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Felicia waited for her father to fill the silence with questions or perhaps stories about his time in prison. Walter Hardy had never been quiet. He'd been charming and talkative, otherwise, he wouldn't have stolen her mother's heart.
Yet he refused to utter a single word as if he hadn't just reunited with his daughter after a long time.
This silence felt wrong.
"Dad, how did you get out?" she asked, studying his facial features. "How did you find me?"
"Someone helped me."
Three words without an elaboration. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, never glancing at her.
"What do you mean someone—"
"Your mother told you I died in a plane crash." He cut her off, something he had never done before. He had always been patient with his kitten. "She wanted to protect you from the truth."
Felicia's fist clenched. "I know you're the Black Fox. I know you're… the greatest cat burglar in history. Mom couldn't hide that forever. I trained in martial arts and tech…"
His hands stayed locked on the steering wheel. "Yes."
"...Dad, about your illness—"
"It's gone," he said without a hint of relief such good news should carry. "I won't be dying."
Felicia trembled. "ALS had no cure" was what she had concluded after her intensive research. The disease was a death sentence. It had claimed Stephen Hawking and thousands of others.
Now her father sat beside her, claiming he was magically cured. It felt like a dream.
"What treatment did you get?"
"Someone helped me," he repeated the same three words in that same flat tone.
Felicia couldn't help but feel like she wasn't talking to her father but a stranger. Perhaps it wasn't real but a dream.
'Stop being paranoid, Felicia.'
Cosmic entities existed. Mind-reading mutants existed. Magic was real. Alien parasites had crashed down to Earth. A masked university student had started swinging around New York. A cure to ALS felt mundane in comparison.
"It's good to be back, Daughter."
He glanced at her then, just for a second, and his eyes… They were her father's eyes. Blue-gray, sharp, but the warmth and love behind them was completely absent.
"Welcome back, Dad." Her voice trembled despite her best efforts. "I missed you so much."
'He must've gone through tough times in prison.'
Her buzzing phone took her attention away from the dissonance between the father from her memories and the father beside her. She pulled it out and smiled.
Darling <3
Before she could answer, Walter pressed the phone back down into her lap.
"Later," he said. "It's our time."
Felicia forced a laugh. "Alright, Dad. Just let me send a quick text, or else she'll start worrying."
Her relationship with Dante was complicated as hell. Better not to reveal it to her father before she sorted her heart out.
[Felicia: Something came up. Emergency. I'll see you later.]
She sent the text without any pet names or affection, which would let him know how upset she was. Let him worry, just a little. Maybe then he'd realize she wasn't just some convenient sidekick he could dismiss whenever more important people needed his attention.
"Dad, where are we going?" She tucked the phone back into her pocket.
"Shouldn't we meet Mom?"
"First, we'll meet the man who saved me."
"Okay… Who is he?"
He assumed silence again. It was starting to concern her.
Her phone buzzed multiple times in a row. She pulled it out, trying to look annoyed even as her twitching lips resisted a smile.
[Darling <3: Hey, where did you go?]
[Darling <3: You know Gwen won't cooperate if I reveal her secret.]
[Darling <3: Where are you going?]
[Darling <3: Feliciaaaaaaa.]
[Darling <3: Say something.]
Felicia couldn't stop a smile from creeping across her face.
"Why is this idiot being cute now? He always was, but he's extra cute today."
One more message came through.
[Darling <3: If you don't reply in ten minutes, I'll find you.]
Alright, Darling. Find me and I'll give you my first kiss.
She wanted to see if he cared enough to use his supernatural powers to track her down. Cared enough to waste his precious time. But realistically, he wouldn't. He had Death and the Queen, two women who actually meant something to him. He shouldn't waste time chasing after clingy, complicated Felicia Hardy.
"It's a lie."
[Darling <3: It's not a lie.]
She laughed at the timing. They were talking like they were beside each instead of miles away.
'We'll see, Darling. We'll see.'
She locked the phone and tucked it away. For now, she would focus on her father and his mysterious savior, and what exactly happened for this complete shift in his demeanor.
The ride continued in silence. Felicia tried three more times to start conversations about her university classes and her martial arts, but Walter answered with one word or not at all.
By the time the limo finally stopped, Felicia had given up on finding anything. She looked out the window and her blood turned cold.
Oscorp Tower—Norman Osborn's kingdom.
"Dad, why are we here?" Her voice came out smaller than she'd intended.
"Norman Osborn saved me."
Felicia's fists clenched so hard that her nails dug into her palm and made them bleed. Four words had shattered what remained of her hope. Her father had become Norman's pawn like those symbiotes in the facility, which was the reason for this strange behavior.
Walter's hand clamped her wrist before she could grab the door and escape. She pulled, twisted, and even tried the break-hold method, but nothing worked.
He didn't budge.
A man in his fifties shouldn't have this kind of strength, much less a man who spent years wasting away from ALS.
The more she resisted, the more tighter his grip became. Her wrist bones creaked and then fractured.
"Argh! Dad, you're hurting me!"
His expression remained blank as he hauled her out of the limo and walked toward the building. She stumbled but followed. Resisting would only bring more pain. Involving innocents would be even worse since guns couldn't hurt symbiotes.
'Dad is gone.'
The pain in her wrist was nothing compared to her heart breaking piece by piece.
'Not fair. This isn't fucking fair.'
She had left her suit and all of her gadgets behind in her apartment, trusting Dante's ability to protect her. There was probably no safer place in the world than by the side of Death's boyfriend.
Now she was defenseless, completely at the mercy of whatever Norman Osborn had planned for her.
Even if she had brought her gadgets, what good would they do against symbiote hosts? She had seen footage of bullets just tickling these monsters. What chance did she have?
'There's still hope.'
Her free hand slipped into her jacket pocket and unlocked her phone. With the help of muscle memory and clear visualization, she could blindly use her smartphone. It was a skill she had developed for sticky situations.
She selected Dante's conversation thread and slowly typed her message.
[Help. Oscorp. Norman.]
And sent with a quick press of her thumb.
'If he cares enough to come, I'll forgive him… No, I'll start being serious about him and everything.'
Walter took her into the elevator and headed for the top floor. The sixty-seven–floor elevator ride was suffocating and painful. Walter stood beside her like a mannequin, hand still restraining her like she was a prisoner.
She had saved up so many words for this reunion and had so many expectations on how he would be proud of her skills. This nightmare was worse than never seeing him again. At least in death, he would have been free and let her hold memories of their sweet time together.
The elevator chimed and opened its doors to a luxury corporate office. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased a vast view of Manhattan, the city sprawling below to satisfy Norman's ego from looking down on everything. Modern art hung on the walls, some of these works that shouldn't be in private collections. The silver and gold accolades behind the glass panels alone would turn a poor man rich.
Dressed in white designer suit, Norman Osborn sat behind a black marble desk, hands clasped, elbows resting on the surface. His smile was gentle, almost grandfatherly. Yet, everything about him made her skin crawl.
"Norman Osborn."
"Show some respect." His voice was pleasant and charming, unlike his words. "You stand in the presence of the future Sovereign of this world, Miss Hardy."
Walter just stood there like a puppet awaiting commands.
"You know what the private prison system's greatest inefficiency is, Miss Hardy?" Norman didn't wait for her to respond. Egomaniacs like him didn't ask questions; they sat high in their thrones and delivered monologues. "Waste. Thousands of inmates consume resources while producing nothing of value. Even worse are the terminally ill prisoners who just bleed money and take up space."
He slowly walked around the desk. "I simply made things... easier for them by buying a batch of these dying prisoners. I gave their meaningless life a purpose. And in return, they serve me."
Felicia kept a calm face, even as the terrifying revelation started to dawn. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Your father was one of them, Sweetheart." Norman's smile widened. "I learned so much from your father. Your talent and your potential. He knew how blessed you were from birth. He knew you had the ability to reach his level or perhaps even surpass him."
These words would have made her smile on any other occasion, but now, it only built dread in her. "What the hell did you do to him?"
Norman circled behind her, and she had to resist the urge to turn to keep him in her line of sight. "Your father has joined my Symbiote Kingdom, where everyone is devoted to Sovereign."
She looked at Walter with wide, desperate eyes. "You fucker. Why? Why would you torture a dying man?"
"Torture?" Norman laughed like a maniac. "I saved him. He won't be dying anymore. But every gift has its price. He'll serve me alongside his daughter. Both Hardys reunited with one purpose."
"I'd rather die," she said venomously before her lips curled into a grin. "You should count your days too, Norman Osborn. Death will come for you eventually."
She could die peacefully with the knowledge that Dante would ruin Norman. He would've killed him if those symbiotes weren't working with Norman. Once he took care of the symbiote problem, Norman would be the first to die at his hands.
"Death is what I defied to become Sovereign." Norman's hand fell on her shoulder. "I can't wait to see your strength after bonding with one of my children."
Walter's body convulsed, and black tendrils erupted from his skin. They spread across him with horrifying speed and covered every inch in seconds. His face vanished beneath the pitch black sludge, replaced by white eyes and a grin full of sharp teeth. He became just like those symbiote hosts protecting Norman's research facility.
"Father! It's me! Felicia! Your kitten, remember? You used to call me your little cat—"
Her words didn't awaken a flicker of recognition in those empty white eyes.
The symbiote-Walter grabbed both her wrists. She kicked at his shin and tried to stomp on his feet. He was like concrete. Dante wasn't underselling the symbiote's durability.
She tried to twist free, but she couldn't overpower him.
"Father, please!" She screamed. "Snap out of it! Fight him! I know you're in there somewhere! Resist it for me and Mom!"
Norman walked to his desk and pulled a containment cylinder from a drawer. A symbiote writhed and pressed against the glass, as if it knew Felicia was there. It wanted her.
"Just kill me, coward."
Norman chuckled and tossed the cylinder to Walter, who caught it with his tongue. The glass shattered, and the symbiote lunged. Coldness wrapped around her in an instant. The symbiote felt like living ice as it slithered across her skin before burrowing into her pores.
Walter finally let go of his grip, and she immediately tried to yank the symbiote from invading her.
"GET OFF ME—" Her voice died as the symbiote mass covered her face. She couldn't remove it.
"You'll be glad that you stood on my side." Norman's voice echoed directly in her mind, conveyed by the symbiote itself.
The last thing Felicia felt before the darkness took her completely was… nothing. Whatever Norman had done eroded her heart.
***
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