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Even giants fall, if the right man can throw the right stone with perfect aim. David proved that against Goliath.
It is bullets, not stones that thud with horrific finality into Wilson Fisk's chest, an unending chorus of them. He walks straight into them, his arms spread as if in challenge, and the lights on him cast the shadow of a martyr against the pavement. The bullets strike true, too many of them to not, and he stays upright for so long, jerking with every hit until he finally collapses to his knees.
His head tilts upwards before he falls for the final time, up towards the sky.
Vanessa’s helicopter lifts away, and she presses her hand to the window, peering out into the bright dark of the city, a skyline built of light with no real shape. She does not know where Wilson is, but she searches as if she can see him anyway.
(Later, she will watch the footage from the news choppers who circled over the scene. She will sit crystallized in front of it, suspended in time and barely breathing as Wilson strides across the bridge, the world at his feet and in his hands. She will not flinch when the first bullet hits. She will not cry out when he falls. She only moves when Wilson is finally still, when black armored men move in around him. She will pause the video feed, lean forward just enough to brush her fingers lightly over the screen. The diamond on her finger will catch the light, sparkling, and when she pulls away her hand will curl into a fist.)
+
Wilson’s men are professionals, they do not wander in circles like lost puppies, but they are lost. They have no Wilson. They have no Wesley. Most of the men fall in behind Francis, and he in turn draws closer to Vanessa, because she is the last link he has left to what once was.
“Help me,” Vanessa says to Francis, offering him her hand. “And we will rebuild this.”
Francis is a true believer, or, perhaps better said, he wants to be. He has spent his life with his loyalty for sale to the highest bidder, but when he gives it, he gives it wholly. He stares at her, and she smiles. She knows what he will see, because it is what she wants him to see, fever bright eyes and honest promise and rage for the lost that she cages in.
He takes her hand.
Vanessa takes his loyalty. His men murmur, and some of them drift away, but most of them stay and bow their heads to her. They will follow her, if she will have them. If she has a plan.
Oh, the plans she has.
+
Vanessa knows two things well: business and people. Art is a slippery trade, an exquisite dance of passion and calculation, of reading a person’s secrets and desires, of showing them exactly what they need and how they can have it. It is selling dreams and worlds in canvas, setting pitfalls that cannot be avoided, luring buyers in and closing the walls around them. People are simple, when broken down. Business is simpler, because business is people and knowing what they are going to do. Knowing how and where they will try to run when they are cornered, knowing just how far they will go to gain what they desire.
It is easier than she expects, building her empire. She is uniquely suited to it, in ways she didn’t realize until now. She is honey sweet, charming and clever in building alliances, forging partnerships, bringing people under her rule. And when she is betrayed, when those beneath her start to buck against her command, start to whisper how they could do better, well.
She is not a person to betray. Francis is the weapon at her side, his knuckles bruised and his hands quick with a gun. A flick of her wrist is all he needs, and she will step over the bodies, heels clicking against stone as she steps carefully to avoid leaving a trail of blood.
She and Wilson would have ruled the world, side by side.
She will do it in his name instead.
+
When Vanessa returns to New York, to Hell’s Kitchen, she does not slink in. She strolls, her head high and her smile smooth, Francis a steady presence at her side. She installs herself in Wilson’s penthouse, where the city is spread out before her, where there is little trace of him left but she feels his presence at her back anyway.
On the surface, her return makes few ripples. Some note her as the woman who stood at Wilson Fisk’s side, but he is already a fading memory in the long history of the city, another would-be ruler who could not hold his throne. That won’t be his legacy though, to be forgotten; no, she is his legacy, rebuilding what he began.
Hell’s Kitchen floats along as ever, always on the verge of foundering, buoyed by its guardian vigilante. Her people are already in the city, already sinking their hooks deep into its rancid corners. There is infection here, running deep, and she is going to burn it out.
Vanessa looks out over her city and lifts a glass of wine to her lips. It is a dry red, robust and earthy, with deep sounding notes of wood smoke and black currant, its finish smoky sweet. The band of her ring clinks against the glass, a soft ping.
She knows where to begin.
Wilson Fisk was no Goliath, but Vanessa knows that there was a parody of a David behind him all the same, a devil with a stone in his hand.
(Kingpin, they start to whisper of her on the streets.)
Even giants can fall, and even devils can die.
permets_tu Tue 26 May 2015 06:47AM UTC
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