wanted real momentum—if we wanted to move the needle in a city where Stark Industries headlines and S.H.I.E.L.D. memos breed like pigeons—we needed a bigger target. Not noise. A node.
"Kingpin," I said to nobody and everybody. The name locked into place like a vault door. Wilson Fisk. The man who treats supply chains like arteries and politicians like organs. Warehouses, cash houses, shell companies, floors and floors of muscle. You break him, and the city doesn't just stagger. It rebalances.
The System hummed—quiet, approving, the way a good accountant hums when you show them a plan that survives the math.
I let the morning play out until bodies were honest and lungs had learned new words. Then I clapped once, and the room changed shape around the sound. "Lounge," I said. "Boots on. Brains on. Bring the kind of attention that doesn't shout."
We filed into the lounge the way swells file into a tide—inevitable, ordered, aware. Twelve Spartans took the walls. The floor learned to be respectful. I dropped into the chair at the head of a battered table and put my boots up because you can be casual and in charge at the same time. 02 gave the boots a look. I gave 02 a shrug. We split the difference: I didn't move them, and he didn't file a complaint.
"Crumbs are out," I said. "We're done snacking. Time to take a bite out of the man who thinks he owns this town."
"Objective: high risk," 02 said, as if reading a weather report that predicted knives.
"High reward," I countered. "We cut legs first. Warehouses. Gangs. Trucks. By the time Fisk looks up, he's a tower with no base."
"Recommendation," 04 said from my left, voice calm as good steel. "Neutralize assets first."
"Exactly," I said. "We don't fight the man. We make the man show up to a fight missing his spine."
01 didn't speak. He didn't need to. When 01 agrees, the room assumes gravity will comply.
Assignments sketched themselves:
Team One: 01–02–03. Docks and warehouses. Empty them quiet. Preserve inventory for evidence. Damage only what insists on being a problem.
Team Two: 04–07–09. Street muscle. Sweep and drop. Non-lethal. Fast hands, faster exits. Leave Fisk payroll neatly zip-tied for the NYPD to find without becoming our pen pals.
Team Three: 05–10–12. Supply routes. Intercepts, not explosions. We block arteries and let the heart worry.
Support: I float. I keep the scales even. If a team bogs, I grease. If a crowd forms, I shepherd. If S.H.I.E.L.D. tries to audition for the surveillance state, I make sure we're boring on camera.
"Questions?" I asked.
"Rules of engagement," 03 said, because of course he did.
"Same as always," I said. "No fatalities. Minimal property damage. Preserve evidence. Civilians first, ego last. If you can do it quietly, you do it quietly. If you can't do it quietly, you do it correctly."
"Understood," 03 replied.
"Comms," 02 added.
"Encrypted, short, clear," I said. "Call signs, no names. Code words if you need humor. 05, keep Team Three from auditioning for a Fast & Furious spinoff."
"Controlled," 05 said.
"Street handling?" 04 asked, which is his way of reminding the rookies crowds are the real end boss.
"Same choreography we drilled," I said. "04 is a wall; 07 and 09 are hands that say go this way. If civilians shout, you become calm. If cameras appear, you become boring. We're the MCU heroes whose scenes get cut because we make other scenes possible."
"Fisk has lawyers," 02 warned.
"Fisk has lawyers," I agreed. "We have results. Paper beats rock in court. Results beat both in public."
We moved. A bus that wasn't a bus waited curbside, windows tinted just enough to keep curiosity at a healthy distance. We boarded without a flourish. The city slid around us like it wasn't ready for the day to change shape.
Docks
The water smelled like iron filings and second chances. Cranes etched the sky; corrugated steel stacked itself into mazes; forklifts idled like bulls hypnotized by clipboards. The New York docks are a thousand different jurisdictions pretending they're one. They're also where men like Fisk hide legitimacy in plain sight—paper trails with muscles.
Team One peeled off toward a warehouse with a logo that meant nothing and a history that meant everything. I took a high catwalk with 01 to watch the floor map itself. 02 moved like a rumor with elbows; 03 ghosted along the racks of shrink-wrapped "home goods" that looked exactly like textbook covers for smuggling. Twenty men in work jackets and bravado pretended they were a union meeting. Pistols in waistbands made the pretense fragile.
The first one reached for his gun. 02 put a palm under his wrist and a knuckle in his elbow. The gun was no longer a gun; it was a memory on the floor. 03 made another weapon disappear before its owner found the trigger—disarm, strip, slide behind a pallet, restraint. 01 stepped into a group of three the way a boulder steps into a river: the water goes around because that's what water does. He redirected a swing, used it to throw the man into his friend, and helped the third discover gravity's sense of humor.
"Efficient," I said into comms, leaning on a crate stenciled with a company that would give a journalist an aneurysm. "You even left the merchandise intact. Fisk will hate that."
"Palettes are evidence," 03 replied, not bothering to hide the satisfaction in his voice. "Serial numbers. Shipping manifests. Chain of custody."
"Do not get romantic with paperwork," I told him. "Save some love for your optics."
"Front sight, press," he said, deadpan, and 02's sigh came through like a patient curse.
We left the warehouse looking like it had hosted a yoga class that specialized in zip ties. Every body breathing. Every weapon unloaded. Every camera pointed at the floor. 03 tucked a copy of a manifest under a tarp because sometimes you give the NYPD a breadcrumb to make sure they follow the loaf.
Two piers down, the same dance played to a slightly different tune: fewer guns, more arrogance. 02 handled arrogance with a kind of professionalism that should be bottled and sold to HR departments. 01 kept a man from using a wrench on a rookie by catching the wrench mid-swing and turning it into a polite invitation to sit down. The man sat. Gravity applauded.
We moved fast enough to feel like a rumor and careful enough to make a judge nod. Team One left the docks behind with three warehouses quiet, two forklifts parked, and one foreman wondering which life choices had angered a very polite ghost.
Street Muscle
Team Two swept blocks like rain. 04, as always, was the weather front—calm, inevitable, something you see coming and still underestimate. 07, under 02's programming, hit like he meant it and recovered like he'd learned to be patient. 09, with Spartan-II baseline humming through new connections, flowed under 04's quiet corrections and let geometry do the hard work.
"Go," 04 said, and 07 went, cutting an angle on a guy who had the look of a small-time enforcer and the footwork of a man who never learned to pivot. 07's frame set; the man met the floor gently because 04 has a way of making violence feel like gravity's idea.
A second man tried to be brave with a bat. 09 stole his base. It was a simple outside trip, but it was clean, the kind of clean that makes bad knees reconsider themselves. 09 braced the bat with his forearm, twisted the wrist with enough pressure to communicate… and the bat was a stick that preferred the ground.
"Zip," 07 said, and 09 zipped. They left the men bundled like returns waiting for pickup.
We threaded past a bodega where a clerk watched from behind a fortress of scratch-off tickets, phone in hand, jaw tight. I stepped in, lifted my hands, and showed empty. "We're not here for you," I said. "You don't owe anyone a story."
"Fisk?" he asked, like a curse.
"Not your problem today," I said, and pointed to the zip-tied cluster down the block. "Yours is handling the crowd that will show up to stare."
He nodded once, relief and fear sharing a handshake, and flipped his sign to CLOSED because he understood the choreography of safety better than most.
Three streets over, Team Two walked into a pocket of bravado—five men with visible hardware and invisible training. 04 let them see him; he wanted the attention. 07 and 09 became the wind—behind, beside, below. It looked like a dance until hands met wrists and wrists met walls. One man tried to fish for his waistband; 04 stepped into his space and put a palm on his chest, not violent, just inexorable. The man forgot he had ambitions.
"Didn't have to tease you once," I told 09 when we regrouped. He re-set his stance anyway, because good is never done.
Supply Routes
Team Three did the thing that looks simple on paper and turns into art on asphalt. 05, 10, and 12 mapped the arteries: the truck routes that feed cash houses and fake nonprofits and restaurant chains that cook books better than food. We don't blow trucks. We don't set fires. We make traffic decide to be helpful.
"Intersection three," 05 said into comms. "Box in. No panic."
10 parked the bus-that-wasn't in the lane that wasn't a lane five seconds ago. 12 moved into the driver's mirror like a polite suggestion and then became an instruction. The truck driver did what truck drivers do when three impossible men appear in formation and ask nicely: he panicked.
"Door," 05 said, and 12 peeled it like a sticker. Not ripped—peeled. He caught the driver before the pavement could try something. 10 guided him to the curb and put him on his knees with a hand that felt like a sofa: heavy, comfortable, immovable.
"Keys," 05 said. The driver handed them over with the resigned reflex of a man who has learned something about leverage. 05 killed the engine, popped the back, and verified what we already knew: boxes, manifests, a few pallets missing the correct paperwork, one hidden compartment so lazy it felt insulting.
"Leave the truck," I said. "If it can roll, it can testify."
We used cones the city didn't know it owned, a couple of hazard triangles, and a 05-shaped glare to redirect traffic. When we moved, the intersection returned to normal like nothing had happened except the city had become marginally safer and marginally more interesting at parties.
"Another," 05 said. 12 nodded, and I watched the way his shoulders settled into the job—impossible had become routine, and routine had become a standard.
Float
I floated. I went where the map tugged. A block where Team Two needed an extra pair of hands to shepherd a crowd past a choke point while three men pretending not to be Fisk's tax collectors discovered zip ties. A dock lane where Team One required a distraction long enough to get a forklift operator to choose life over loyalty. An intersection where Team Three's "no panic" ran into a civilian with a camera and a loud opinion. I smiled for the lens and waved like a tourist, because being boring on video is a superpower.
On one pass, I cut through an alley and found a teenager wedged between being brave and being stupid—phone up, heart skittering, feet deciding whether to bolt. "Wrong movie," I told him gently. "Nothing to see here. Yet. Go home; tell your friends you saw Avengers extras warming up."
He blinked, laughed, and ran. Humor saves more lives than knives do. Write that down.
The Swiss Cheese Effect
By nightfall, Fisk's network looked like Swiss cheese. Warehouses empty of their secrets, forklifts parked like they'd been scolded by a very disappointed parent, gang blocks swept without a single broken window the NYPD would blame on the wrong people, trucks abandoned in neat little lines that would make insurance adjusters drink. Runners gift-wrapped in neat bundles at street corners with their phones piled like surrendered flags. No fires. No bodies. Plenty of questions.
Ding.Points earned: 3,000.Reason: high-level criminal disruption; multiple captures; targeted strikes.
"Jackpot," I said, the word drifting into every earbud. "Told you Fisk was worth it."
02 didn't say told you so because he doesn't waste air. 03 did a small piece of math in his head and made a noise that counted as contentment. 04 exhaled the kind of breath you store for later. 05 moved everyone toward the egress points without changing pace, because victories end cleaner when you don't linger.
We left breadcrumbs where we wanted attention: manifests in plain sight; anonymous tips to precincts we trust; a neat list of names whispered through channels that don't make their own news. We didn't hang banners. We don't do selfies. We don't audition for Daily Bugle headlines. (J. Jonah can yell at clouds without us.)
The Reactions (Because the MCU Loves an Audience)
Not our problem, but I thought about it anyway because pattern recognition is survival. Somewhere in a penthouse that pretends Hell's Kitchen stops at the elevator, Wilson Fisk would look at a wall of monitors and feel his city stutter. He'd call a lawyer, then a lieutenant, then a contractor, then a politician who's fluent in donations. He'd write our shadows into a ledger and whisper, find them.
Somewhere under too much glass, Tony Stark would glance at a dashboard nobody can see but him and raise one eyebrow at a cluster of "incidents" where nobody died and everything inconvenient to Fisk ended up gift-wrapped. He'd ask JARVIS to cross-reference height patterns and posture signatures and then make a face when the results came back unhelpful. He'd text a joke and not send it. He'd save it for later.
Somewhere at a desk that's seen more calm than combat, Phil Coulson would underline my name once and write targeted disruption; clean; deliberate; escalatory potential; recommend observation and controlled contact. He'd sip coffee, make a call, and tell a very large man with an eye patch that variables had started playing chess.
Debrief
Back at the fortress, the building took our noise and ate it. The veterans moved through the after-mission rituals with the same precision they bring to fights: weapons cleared, optics cleaned, zip tie counts replenished, water bottles that think they're trophies. The rookies stretched with the seriousness of men who have learned that tomorrow is a jealous god.
We gathered in the lounge again, not because rooms like this make speeches, but because rooms like this make teams. I didn't put my boots on the table this time. Respect isn't a prop.
"Report," I said.
"Team One," 03 said. "Three warehouses. Twenty-six hostiles, all restrained. Six firearms, all unloaded. One hidden compartment with laundered invoices. One foreman who quit reality for a minute."
"Damage?" I asked.
"Zero structural," he said. "One pallet jack now has trust issues."
"Team Two," 04 said. "Four blocks, eight pockets. Nineteen hostiles restrained. Two attempted escalations, both corrected. Crowd managed. One bodega owner closed for his own safety."
"Rookies?" I asked.
"07—less flinch," 04 said. "09—balance consistent under stress."
"Team Three," 05 said. "Two trucks intercepted. One hidden compartment. No collisions. No panic. 12—understands stop."
"10?" I asked, because I like to measure new endurance against old expectations.
"Grip improved," 05 said. "Breathing intermittent. Will improve."
"08?" I asked, looking at 03 because marksmanship is a love affair with accountability.
"Reload rhythm established," 03 said. "Introduce malfunction drills. Add no-shoot overlays next cycle."
I nodded. "Notes from the field: we are official nightmares of Wilson Fisk's supply chain. We made his day worse without making anyone's last. That's the brand. We keep it."
07 managed something like a grin. 09 stood like a man who'd learned new gravity. 10 flexed his fingers like the barbell had left a promise in them. 11 mirrored 01's posture without thinking and corrected it without being told. 12 watched 05, breathed when he did, and blinked when he didn't. It's a start.
"Future threats," 02 said, because evenings make him generous. "Retaliation. Hired specialists. Increased legal scrutiny. Possible NYPD pressure."
"Possible S.H.I.E.L.D. curiosity," 03 added.
"Probable S.H.I.E.L.D. curiosity," I corrected. "High chance of a Stark quip. Low chance of muffins from Pepper Potts. We'll survive."
"Next steps?" 04 asked, because forward is the only gear that matters.
"We cut legs; now we cut tendons," I said. "Cash houses next. Not smash-and-grab. Quiet seizures. We giftwrap bank receipts and fake charities. We escort the civilians who thought they had real jobs to doors that don't lead to bullets."
"Digital trail," 03 said. "I can't pull it, but I can angle the evidence so the right auditors smell blood."
"Do that," I said. "We're not the only ones who like leverage."
I pulled the System into focus like a HUD only I can see. 3,000 points blinked at me like a slot machine that refuses to apologize. We could spend now, build later, or hoard like dragons. The temptation to hit "upgrade everyone" thrummed. The urge to roll Alpha13 into existence tugged. Instead, I exhaled and let the blue glow settle.
"Not spending tonight," I said, more to myself than the room. "We bank when the board is resetting. Fisk thinks we took a bite. Tomorrow we take a bigger one."
"Directive?" 01 asked, which is how he says good meeting.
"Eat," I said. "Then sharpen. Then sleep. In that order."
The Quiet Between
We ate. Not pizza this time—shock, horror—but a mountain of food that would make a nutritionist bite their knuckles. Carbs to rebuild. Protein to convince sore muscles this relationship is worth saving. Salt because the city takes it. 02 kept an eye on hydration like it was a second job. 03 thawed his hands in tea because finger dexterity is a resource. 04 stretched calves with the patience of a yoga teacher who carries a badge in his heart. 05 wrote tomorrow's numbers with neat cruelty. The rookies did the only thing rookies can do after a day like this: absorb.
I did rounds. I put hands on shoulders. I adjusted a posture here, a mindset there. I told 07 the difference between aggression and permission. I told 08 his groups looked like decisions. I told 09 that Spartan-II wasn't a finish line; it was a new starting gun. I told 10 that fatigue is evidence of investment. I told 11 that mirroring is good; predicting is better. I told 12 that breathing is a tactic.
No speeches. Speeches are for ceremonies. This is work.
We washed the day off in hot water and humility. Veterans took window posts in rotations that would make clockmakers nod. Rookies collapsed into bunks with the kind of sleep you can only buy with effort. The fortress hummed at night pitch. The city did its neon whale song two blocks over.
Roof
Ritual dragged me to the roof with a soda and 01 because I am, at heart, a creature of habit with a taste for carbonation. The can hissed, soft, the sound of a secret choosing to be friendly. The skyline wore its Stark-colored afterglow because the MCU never really clocks out. Somewhere out there, S.H.I.E.L.D. cameras zoomed and noted and fed their memos. Somewhere else, Tony Stark was telling JARVIS to name our posture annoyingly consistent.
"One node down," I said, watching the docks glimmer like the city had learned to wink. "Not broken. Just bleeding confidence."
01 stood like the horizon had hired him. Wind tugged a hair that didn't exist. He said nothing.
"We'll get pressure," I went on. "From above, from below. Fisk will try to buy us, or crush us, or both. Coulson will knock or not. Either way, we stay boring on camera and necessary on the street."
"Progress steady," 01 said.
"Damn right."
The System pulsed once more at the edge of thought—3,000 already banked, a quiet encouragement to keep going. I didn't tap it. I let it sit like a star. Downstairs, 09's bones would knit lessons into longer muscle memory. 08 would dream in reload rhythms. 12 would learn the building in his sleep, mapping creaks to corners. 05 would wake once, check the time, and go back to being inevitable. 02 would hear a siren and count the beats between intersections. 03 would fall asleep mid-list and finish it when he opened his eyes. 04 would breathe like a mountain.
We'd done the kind of day the Marvel fandom never celebrates with fanart: targeted strikes, non-lethal takedowns, crowd control done right, evidence preserved, warehouses left intact for NYPD cameras to record. We'd turned Wilson Fisk's confidence into a question mark. Not a battle. A nudge. A big one.
"Crumbs are out," I'd told them. I meant it. We're past snacks. We're at entrees. Tomorrow we set the table again and make the city eat something healthy even if it doesn't want to.
I finished the soda, crushed the can, and listened to New York breathe. Eleven Spartans and one impossible life. Twelve, now. Halo discipline poured into Marvel problems. Spartan-II posture under MCU lights. We are not the loudest story. We are the reason loud stories end better.
I flicked the can into the bin, looked at 01, and nodded toward the stairs.
"Directive?" he asked, the hinge the day turns on.
"Same as always," I said. "Train. Patrol. Points. And tomorrow?" I looked out at the docks, at the lanes where trucks think they own the morning. "We take another bite."
The city answered with sirens that, for once, didn't belong to us.