Chapter 90: Hell's Kitchen While He Was Away — and Ethan Comes Home
Hell's Kitchen, early morning.
Pietro stood in the apartment doorway, stretched until his spine made three distinct complaints, and looked up at a sky the color of old concrete.
"Another thrilling morning," he said, to no one in particular.
A month. Ethan and Wade had been gone for a month, and in their absence Hell's Kitchen had settled into a rhythm that Pietro could only describe as aggressively domestic. Wanda was technically still around, but Fisk Enterprises didn't run itself, and "still around" in practice meant Pietro saw her for approximately forty minutes per week, usually late at night when she came home carrying documents and the particular expression of someone who had been making decisions all day and was now making the decision to sleep.
Which left Pietro with the apartment, the occasional shop-watching shift, and a concerning amount of time for video games.
He wasn't complaining. He was absolutely complaining.
Down the block, Caine arrived at the community school at seven-forty-five as he did every morning, Little Ye's hand in his, navigating the familiar route with the unhurried certainty of a man who had mapped the world through other senses. His role as dean of students was, by all objective measures, a disaster — he had no instinct for paperwork, no patience for administrative meetings, and a tendency to resolve disciplinary situations through means the school board had not anticipated.
The students loved him unreservedly. The parents found him deeply confusing. He showed up every day with an enormous smile.
In the school's chemistry lab, Yinsen had arranged his periodic table poster, his safety goggles collection, and a small framed photo of his family, and was preparing to introduce forty teenagers to the concept of a molar mass. He found the work genuinely absorbing. He'd been a weapons engineer, once. Teaching felt like the right direction to be going.
His new colleague in the engineering department had arrived two weeks ago — an Adrian Toomes, PhD in electrical engineering, who had apparently been talking to anyone who would listen about a flight propulsion project he needed funded. Kingpin had offered him a lab space and a salary in exchange for teaching introductory electronics three days a week.
Toomes had accepted immediately.
If Ethan had been present for this hiring decision, he would have had some thoughts about it. He was not present, so the thoughts had not been had, and Adrian Toomes was currently preparing a lesson on circuit fundamentals with the enthusiasm of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted.
The school's most prominent administrative figure was, by reputation if not by title, Wilson Fisk.
Kingpin — retired — had taken the role of principal with the same absolute commitment he'd once applied to running organized crime in Manhattan. Parent-teacher nights had a 100% attendance rate. Disciplinary issues were resolved at the first conversation. No one had grafittied the building since the third week.
He spent his mornings walking the hallways, checking in on teachers, watching Richard run in the courtyard with the other kids. Afternoons, he and Vanessa went shopping, or to dinner, or to the gallery she'd started collecting from again. He carried a thermos of tea. He waved at people.
He was, by his own assessment, extremely happy.
Back at the apartment, the morning's primary drama was unfolding around a bowl of dog food.
"Morning, Pietro! Morning, Mr. John!"
Peter Parker — ten years old, backpack slightly too large for his frame, the general energy of someone who had decided to be optimistic about Tuesday — came down the stairs and distributed his greetings with the democratic warmth of a child who had been taught that manners cost nothing.
He went to the restaurant entrance, dug a bag of kibble from his backpack, and crouched down.
"Wilson! Breakfast time! Come here, come on—"
Deadpool Dog regarded him from the pavement with the expression of an entity that had eaten at continental restaurants and was not going to pretend otherwise.
He did not move.
"Peter." The restaurant door opened. Aunt May leaned out, her expression the specific one reserved for a child who was going to be late for school. "Leave the dog alone. You have class in twenty minutes."
"He's not eating again—"
"He doesn't eat that," John Wick said, from his chair by the entrance. He was wearing a white fur coat today, thermos in hand, giving the impression of a man who had achieved complete peace with his own existence. "He eats what we eat."
Peter looked at the kibble. Looked at Deadpool Dog.
"He's a dog," Peter said, with the flat certainty of a ten-year-old.
Deadpool Dog, who had been planning to ignore this, reconsidered.
He stood up.
Pietro moved faster than the situation technically required, interposing himself between dog and child with practiced efficiency. "He's a kid," he said, quietly, to the dog. "Let it go. Not worth it."
A long pause. Deadpool Dog sat back down, but maintained eye contact with Peter for several seconds in a way that communicated a clear and specific opinion.
Peter grabbed his backpack and left, slightly faster than he'd arrived.
Pietro watched him go and exhaled.
"He's going to figure out eventually that the dog understands him," he said.
"Yes," John agreed, and sipped his tea.
"John." Pietro turned to face him. "You've been sitting in that chair for a month."
"It's a good chair."
"You used to do things. You were—" Pietro searched for the right word. "Intense. You were very intense. You would appear in doorways dramatically. What happened to that?"
John Wick considered this question with the seriousness it deserved.
Since integrating the Logan template — the bone structure, the regeneration, the particular quality of stillness that came with having survived everything — something in his baseline had shifted. Not diminished. Settled. The violence was still there, available and exact, but it no longer needed to be the organizing principle. He'd fought his war. He'd earned the chair.
"This," he said, indicating the morning street, the people walking past, the school children two blocks away, the smell of May's coffee coming through the restaurant window, "is what I was fighting for."
Pietro stared at him. "You're fighting for the right to sit in a chair?"
"The right to sit in a chair," John said, "and not be bothered."
Pietro opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked out at the street.
"I want to play video games with someone."
"No."
"Please—"
"No."
The large man in the black suit appeared at the far end of the street at half past nine.
Pietro saw him coming and recognized him immediately. Brock Rumlow. Crossbones. HYDRA, SHIELD's STRIKE unit, Pierce's man. This was his third visit in four weeks.
He stopped in front of Pietro and John.
"Is Mr. Cross home?"
"Still no," Pietro said. "He travels. I told you — if you have business, talk to my sister. She handles things while he's away."
Rumlow's jaw tightened. He was a man accustomed to getting information, and not getting it from a twenty-something in a track jacket was wearing on him.
"It's been close to a month," he said. "Secretary Pierce needs to speak with him directly. Where is he?"
Pietro shrugged, the internationally recognized gesture for not my problem. "No idea. He goes off the grid sometimes. I can't reach him either."
This was technically true in the sense that Ethan was in a parallel universe and Pietro did not have a cross-dimensional phone plan.
Rumlow looked at him. Looked at John, who had not moved or looked up from his thermos. Looked back at Pietro.
"When he returns—"
"I'll tell him you stopped by," Pietro said. "Again."
Rumlow left.
Pietro watched him go, then turned to find John had finally looked up, tracking the departing figure with an expression that was not quite neutral.
"He'll be back," John said.
"I know."
"Next time he won't be polite about it."
"I know that too."
The restaurant door opened.
Both of them turned.
Ethan Cross stepped out onto the sidewalk, took in the morning air of Hell's Kitchen, and found Brock Rumlow approximately forty feet away, just turning to leave.
He looked at Pietro. Pietro looked at him. A month's worth of he's not here, try my sister compressed into a single expression.
Ethan looked back at Rumlow.
"Excuse me," he said pleasantly. "Were you looking for me?"
☆☆☆
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