The shattered remains of the Echo Unit sparked on the dock.
Steam rose from the fractured exosuit, the skull insignia barely intact, flickering under the weight of your final blow. Spider-Man knelt beside the wreckage, fingers tapping at the cracked chest plate.
"This tech isn't homemade," he muttered. "It's too advanced. Military-grade… maybe even S.H.I.E.L.D. at one point."
Daredevil crossed his arms, voice low and firm. "Someone's feeding Phantom more than muscle."
You didn't respond. Your gaze lingered on the space where Phantom's hologram had just faded. That smug grin, that calm, knowing tone — like he already knew you'd win, because it meant he could move on to the next part of his plan.
"He's testing me," you muttered. "Every encounter. Every mercenary. He's mapping out what I can do."
"And you're passing," Daredevil replied. "That's what worries me."
The sirens started closing in — distant, but growing louder.
Spider-Man backed off the suit, casually flipping up onto a crate. "We should bounce. No offense to the boys in blue, but I'd rather not explain why we left a pile of unconscious cyborgs and one busted war mech on city property."
Daredevil nodded and turned to you. "Come on. We regroup. We need intel before we strike again."
You stared at the sparking chest unit once more. Then turned away.
You were done playing defense.
⸻
Back at the safehouse — a bare apartment above a closed bookstore in Hell's Kitchen — the three of you reviewed what you had. Spider-Man pulled the data core from the exosuit and plugged it into an encrypted reader.
"This thing's firewalled like crazy," he said, webbing his laptop open. "But I'm Spider-Man. Not, like, a real hacker, but nerd enough to crack a corporate vault in my sleep."
Lines of code flashed across the screen. Red, green, then—
"There," he said. "Got a partial list. Look at this."
Names. Dozens. Codenames, unit numbers, statuses.
Echo Units 01–11: Active. Locations: Scrambled.
Project Overseer: Phantom.
Project Classification: Off-Grid Experimental Combat Division.
Daredevil leaned over your shoulder. "Off-grid means off-book. No official trail. This isn't just mercs with toys. Someone's building these soldiers."
"Who?" you asked. "Phantom? Or the people backing him?"
Spider-Man scrolled further. "This isn't just one program. It's a splinter of something bigger. And… oh. Crap."
He turned the screen toward you both.
Project REVERB.
Status: Reactivated.
Primary Target: Y/N [ADAPTIVE TYPE — LEVEL UNKNOWN].
Secondary Directive: "Initiate Capture or Forced Integration."
You froze.
"They're not just tracking me," you said. "They're trying to control me."
Daredevil stepped away, fists clenched. "This is more than Phantom. This is a black-ops faction. Government-adjacent, or something worse."
Spider-Man leaned back. "They want to plug your powers into their weapons program."
Your chest tightened. This wasn't about being hunted. This was about being repurposed.
"I'm not going to be their blueprint," you growled. "I'll burn the whole thing down before I let that happen."
Spider-Man nodded slowly. "Then we hit them first."