Light and Darkness

Kingpin tossed the broken pieces of the porcelain cup into the trash and dried his hands with a towel.

His fingers were thick, his knuckles hard. The porcelain he had crushed left a few faint white marks on his palm.

"Lester, what do you think? If Spider-Man were a mutant himself, would he still be able to take it easy?"

Bullseye's brow twitched. "Spider-Man isn't a mutant."

"Russell says every human on Earth is a mutant. We all have the X-Factor in our bodies."

"That's his claim." Bullseye leaned against the window frame, hands in his pockets, his expression unchanged.

"Most people don't want to believe it. I read the comments online. Eight out of ten are cursing him.

"They call him a madman. They say he's making excuses for his crimes, that he's trying to manipulate people.

"Even if he's telling the truth, nobody wants to admit it. Admitting you're a mutant means admitting you're a monster, and nobody wants to be a monster."

Kingpin was silent for two seconds. He rose from his chair and walked to the window. Manhattan's night skyline spread out below him like a three-dimensional map built from gold and glass.

"J. Jonah Jameson doesn't see it that way."

Bullseye paused. "Jameson, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle?"

"He's been saying Spider-Man is a mutant all along. He says it in every issue of the Daily Bugle. If Spider-Man really is a mutant, Jameson will be the only one who got it right."

Bullseye's mouth twitched. "Impossible. Unless you have a way to turn Spider-Man into a mutant."

"Someone does." Kingpin turned to face Bullseye. "I can't make Spider-Man look like an obvious mutant, but someone else can."

"You mean Russell..." Bullseye caught on.

Tap, tap. Kingpin drummed a steady rhythm on the table.