Marvel Monkey King: CH 5 (Patreon)

Jack opened his eyes to a ceiling of cracked plaster and water-stained wood.

Beneath his back was an actual mattress, firm and smelling faintly of cheap laundry detergent. The room was unfamiliar, small and drafty, with gray morning light leaking through a set of dirty blinds.

He took a slow breath.

His limbs felt heavy, hollowed out by exhaustion, yet the screaming agony was gone. The cracked ribs had settled into a dull throb. The torn cartilage in his knee no longer ground together like broken glass.

"Silver linings," Jack muttered, staring at the ceiling. "At least I am not rotting in a morgue drawer."

He pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress.

He stared down at his bare feet, then brought his hands up to his face. The golden fur was gone. The talons that had torn through flesh in the alleyway had receded, leaving behind pale, scrawny fingers with bitten nails.

Memories flooded in like broken glass: the high metallic hum in his ear, the detonation of the black iron rod, the wet crunch of a skull caving in, and the severed tongue freezing in the snow.

"Sean."

The name left a bitter taste on his tongue. It was the name those dead thugs had sneered before their heads met iron.

Jack stood up, his balance slightly unsteady, and walked over to a cracked full-length mirror resting against the wall.

He took a long, quiet look at his new reflection.

The kid in the glass could not have been older than fifteen or sixteen. He was painfully lean, his ribs outlining a hollow chest that spoke of months running on stolen crusts and gutter water. His skin carried a warm, sun-kissed tint beneath the bruises, framed by a wild, tangled mane of pale golden blond hair that hung down past his collarbones like dead thatch.

Jack turned sideways, inspecting his jawline.

"Look at this scrawny stick of celery," Jack said aloud to the empty room. "A stiff breeze off the East River would fold me like a lawn chair. But the face? Not bad. Bone structure has potential. Feed this body about fifty pounds of roast pork and dumplings, and ladies would line up like crazy."

He looked behind him.

A thick, golden-furred tail curled lazily from the base of his spine, twitching slightly as if it had a mind of its own. Jack reached back, prodded the fur, and watched the tip flick like an irritated cat.

"At least I can save money on leather belts," he grunted.

Nature called with urgent ferocity. Jack followed the sound of a dripping pipe into a small adjoining bathroom.

He leaned over the porcelain bowl, took care of business, and looked down.

A slow, wicked grin spread across his bruised face.

"Well, look at that," Jack chuckled, shaking his head. "Seems the man upstairs has some decency after all. God favors the bold, kekekeke."

He flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and caught his face in the medicine cabinet mirror again. That golden mop of hair was infuriating, clinging to his forehead in matted, greasy clumps.

His eyes landed on a pair of heavy electric hair clippers resting on the corner of the sink, beside a bottle of barbicide.

Jack picked them up, plugged the cord into the yellowed wall socket, and flipped the switch. The motor buzzed like an angry hornet.

He did not hesitate. Jack drove the blades straight through the middle of his golden mane.

Sheafs of blond hair tumbled into the porcelain bowl and fluttered onto the linoleum floor like dried straw. He worked by feel, shearing away the matted mess, tapering the sides tight against his skull, and leaving just enough length on top to create a messy, textured crop that stayed out of his eyes.

When he blew the loose hair from his nose, the boy in the mirror looked ten times sharper. The wild, hunted look was gone, replaced by the keen, dangerous edge of a street fighter.

"Might as well wash off the gutter," Jack murmured, looking toward the stained fiberglass shower stall.

He paused, one hand on the faucet.

"Wait. Whose house is this anyway?"

He shrugged after half a second. 'Who gives a shit. Whoever dragged me out of the snow could have slit my throat while I was sleeping. If I am breathing, they either want something or they are a saint. Either way, free hot water.'

Jack stripped out of the ragged, blood-soaked rags and stepped under the spray.

The heat was glorious, washing away crusts of dried blood, street slush, and alley soot.

Ten minutes later, Jack stepped out into the bedroom with a damp towel wrapped around his waist, intending to rummage through the closet for something wearable.

He stopped.

Neatly arranged on the edge of the mattress was a stack of clean clothes: a gray cotton undershirt, dark denim jeans, a pair of thick wool socks, and a fresh pack of boxed boxer briefs. Resting on top was a faded red varsity jacket with cream leather sleeves.

Jack tilted his head, making a quiet mental note.

The host was in the building. He had heard the shower running, walked in silently without making a floorboard creak, left the clothes, and slipped back out.

'Heavy feet, quiet tread,' Jack thought, slipping into the underwear. 'A pro.'

The jeans were slightly loose around his starved waist, requiring him to hitch them high, and the gray shirt hung loosely over his narrow shoulders, creating an effortless, oversized streetwear look. He slipped the red varsity jacket on, leaving the brass snaps open, and tucked his golden tail discreetly along the inside of his waistband, letting the denim hide the fur.

He ran two fingers through his damp hair, checked his posture in the glass, and opened the bedroom door.

A flight of scarred wooden stairs led downward.

The air grew thick with the sharp scent of fresh sawdust, damp plaster, and old whiskey oak. Jack stepped down the steps, his bare socks silent on the wood.

The ground floor was a cavernous, half-gutted tavern. Piles of rotten floorboards were stacked against exposed red brick walls. Sacks of dry concrete sat beside a heavy mahogany bar counter that had seen better decades.

Near the center of the room, a massive bald Black man in a yellow work tee and a heavy canvas chore coat was tossing three-foot sections of broken concrete into a steel wheelbarrow. He picked up the heavy rubble with one hand, moving with the casual ease of a man handling foam blocks.

The man did not turn around as Jack reached the bottom step.

"So you cleaned yourself up," the man rumbled, his voice low and heavy, vibrating like a diesel engine idling in neutral.

Jack stopped by the banister, leaning his shoulder against the post. "You are the guy who fished me out of the snowbank."

The bald man tossed another chunk of concrete into the barrow, wiping his brow with the back of a massive leather glove. He gestured with his chin toward a low booth near the front window.

"Got breakfast on the table. Eat before it gets cold."

Jack glanced over. A brown paper bakery bag sat beside a large foam cup of black coffee.

His stomach roared in violent agreement. Jack strolled over, slid into the vinyl booth, and reached inside the bag.

Two toasted bagels, heavily slathered with thick cream cheese.

Jack shoved half of the first bagel into his mouth without breathing. The warm dough and salty dairy tasted like heaven on a starved tongue.

"Carbs," Jack mumbled around a mouthful of cream cheese. "God bless me. Thanks, bald man."

The man grunted, picking up the handles of the heavily loaded wheelbarrow and pushing it toward the back exit. Jack watched him through narrowed eyes as he chewed. The barrow had to weigh at least four hundred pounds, yet the man pushed it with one forearm, his boots barely digging into the subfloor.

Jack reached into the bag and grabbed the second bagel, leaning his elbows on the laminate table.

"Why didn't you drop me at Harlem Hospital, bald man?" Jack called out. "Most folks see a bleeding kid in a ditch, they call the meat wagon or step over the body."

The man stopped near the back doorway. He set the wheelbarrow down without a sound, pulled off his work gloves, and turned around.

He was built like an iron safe, wide-shouldered and thick-necked, with calm, observant eyes that carried none of the nervous twitch of the gangsters Jack was used to dealing with.

"Because your wounds closed up right in front of my eyes," the man said evenly, stepping toward the bar. "Two minutes out of that alley, your nose stopped bleeding and the cuts on your arms sealed shut. That is your thing, isn't it? Your powers."

He grabbed a clean rag from behind the counter and began wiping dry mortar from his hands.

"And stop calling me baldy. I have a name."

He met Jack's gaze with steady, immovable weight.

"Luke Cage."

Jack tilted his head, chewing the last bite of bagel slowly.

'Luke Cage.'

The syllables rolled over his mind like something buried beneath years of dust. It was familiar, like a melody heard through a wall half a lifetime ago, yet he couldn't quite pin down why.

"Why bother saving me?" Jack asked, wiping a smear of cream cheese from the corner of his lip.

Luke paused, the rag still bunched in his large, calloused hand. He looked past Jack, out the dust-smeared front windows toward the snowy avenues of Harlem.

"You are young," Luke said quietly. "Harlem has a habit of chewing up kids and spitting them into pine boxes before they see twenty. If someone gives you a hand, maybe you don't end up another statistic."

Jack snorted, leaning back into the vinyl booth with a smirk. "What, are you running for mayor? Some kind of neighborhood saint?"

"Far from it," Luke replied, tossing the rag onto the zinc counter and picking up a pry bar. "Those men you left in that alley worked for Kingpin. For now, folks will assume Cottonmouth did it to send a message across the territory lines. That gives you a window. You can lay low in the room upstairs until you get your legs back, or you can catch a bus north and never look back."

Jack froze.

The casual smirk on his lips slowly stiffened.

'Kingpin?'

The name set off a sharp, immediate alarm in his memory. Wilson Fisk. The monolithic crime boss in the tailored white suit. The brutal giant from the comics and shows.

'No. Bullshit. That's fiction.'

Jack leaned forward over the table, his eyes narrowing to slits. "When you say Kingpin... You mean a mountain of a white guy? Shaved head, expensive suit, runs Hell's Kitchen from the shadows?"

Luke raised a heavy brow, glancing over his shoulder with genuine surprise. "So you know his name. Most street runners don't even know he exists. They just think the shadows have teeth."

Jack pushed himself out of the booth, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"What about Iron Man?" Jack blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. "Thor? Spider-Man? Hulk?"

Luke stopped with the pry bar halfway under a rotten floorboard. He looked at Jack like the boy had just grown a second head.

"Who?" Luke frowned, his voice dropping into deep, flat skepticism.

Jack took a sharp breath, gripping the edge of the mahogany bar to steady his trembling legs. "What year is it?"

Luke didn't answer right away. He studied Jack's pale face, the wild, frantic tension in the boy's posture, looking for a punchline that wasn't coming.

After five long seconds, Luke spoke. "It's January. 2002."

Jack felt the strength evaporate from his knees.

Before Stark announced his armor to the world press. Before the sky opened over Midtown Manhattan. Before any of the gods or monsters stepped into the daylight.

He had crossed the threshold of reality itself, waking up inside the four-color pages and films he used to hoard in back-alley noodle shops.

A sharp, tinny vibration buzzed against Luke's hip.

Luke reached into his chore coat, pulled out a thick gray Motorola flip phone, and snapped it open with his thumb. He read the glowing green screen, his jaw tightening into iron.

He snapped the phone shut and shoved the pry bar into a tool bucket.

"I have to step out," Luke said, pulling on his heavy work gloves and heading toward the reinforced back door that led out into the alleyway.

He paused at the threshold, looking back at the stunned boy standing by the bar.

"I will be back in a few hours. Stay inside. You can sweep up the plaster if you want to make yourself useful. Or don't."

The heavy metal door shut with a solid, echoing thud, followed by the heavy rattle of a deadbolt sliding home.

The bar fell dead silent.

Jack stood alone in the dim tavern, the smell of old beer and damp sawdust hanging heavy in the air.

He raised his right hand, staring at the trembling fingers.

Mutant? Was this scrawny boy Sean just an unlucky freak born with a golden tail and animal instincts?

No.

Jack raised his fingers to his right earlobe. His fingertips brushed against the tiny needle of black and gold iron, cold and dangling against his flesh.

The old man in Chinatown. The stall with the strange, ancient trinkets.

'Let the thread knot once more.'

That earring had expanded into a two-meter weapon in the alley. It had shattered bone and deflected lead like tin foil.

"A staff," Jack whispered to himself. "Ruyi Jingu Bang."

The thought barely formed in his mind when the iron needle hummed.

It slipped smoothly from his piercing, growing in weight and length as it fell into his open palm. Within the span of a single breath, it solidified into a dark iron rod exactly one meter long, capped in dull, gleaming gold at both ends.

It was perfectly balanced, fitting into his scrawny grip as though it had been forged for his bones alone.

Jack stared at the ancient weapon resting in his hands.

The Monkey King.

Sun Wukong.

In the Marvel Universe.

A ragged, wheezing sound escaped his throat, building until the dusty rafters of the abandoned tavern rattled with his laughter.

"Kekekeke!" Jack threw his head back, laughing until tears pricked the corners of his eyes. "After all these years of running the streets, acting like a damn ape, the old man upstairs actually turned me into a monkey! A MONKEY KING!!"

He gripped the staff, leaning his weight against the iron, a wide, nostalgic smile softening his sharp features.

He remembered the endless nights back in Lower Manhattan.

The other street bosses had called him a wild dog, a rabid stray, a monkey without a leash. It was Eric who had flipped the insult on its head. Eric who had patted his shoulder over cheap beer and said, 'Let them talk, Jack. A monkey can tear the emperor off his throne if he gets pissed off enough.'

They had argued about everything. How to run territory, how to treat suppliers, which bread made an actual sandwich, even the childish comic books they hoarded in their hideouts during the rainy seasons.

Eric had always been a DC man, swearing by the dark, grim discipline of Batman. Jack had laughed at him, choosing the chaotic, vibrant madness of Marvel instead.

Jack let out a quiet, affectionate chuckle, shaking his head.

"Kekekeke... I'm right again, Eric. You stubborn bastard. If I had listened to you and read Batman, I wouldn't know what the hell is coming for this town."

Jack twirled the one-meter staff with a fluid flick of his wrist, watching the iron shrink and turn itself into his earring.

He strolled behind the bar counter. Tucked beneath the dusty liquor shelves sat an unopened wooden crate delivered from a local distributor.

Jack used his thumb to pop the wooden slat loose.

Sitting in the cardboard dividers was a row of square glass bottles, labeled in black and white.

Jack Daniel's.

Jack grinned. He pulled a bottle free, twisted the black cap until the seal cracked, and tipped the amber liquid toward the stained ceiling in a silent salute.

"I hope we meet again, you fuck," Jack whispered.

He took a deep, burning swig, letting the whiskey set fire to his chest as he looked toward the future.