Thick as Thieves Ch. 20 (Marvel) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Hmm, Wesley time?

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James Wesley was a man of singular conviction and that singular conviction was absolute loyalty in Wilson Fisk. The legality, or rather lack thereof, of the things he did for his superior did not matter to him. He did not let such things as pesky morals or a ‘conscience’ get in the way of him and his work.

It was his professionalism and intelligent mind that had drawn him into Fisk’s orbit in the first place, the larger-than-life man having seen potential in Wesley that was further developed until it felt like he both stood on the shoulders of a giant and paradoxically belonged at the exact same time.

It was his willingness to do anything to get the job done, along with a loyalty so deep it was in the marrow of his bones, that had ultimately led to him becoming Wilson Fisk’s right-hand man and closest confidante (outside of the other man’s wife Vanessa, of course).

As he rises from bed at exactly five am sharp and gets ready for the day, James Wesley sticks to the routines that have defined him all his life. Relieving and cleaning himself, getting dressed, eating a quick, light breakfast to keep himself sharp.

And then he gets to work. It’s not easy being the Kingpin’s right hand after all. But it is rewarding. There’s something incredibly satisfying about taking care of any problems that crop up for Wilson Fisk, alongside anticipating any would-be issues and handling them before they even can become problems in the first place.

For instance, it had been Wesley who had caught the discrepancies in Felicia Hardy’s accounts recently. From there he’d gotten ahold of several different sources of surveillance to keep an eye on her and find out what she was up to. And that had led to the discovery of her… protégé.

Cameron Hayes… a complete and utter nobody. Except he’d somehow drawn the attention and interest of the Black Cat. She was training him according to the reports that had come across Wesley’s desk. She was molding him. That made Cameron a touch more worth Wesley’s time, which is why he’d gone searching for leverage.

He’d found it in the form of those original discrepancies in Black Cat’s financials. What had originally been chalked up to her simply splurging on her new ‘boytoy’ had ultimately led to a particular room in a private hospital where a young man named Brandon Hayes was currently being cared for while in a medically induced coma.

It wasn’t often that Wesley’s targets made things so easy for him. Just like that, they had leverage against Cameron Hayes if they ever needed it. Fisk had been pleased and so had Wesley. That was… until Felicia had seemingly arrived with someone else on her arm.

But it wasn’t really someone else. And Cameron Hayes, or ‘Crow’ as he’d taken to calling himself, had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. Interesting… and dangerous. He wasn’t just Black Cat’s apprentice anymore. Somewhere along the way, likely during the Met heist if Wesley’s timeline is accurate, Cameron had stumbled his way into real power. Unfortunately, that really wasn’t all that unusual in their world. In the time Wesley had worked for Wilson Fisk, he had come to realize just how big the world really was… and everyone else had started to notice too as it all came bursting out of the seams.

Today’s world was stranger than fiction, and the public was largely aware of it too. Norse Gods flying around, lab experiments more likely to wind up with the ability to level city blocks than die quietly after expending their usefulness… genius scientists building suits of armor, mutants running amok.

Wesley wishes he could say it was all above his paygrade… but it wasn’t. Despite having no ‘powers’ of his own, Wilson Fisk was too big to not rub shoulders with quite a few of these individuals. Some worked for him. Some were his rivals. But ultimately, it was up to Wesley to manage every aspect of the Kingpin’s criminal empire.

And so that’s what he does. Once breakfast is done, Wesley moves to his computer and gets to work sending out messages and responding to emails. A lot of what he does winds up requiring an in-person touch much of the time, but it all starts digitally. Indeed, if Wesley had to handle everything physically, he would never get any sleep. Dealing with most problems digitally kept the last portion of in-person meetings manageable.

A sudden chill crosses the back of his neck, causing Wesley’s hands to snap up and slap against his nape. He freezes in place, frowning slightly as he stares at the computer screen in front of him. Then, he subvocalizes an activation phrase for his StarkTech glasses, letting a HUD hop up as the pair of seemingly innocuous spectacles develop the ability to see through a variety of different things.

Slowly, Wesley turns his head, scanning his apartment with both his eyes and the glasses. At the same time, one of his hands slips down off of the desk, reaching for the gun holstered under it in an easy to reach place.

Only… he doesn’t see anything. The StarkTech glasses he’s wearing cycle through half a dozen different modes that should allow him to see through even some forms of magical camouflage, though of course that’s far from guaranteed. The technology is not legally obtained after all, and it has been modified by some of Fisk’s smarter underlings to be able to access its full functionality.

That said… Wesley doesn’t just rely on his sense of sight for such things. Unclasping the holster near silently, he closes his fingers around the handle of the handgun while listening very, very carefully. He even goes so far as to quietly flare his nostrils, breathing in slightly deeper to see if he smells anything off.

… There’s nothing as far as both his senses and the StarkTech glasses can tell. Not to mention the security in his penthouse alone should have caught any would-be intruders entering ahead of time. That no alarm had been sounded and he couldn’t find anything now… well, maybe he was just being paranoid.

Of course, it wasn’t paranoia if they were really out to get you. At that point it was simply good practices. Letting out a sigh, Wesley returns the gun to its holster, straightens out his necktie and suit jacket, and focuses back on the computer monitor in front of him.

He continues to send off messages, though his eyes narrow at some of the responses he’s getting. They’re… unexpected. See, not everyone who works for Wilson Fisk is as loyal as he is. Hell, some of them aren’t even willing, really. Fisk is the Kingpin of New York and while every criminal in the city does answer to him if they know what’s good for them, not all of them are happy about it.

Wesley’s job is to make sure that those who aren’t happy nevertheless toe the line and do as they’re told. This includes keeping the hot heads from getting too exposed and caught with their pants down by law enforcement. It also sometimes includes placating those with ambitions. Or if placating doesn’t work, reminding them of their place.

And yet… today, Wesley is receiving quite a lot of strange responses. From those aforementioned hot heads, he’s getting a whole lot of… positive feedback. Effusive positive feedback, no less. And from the more levelheaded ‘middle managers’ that he’s tasked with handling, he’s receiving a lot more uncertainty and hesitation. More than one of them even has the audacity to ask if he’s sure.

Brow furrowed, Wesley reviews the messages he’s sent out. He doesn’t make mistakes, but this is all just strange enough that he second guesses himself all the same. James Wesley hates being made to second guess himself, so when he’s finally done and sees nothing amiss, he’s more than a little annoyed.

Sending back clipped, no-nonsense, slightly threatening missives to those questioning him, Wesley watches as agreements begin coming in quite rapidly afterwards. Nobody wants to be on the Kingpin’s bad side after all, and if you’ve pissed off James Wesley, you’re really only half a step away from pissing off Wilson Fisk.

Finally, everything that can be dealt with digitally has been dealt with. Wesley leans back from the computer relatively satisfied with himself, before his phone buzzes after a moment. He pulls it out and answers without hesitation, knowing full well that only a couple of people even had his number.

“Sir.”

“Wesley, I’m waiting downstairs. Please join me.”

In any other man, hearing those words from Wilson Fisk might have struck fear into their heart. For James Wesley, they’re par for the course. Rising to his feet, he straightens out his suit again with one hand.

“Of course sir. I’ll be right down.”

Reaching over, he shuts down the computer and heads on his way out the door, locking up tight behind him before moving to join Fisk in his car downstairs. Just another normal start to a day in his life as the right hand of the most powerful criminal kingpin.

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Cameron holds his breath for a solid minute after Wesley has left… before chuckling softly. He couldn’t believe that had actually all worked.

Of course it worked, Champion. You had my assistance, after all.

Lady Loki’s interjection makes him grin and shake his head. Of course, he never should have doubted them.

Indeed.

Still, it had been a little bit touch and go, hadn’t it? The past week had been… well, hectic was a word for it. They’d had to do everything from training Cameron in how to use his patron’s illusions to fool even the strongest forms of human technology, along with finding out where Wesley even lived so they could pull this particular heist off.

Though… calling it a ‘heist’ might not make much sense. They hadn’t actually come here to steal anything… unless one counted stealing control of Wesley’s own senses from him, because they definitely had done that.

The proof is in the still brightly lit computer screen in front of Cameron. Wesley thought he’d turned it off, just as he’d thought he’d sent specific orders to a whole bunch of Fisk’s lieutenants and cronies. Instead, he’d done what Cameron wanted him to do. Meaning he’d sent out the messages Cameron wanted sent out and when he thought he’d turned off his computer, he’d actually been pressing empty air with his finger.

Slowly, still invisible, Cameron eases himself into Wesley’s computer chair. Lady Loki is currently helping him out by continuing to fool the penthouse’s security systems, but Cameron doesn’t want to risk anything.

See, he’s just had Wesley light a dozen fires that the man would normally be putting out. Giving out orders to effectively go ‘hot’ and stop being quite so… clandestine about their activities. New York City’s crime problem was about to become incredibly obvious as the numerous people working under Fisk started focusing on profits above security.

But it still didn’t feel like enough to Cameron. After all, there was a reason that James Wesley was Wilson Fisk’s right hand man and it wasn’t mere competence and intelligence. No, he was also in the position he was in… to be Fisk’s fall guy.

Everything that had been kickstarted so far today could easily be traced back to Wesley. But it couldn’t so easily be traced back to Fisk. That was, of course, purely by design. All of Fisk and Wesley’s conversations, all of the Kingpin’s orders for his second, came in the form of in person conversations in enclosed spaces where recording them was all but impossible.

The plausible deniability of it all meant that even if Wesley’s home was raided tomorrow and he was arrested for all of the crimes that he’d just unknowingly ordered committed in Fisk’s name… the Kingpin would still likely slip away at the end even if his right hand man went to prison for this.

What they needed was a way to turn Wesley against Fisk. If he ratted on his boss, then there would be no stopping the hammer that would come down on the Kingpin and all of his operations. The problem was that not even blatant betrayal was likely to turn James Wesley against Wilson Fisk.

The man knew that he was his boss’ fall guy. He knew that if things went down a certain way, it was on him to go to prison for Fisk’s crimes. He would more than likely be happy to walk right into a cell. Hell, even if Cameron staged a hit on Wesley and made it look like it came from Fisk, it was altogether likely that Wesley would think it was faked at first.

… Unless it wasn’t faked. Staring at the computer in front of him, Cameron considers what he’s already done. By all accounts, this wasn’t just enough to have Wesley arrested and a substantial portion of Fisk’s operations torched and seized. It was also enough to have Fisk himself start to question Wesley’s loyalty.

If word reached Fisk before law enforcement about what Wesley had ‘done behind his back’, how would the Kingpin react? Unlike his devoted subordinate, Wilson Fisk was only loyal to himself and his power. He was also always expecting to be betrayed, even by the most unlikely of sources.

Funny, if he thought Wesley had betrayed him, he would have to take care of the problem himself. After all, James Wesley was the man who normally did that.

The only issue… was Gwen. She wouldn’t approve of this plan, since it would almost certainly cost Wesley his life without extremely careful timing. They would have to have Kingpin caught in the act of trying to kill his second in command but not actually let him succeed. It would be like walking a tight rope to ensure it worked properly.

But to be fair, if it did work out that way, not only would Gwen be happy that nobody had died, but Wesley might be shaken enough to turn on Fisk and give up everything he likely had on his boss. That wasn’t guaranteed though. Not in the same way letting Fisk go down for Wesley’s murder would probably be guaranteed…

Cameron purses his lips together, trying to decide what the better path forward is. They’ve set the groundwork. But what happens next is still up in the air.

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qYOnkNnviwf6z6tEH8l0oDEqtnoUc56YulMJ4vvhytA/edit?tab=t.0