Displaced
Displaced (Spider-man/DC crossover)
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Displaced
Hello, hello! Welcome to Displaced! A crossover created and posted by the user Ideas-Guy on Spacebattles and Fanfiction.net, he was too busy to continue the story and after a year I ended up adopting it with his permission. He's still involved in the story by acting as a beta-reader for all my new chapters along with letting me know which ideas would or wouldn't work.
The first 17 chapters were written by him, everything after will be written by me.
Now with all that out of the way, please do enjoy the first chapter!
(...)
"You are needed,"
Spider-man choked as the water he had been drinking suddenly went down the wrong pipe. His lungs burned as he coughed, trying to get the liquid out of his lungs as he searched for the sudden voice that scared off a few years of his life.
He spun around but saw no one. Just an empty rooftop that he was using as a pit stop to take a break. After all, he could hardly save the city on an empty stomach.
"You are needed," the voice repeated. Peter noted that it sounded...familiar. Like someone he knew but hadn't seen, or in this case, heard in a long time.
"Uhh, hello?" Peter questioned, still searching for the source of the voice. He was needed? For what? He hadn't heard anything on the police scanner about trouble, if anything it was a slow day, so he was more than a little puzzled by a mysterious disembodied voice telling him trouble is afoot.
"You are needed, Spider-man. Once your work is done...then you will have to choose," the voice said in a soft whisper, and Peter almost thought she sounded sad. Peter felt a sense of foreboding at that. What work? What did he need to do? What choice was she talking about?
"What do I need to do?" He asked carefully, trying not to give his consent to whatever bout of apparent insanity he was having.
"What you have always done," The voice answered, except this time it was much closer. Directly over his shoulder. A cold chill raced down his spine, like someone pressed and ice cube and traced it. His body tensed and the only reason he didn't lash out was because he didn't feel his spidey-sense tingling.
Slowly, he craned his neck to look behind him. What he saw made his jaw drop in utter confusion. He stared and stared, his mind trying to reject what he was seeing but denial was losing its leg to stand on, and reality was giving it a nice, hard shove. Eventually, after minutes, Peter managed to pick his jaw off the floor.
"I am not in NYC anymore," Peter said flatly. In the past two years he's become very familiar with New York's skyline, he knew it by heart, both day and night. What he was looking at was certainly not his home city. The skyline was all wrong; the Avengers tower was missing, the only skyscraper with a letter on it was one with a giant W. Unless half a dozen skyscrapers were torn down and twice that number had been erected in the past five minutes, he wasn't in New York.
So, where was he? Clearly in another big city, but which one? Sandiego? LA? Boston? Chicago?
Suddenly, Peter realized he was absolutely freezing. He crossed his arms and rubbed his biceps in a vain attempt to warm up before blowing out an annoyed breath, making a cloud of fog form. He could cross LA and Sandiego off the list because they never experienced winter, so he had been told.
What about this made any sense? He hears and a disembodied voice telling him that he's needed for something, and when he looks around, he's been teleported or something to a different city entirely? One that had to quite the trip away because it was nearing Summer time in New York a few minutes ago.
What was the purpose? It clearly wasn't to keep him out of the way for any baddy and their villainous intentions because he found himself on a rooftop in the middle of somewhere. It would be smarter just to lock him in a hole somewhere. He didn't have any letter of demands or threatening blackmail because if someone kidnapped him, Peter assumed the first thing they would do was take off his mask.
If he was drugged, then the question was of what and why. Peter felt fine; no grogginess or any kind soreness. Unless it was a tasteless hallucinogenic, Peter hadn't been drugged. Teleportation was more likely because he didn't think he lost any time. He was just in one place and then another with the blink of an eye.
That voice and what she said were the only clues that he had.
"What did she mean? 'I'm needed?'" Spider-man questioned, cradling his head in his hands and trying not to shiver. For what? Why was he here? What situation was so desperate that he was the go-to-guy instead of Captain America, or Iron Man, or any one of a thousand heroes?
Why was he, Peter Benjamin Parker, needed?
Peter's thoughts were interrupted by sirens going off. Snapping to attention, all thoughts of his current problems being shelved, he used his enhanced hearing and realized that they were police sirens. Peter tapped his ear, flicking on the earpiece that was tuned into the police radios, wanting to know what crime he could expect to stop. However, he only heard static.
Peter groaned again in annoyance before clicking it off. He didn't have a way to change the frequency in the field because he never expected to fight crime outside of New York.
"Guess I'm doing this the old fashion way," he commented to himself before he shot out a web and swung off the building. Idly, he tried to pay attention to names of streets as he swung by, hoping to luck out and recognize a famous one. It was also in the effort to take his mind off of just how cold it was. Spandex was not meant to keep the cold out, and it cut right through Peter like a knife.
'I should know better by now. The only luck I have is the bad kind,' he thought to himself with a self-deprecating grin underneath his mask. You would think that karma would throw him a bone considering all the people he's saved but the universe needed a chew toy, and that seemed to be him on most days.
Peter followed a cop car racing through the streets for a couple of minutes before it reached its destination. Surrounding a bank, there were half a dozen cop cars parked in front, blocking the exits and setting up a perimeter. A quick glance at the writing on top as he landed on a gargoyle gave him his first clue as to where he was.
'Gotham's first national bank, huh?' Peter thought, trying to think if he had ever heard the name of the city. From his birds-eye view, he saw that the city was a big one and on an island. So it was a major city based on size alone, and there were only a handful of cities that were built on islands.
Peter wasn't an expert in geography, but he couldn't recall any other major city in America that was on an island. He would have assumed that he was out of the country, Canada maybe, but he saw an American flag flapping in the wind on a flag post.
"What's going on here," he asked aloud, getting annoyed by the slowly increasing number of questions he had while the answers weren't budging from zero.
One of his questions was answered a moment later when the doors of the bank were suddenly thrown open, and a flood of people came running out.
Spider-man's eyes narrowed, all of the people running out of the bank were dressed identically. They all wore masks of a smiling clown, a purple suit with an orange vest and black dress shoes.
However, what was more eye-catching was what they wore over their clothing.
Suicide vests.
For a brief moment, Spider-man thought that they were terrorists, but that was quickly disproven when he heard all of the people screaming for help as they ran towards the police. A man with a moustache that looked like he was in his fifties was calling out over a megaphone for them to stop where they were until they called a bomb squad.
Naturally, the small horde of people didn't listen and continued to rush to the police line.
Spider-man sprung into action. He leaped off the building and swung over the small plaza. With a little flare, he landed in between the mob and police. That seemed to give them some pause because most of them slowed before Spider-man held up his hands in a reassuring gesture.
"Hey there folks! I know you've had a bit of a scare but try to take a deep breath," Spider-man said to the stunned crowd in a friendly voice. The small mob stopped in their tracks, either because they listened to him or they were surprised by his sudden appearance. It didn't matter because it gave him the opening he needed.
Unfortunately, thanks to the...Goblin..., Spider-man knew a thing or two about explosives. He wasn't an expert, but after giving the vests a critical look over, he saw that they weren't as complicated as they appeared. Sure, there were a lot of wires and flashing lights, but absolutely nothing was attached to the deadbolt lock that prevented the victims from taking them off. Meaning, that if he ripped them off, the vests wouldn't go boom.
Taking a deep breath, he took a step forward, "I'm going to get you out of those vests, okay?" He said in a voice that he hoped sounded reassuring. "But I need all of you to stay very still. I have to do this fast, and I can't do that if you're running around. Please...just trust me," he said as he took another step forward.
Normally he would have let out a quip to put himself at ease in the tense situation, but these guys seemed on the edge of hysterics. Some of them were crying, begging for help while others looked like it was taking all of their self-control not to rip at the vest to get it off. The rest looked like they were going to make a break for it.
Peter couldn't see their faces but a long moment past, everyone holding their breath, and he took that as consent.
Kicking forward, Peter approached the first victim and grabbed the two deadbolts and yanked them off with his super-human strength. The steel crumpled underneath his grip before he dropped them to the ground. Reaching out, he attached his hand to the vest and slid it upwards and once it was clear of the victims head; he threw it upwards as high as he could.
Thankfully, he was right, and there wasn't an explosion, so there was nothing holding him back from brushing past to the next victim with the speed of a bullet. Doing the same to the woman, he tossed the vest into the air before sending up a web, connecting the two in mid-air.
As he moved through the crowd, moving as fast he could, the other vest joined them before the final one was in the air. Once all of them were in the clear, Peter shot out a strand of webbing and grabbed onto the vest of explosives before throwing them towards the entrance of the bank to make sure they got clear of the crowd.
It was then that he noticed another person dressed in a neon purple suit sneaking off with a very large duffel bag on his back in a window of the bank.
Spider-man glanced back at the stunned circle of police officers, "you take care of these guys. I'll go deal with the clown college rejects," he said to the man with a microphone and a mustache. Unlike his colleagues, the older man was pinning a soul-searching gaze on him that almost made him squirm.
Without another word, Spider-man attached two webs to pillars in front of the large entrance door and launched himself through them. The door was knocked open, slamming into the wall as Peter sailed through and a loud bang echoed in the large lobby.
He landed on the front desk, but he didn't see anyone. They shut off the lights, leaving the sizable building pitch black. The only light source were the red and blue cop cars from outside, making the shadows dance but Peter couldn't peer into the dark shadows even when he tried. However, tilting his head to the side, he heard the faint sounds of footsteps and a door closing.
With an inhuman jump, Spider-man launched himself across the lobby and made his way to the back of the building. He made sure to stick to the walls and ceiling, just in case the bank robbers left him a little surprise.
'Though, at least they're being smart about it and not charging through the front door.' Spider-man thought to himself, feeling a little conflicted about the signs of increased intelligence in criminals. On the one hand, smarter criminals meant more work to him. On the other, he wouldn't have his faith in humanity chipped away every day by the stunning lack of common sense.
Spider-man sighed as he disabled a claymore mine by snapping the trip wire and sealing it in a bubble of webbing. These guys definitely knew what they were doing, and he was willing to bet that they weren't just packing explosives.
Sticking to the ceiling, he made his way to the back door and heard voices through the door. Rolling his shoulders, he webbed the sides of the door before launching himself through it much like before. His feet hit the push lock with enough force the door was almost knocked off its hinges and sent one man flying.
Spider-man skidded to a halt in between the remaining three, all of them looking at him with wide eyes beneath their masks. Peter was looking right back at them, a quip on his tongue but it died on his lips when he noticed something.
These guys were wearing suicide vests too.
Feeling a more than a little panic, Spider-man realized that he didn't have time to yank off the vests before one of them had the chance to detonate. Instead, with a fury of fists, Spider-man struck out.
While one of the bank robbers was recovering from getting slammed with the door, Spider-man punched the closest one to him in the jaw. The bank robber's head snapped to the side, the tension leaving his body as he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
His spidey-sense flashed, warning him that danger was coming from behind him, so he jumped upwards. He nearly jumped two stories high, giving him more than enough room to do a tight half back flip, so his head was facing the pavement. Right when the bank robbers started to point their guns up, Peter used two webs and covered the barrels.
He was too late to pull the weapons out of their hands because one of them pulled the trigger, making a loud bang ring out in the alley. While the bank robber managed to fire off his gun, the bullet failed to get past Spider-man's webbing. It was as strong as steel while being stretchy like elastic to those that had enough strength to tug at it.
A bullet didn't, making the gun barrel explode outwards in the man's hands. The other bank robber was either smart enough not to fire off a shot or was too busy watching his friend stumble backward, his eyes wide as he looked down at the ruined weapon.
It made it so very easy for Peter to close the distance between them once he landed. He planted a fist in the bank robber with a gun's stomach, making all the breath in his explode out of his mouth in a rugged gasp before he slid past him and slugged the shell-shocked bank robber in the temple, dropping him.
Looking around, the alleyway was now filled with groaning bodies; he let out a breath of relief. Now that he had a moment, he gave the vest a look over and saw that they were different than the victims on the other side of the bank.
These bombs were more complicated. Wires were wrapped around the deadlocks in a messy knot, and the wire was connected to the bomb by...by...oh man...by a single, oh so very thin stripped wire.
If that wire had slipped out during the fight...boom...
Peter had uncountable close calls since he put this mask on, but it still got his heart pumping away knowing that he had been one move away from meeting the reaper.
Walking over, he grabbed the nearest bank robber that he hit with the door and lifted him, so they were eye to eye. The man seemed terrified, but he quickly schooled his emotions before taking a swing at Spider-man. He didn't even look away as he caught the man's fist with a grip of steel.
Just like that, the fight left the man's eyes.
"Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you didn't strap on those bombs because it's the newest winter fashion," Spider-man began as he lifted the man into the air with ease, holding him by his jacket. The bank robber couldn't see it, but Peter's eyes were trained on the wire connected to the bomb. He wouldn't do anything to put either of them at risk, but the bank robber didn't know that he knew about the thin wire.
"N-no," the man said, struggling to keep the fear out of his voice. "That whack job Joker put them on us! Told us to rob the bank and-" the man cut himself off with a click.
Spider-man sighed theatrically as he shook his head. "Ahh, don't be like that! Don't stop when you're getting to the good part," he said, making his voice go higher like a child whining. He gave the man a little shake, not enough to hurt him but enough to remind him that he was dealing with someone that could squish him. Also to give him a little dose of fear that they might explode.
Not that he would, but what the guy didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
"Okay! Okay! H-he told us to meet him at the docks! We were supposed to rendezvous with the others and then he would let us go! That's all I know, I swear!" The man shouted, starting to squirm in his grip.
Spider-man's eyes narrowed beneath the one-way mirror lend, "others?" He questioned, pulling the man closer to his reflective eyes.
"Y-yeah! Others, he grabbed like twenty of us and said that we had to rob a bank or he'd kill us!" The man shouted, doing his best to seem as pathetic as possible. However, Spider-man saw right through that. He caught a glimpse of the bank vault, everything about this heist was clean.
He didn't know who these guys were, but they had experience, and nothing about them screamed civilian.
"How many teams are there," Peter demanded to know, and the man whimpered in response. Peter gave him a little shake, scaring the daylights out of him as he told him to stop or they'd blow up.
"Then tell me what you know! Which banks, how many groups and which docks you're meeting the Joker at," Peter demanded to know, cutting to the chase. He did not have time to be gentle with this guy right now, not when there was a string of bank robberies to stop.
"F-Fine! Ah, I, I think there're four teams of five, except us since we only use four guys! I don't know which banks they are robbing- I swear! Me and the boys were told to rob this one or he'd kill us! And, and, I don't know where we were supposed to bring the money to! I just know we were supposed to bring it to the docks! That's all I know; I swear it! I swear!" The man cried out, and the cogs in Peter's brain were turning furiously.
He didn't know this cities layout and his radio wasn't working, so it would be a little more challenging than normal, but he already had a couple of half-baked plans turning around in his head. One of the perks of being a genius and impulsive. He needed a map of the banks to start...
"Now let me go," the man demanded, breaking Spider-man from his thoughts.
"Hm? Oh, sure," he dismissed by throwing the man up lightly and webbing him by his hands and the wire so it wouldn't explode even if it was jostled. As the man cursed Spider-man, Peter reached in and grabbed the bank robber's cell phone. He needed it more than him right now.
He walked over and did the same to the other bank robbers, securing both them and the bombs. Spider-man also made sure to leave a nice note in the snow about how his webbing dissolves into a powder after a few hours and to be careful when disarming the bombs. He even added a little smiley face for good measure.
"Now, adios muchachos," Spider-man said in a goodbye, jumping up onto the fire escape and using the extent of what he learned in Spanish class. However, before he could swing away, a voice called out to him.
"Wait," a single word from a rough, scratchy voice and Peter obeyed instantly. He heard it over the bank robber's cursing and the groans of the others, so Peter looked over his shoulder and saw someone walking into the alley with two others at his side.
At first, he thought it was some villain that wanted to pick a fight and get their teeth kicked in, but he saw that it was the guy with the mustache and a microphone from before. He was flanked by two police officers, both their guns aimed at his chest and Spider-man resisted the urge to sigh. It really got old being treated as badly as the criminals that he helped the police catch.
The man stopped some feet away and pinned that soul searching gaze at him. Spider-man had to remind himself that he was wearing a mask because the look just cut right through him. It felt like he was standing before Nick Fury instead of a police commissioner.
"Who are you," the man demanded in a gruff voice, and Spider-man stood a little straighter in response.
"I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-man. Well, not this neighborhood, but I was in town when I saw these jokers stealing their tuition for their next semester of clown college." He responded in a flippant tone, but he was on edge. Jeez, what did this guy go through to earn a stare like that? He's met gods that were less intimidating.
The man stared at him for a moment longer before he raised his hand. Spider-man tensed but relaxed when he saw it was a gesture for the police officers to put their guns away. Both of them looked unsure for a moment before they followed the man's orders.
"You're not with Batman," the man declared and that made him pause for a moment.
Was this 'Gotham' already being protected by a hero? He didn't know every hero on the planet, but he heard of most through the grapevine and he liked to think he would have heard of a hero who's name was so similar to his own. That and the fact that Gotham was a sizable city, so Batman would be one of the more well-known heroes simply because his actions would affect a larger number of people at their hometown.
Thus, like him, he would be a more widely known hero. New York had nearly twenty million people in it, so when they would send out a tweet or post a video on Youtube, it generated more attention because people in New York would look at it and share it with their friends that were out of state. Then it would spread across the nation if the news was crazy enough.
"No. No, I am not. More of a solo guy myself, but I'm sure he's a swell guy." Spider-man said absentmindedly, trying to think of a reason why he wouldn't have heard of Batman. He was having some trouble, and that wasn't a good sign.
'Where am I?' Peter questioned, he brow scrunching up beneath his mask. The more he learned, the less everything made sense.
'I'll figure it out later,' Spider-man decided. He still had some robberies to stop and bust the mastermind.
Surprising the man with a mustache, Spider-man webbed the radio strapped to his belt and caught it. Both of the police officers whipped their guns back out, but the man lowered them by placing a hand on their wrists as he watched the teenager.
"I'm going to borrow this for a bit. The fashion disasters said that they were told to rob the bank by some guy that put suicide vests on them. Though these guys put them on the guys and gals I saved, but he also said that there's going to be another three robberies tonight. I'll bust them, you cuff 'em," Spider-man said as he leaped high and was about to swing away, but he paused when he heard the man call out to him again.
"Why are you doing this?" He asked barely raising his voice, but it seemed to carry in the alleyway. Spider-man paused, knowing the meaning behind the question.
Luckily, it was a question he had asked himself hundreds of times. When things were at their darkest when being Spider-man meant nothing but pain and heartache, why would he put it on and save others? Even when it came at his own expense.
"Because...with great power comes great responsibility," he answered simply. He didn't know how else to explain it but that to use uncle Ben's final words. Spider-man knew he was failing epically to explain what that phrase meant to him, but he just couldn't put it in words. Yet again, he became painfully aware of the burden that was placed on his shoulders due to a freak accident.
However, he had to bear it. It was his responsibility.
To his surprise, the man's face showed some elements of approval.
Standing a little straighter, Spider-man swung off into the night and within seconds he was gone.
(...)
James Gordon took a cigarette out of the box and lite it with his old lighter. Taking a deep breath, savoring the feeling of the smoke filling his lungs before he let it all out in a long, weary, sigh.
"Sir," asked the officer on his right, looking helplessly confused. Gordon idly realized that he was the new transfer from Boston, so he probably wasn't used to men in masks doing the police's job for them. It was a very different experience from seeing it on your tv screen compared to seeing it in real life.
"With great power comes great responsibility, huh," Gordon mused to himself, taking another drag. He turned over the phrase in his mind for a couple of seconds, and he decided that he liked it. It was a good phrase; a good code. One that would steer whoever followed it in the right direction.
It said a lot about the kid if he followed it. Hell, it said a lot about him that he had those powers and the first thing he did has become a hero instead of another villain that only cared for himself, or desired to see everyone around him dead or worse. Especially in this city that just seemed to breed the worst kind of villains.
"You heard him; tonight's going to get even busier than we thought! Alert all units and I want the addresses of every bank in the city, and I wanted it yesterday. Also, arrest these clowns; these are the Rosso brothers; they've been robbing banks since you were in training." Gordon barked at the officers, making them spring into action, as he turned to his car.
Even though he knew he had a long night ahead of him, he couldn't help but think about how unhappy Batman would be when he hears that someone's in his stomping grounds.
(…)
"Hello there! License and registration please," Spider-man asked, holding his hand out expectantly through the window that he just punched in. The driver let out an impressive string of curses, the rude fellow.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Sheesh, I'm at an impressionable age you know," he said as he grabbed the man's shirt and slammed him forward. His head bounced off the steering wheel, and when he leaned back to hold his broken nose, it gave Spider-man the chance to web the loose wire so it wouldn't blow up.
"Excuse me, beg your pardon," he said as he pulled him out of the vehicle. The man let out a shout as he flailed helplessly into the air before being suspended by a web. With that done, Peter slid into the truck and slammed on the breaks. The car lurched, and the tires skidded, trying to comply with the demand, before coming to a stop nearly fifty feet later.
After turning the truck off, he strolled out, clicked the beeper to lock the doors before tossing the keys to a cop that pulled up. The man fumbled with the keys for a moment before giving Spider-man a helpless look. Peter responded by giving him the fingers guns and clicking his tongue. That was still cool, right?
Yeah, finger guns were always cool.
After making his exit, he swung upwards onto a building and pulled out the iPhone he lifted from the bank robber. He pulled up the map function and entered in the name Gotham and searched for banks in the city.
Spider-Man looked at for a moment, trying his best to ignore how much the island looked like New York...wow...it was on the east coast and everything...No, no! Deal with that later! Focus!
'Alright, just one group left,' Spider-man thought to himself, shaking his head free of the stray thoughts. The police already caught one when he was scrambling to figure out just where he was going. It was for that reason he found this police chase and stopped his second team of bank robbers.
'Just need to nab these last guys and find out which docks they're bringing the money to.' Unfortunately, there were a few different docks in Gotham, and he already knocked out the other bank robbers so they couldn't point him in the right direction. That was a mistake; Peter needed to work on that.
He turned the radio up as he climbed onto a vantage point, listening for news of the next robbery.
"We have gunshots on Main street-"
"Suspicious activity in-"
"Requesting backup-"
"Car chase on Wayne street, in hot pursuit-"
"Alarm tripped at antique store-"
"Wow," Spider-man, sounding a bit dazed. Was it just because he was here or was it always this crazy? From the sound of it, there was enough crime going on tonight to fill up his quota for the week.
"Agh...I'm not getting any sleep tonight...or figuring out where the hell I am," he said with a sigh as he straightened out from his crouch. He looked down at his new phone and saw that it had finally finished loading all the banks. Parker luck struck again; no signal when he wanted to use a phone for something other than candy crush.
He saw nearly a dozen dots.
Pursing his lips, he thought about it for a moment. He couldn't swing by every bank and check if they had been robbed, while he was at the wrong one the right one could get away scot free.
Putting the radio near his mouth, he pressed the button and said, "Spider-man here. Just busted some guys that were robbing, uh, Welsfargo. Can someone tell me which banks are being watched?" He asked and with that question he heard the chatter on the radio cease.
He stared at it for a few moments, waiting for an answer. When the silence stretched on and on, he started to wonder if the thing was busted.
"We're stretched thin right now, but we can have a squad car outside of every bank if you take the upper half of Gotham," Spider-man heard a familiar voice say.
"Roger, roger," he said, taking a glance at the phone and saw that he had seven banks in his half.
With a destination set, he swung off the building.
He swung by the first two, giving them a quick look over. From what he saw, things seemed relatively normal. People went in then they came out clutching their purse or man-purse/satchel. It was really telling at the level of crime this city had when people's first instinct when having money was expecting to be mugged.
He swung by the third bank and saw it was much the same if a little more dead than the others. From his window seat, he saw the teller playing bejeweled on her phone, the heathen, and the security guard struggling to stay awake. There weren't any customers, so they could afford to slack off a little.
Spider-man was about to leave, going to check his other banks, but paused when a woman walked through the door.
And boy, was she a woman.
Short raven black hair with bright blue eyes. Her skin was white, with a healthy tan to it, but she seemed more of a night owl. A strong jaw that lead to a pointed chin. Kissable lips that were painted black matching her eye shadow. A cute as a button nose that was flanked by cheekbones that most girls would murder for. He couldn't see her body underneath the black trench coat she wore, but she moved with a cat-like grace that seemed familiar to him.
All in all, 10/10. Would stare creepily through a window again.
She strode across the lobby, earning the attention of both the teller and the security with her high heels clacking on the floor with confidence. He watched in some amusement as the security's guards mouth drop and the teller just turned green with envy. Not that Peter had any room to talk, but he was a perfectly healthy teenage boy. It was his excuse, and he was sticking with it.
"Hello, I was hoping to open up an account, if it wouldn't be any trouble," the woman said with a sly grin that would make most men go weak at the knees and, judging by the air of confidence she carried herself with, she knew it too. The teller, Amy based on her name tag, stammered out that it wouldn't be any trouble at all.
However, with his enhanced hearing, he heard the security guard telling his mate to check out the beauty that just walked in. While he couldn't make out the response, he managed to guess that it was an agreement when the security camera moved towards her.
It was as he straining his hearing, trying to hear the conversation between them that he heard something else entirely. It almost sounded like a...blowtorch? It was a steady 'foosh' that was accompanied by little pops.
'What...ah!' Spider-Man wondered before it clicked. The old distraction technique! He almost, totally fell for it.
Slowly, Spider-man pushed on the window using his adhesive ability to keep his grip, and slowly he opened the window. After a few seconds and a mini heart attack when the window made a squeak, earning a glance from the black-haired woman, it was open enough for him to crawl through.
He was grateful for the change in temperature. Most of his body was starting to go numb from swinging around the city in this weather.
After making note where the security cameras were, he made his way behind the lobby by crawling on the ceiling. Spider-man followed the sound of the blowtorch that was slowly growing louder. Finally, he found the source of it in the vault room. Peeking through a little window above the door, he saw exactly what he was expecting to see.
Four men were in the room; two had guns pointed at the door while the other two were working on getting through the door.
It was a different approach to the usual heist, that much he would give them. Waiting until the had a skeleton crew, using a distraction and putting up a photo in front of the security camera to make the cameraman think nothing was wrong. They entered through the floor, probably through the sewer. Because there was always a sewer beneath the vault. Why no one saw that designs flaw was just beyond him.
Cracking his neck and limbering up, Spider-man gripped the door frame and jumped up lightly. "Maximum effort," he said, quoting a friend before he swung himself into the door. The plywood door exploded into a shower of splinters, earning a surprised shout from the gunmen before they thought to pull the trigger. By the time the room erupted in gunfire, Spider-man was already in the room.
His foot connected to the chest of one gunman, knocking the wind out of him and sending the man backward. As Spider-man was carried forward by his momentum, he grabbed the barrel of the gun that the second man carried.
The man pulled the trigger, and Peter felt like he just put his hand on a stove, but he ignored it in favor of pulling the gunman towards him, ripping the gun out of his hands but carrying him by the strap around his shoulders. The gunman was pulled off balance by Spider-Man grabbing the gun, and he started to follow him with his momentum. Once the gunman was close enough, completely off balance due to Spider-man's momentum, Spider-man lashed out and socked him in the face, rattling his teeth.
Spider-man landed on his feet and looked over his shoulder at the last two men. Both were looking at him with a stunned expression, clearly unprepared for a man in tights kicking the door in and incapacitating their guards in seconds.
Popping out the magazine, Spider-man spin on his heel and threw both the gun and the magazine at the men. Both smacked them in the face, breaking them from their stupor to let out cries of pain, but as they went to grip their faces, Peter webbed their hands together. To make extra sure they didn't get away, he webbed their hands to the ceiling along with their two unconscious friends.
"Well, that was easy," he commented to himself as he turned the blowtorch off. Perhaps it was just the gap in strength thanks to his spider-like abilities, or it was just a matter of perspective since he's been dealing with highly trained soldiers or jerks in super suits recently. Guys like these just seemed so...easy in comparison. He almost felt like a bully.
"Now, just gotta arrest that woman," he said, dusting his hands of splinters. He knew he was going to be picking them out of his suit for days.
Spider-man started to walk out of the room when he saw the security guard running down the hallway with his pistol out, frantically calling for backup. Knowing what was coming, Spider-man just held up a hand and pointed at the room that he just left, "just stopped a bank robbery. You're welcome," he said a little more patronizingly than he had intended.
The man just blinked and, surprise surprise, he didn't believe him. Sometimes having a mask was just a pain in his butt; who knew it would make him seem so untrustworthy?
"Put your hands in the air freak!" The man, Jim, screamed as he gestured pointedly with his gun.
"Hey, words hurt! And I did your job for you, take a look," he refuted, gesturing to the room again. Unfortunately, Jim wasn't having any of it, assuming that it was a trap. Very smart of him, Spider-man would have been proud of it wasn't so terribly inconvenient.
"I don't have time for this," he said, webbing the guards gun before he had a chance to react. The man just gaped at him, but Peter jumped over him and ran towards the lobby. Unsurprisingly, the woman was gone.
Knowing that he couldn't waste any time, he launched himself out of the building. A quick scan of the dark, snow-covered streets told him that the woman was gone. Cursing to himself, he ran up the building, sticking to the walls with such strength that duck-tap would be jealous.
With a flip with flare, he landed on top of the bank and searched for a clue from his bird's eye view.
"Agh...she got away," he said, not seeing any tell-tale signs of someone fleeing. It seemed she was smart as she was beautiful because he didn't have a clue which direction he needed to head to now.
Now he had a bank robber with a suicide vest running about. She was smart, or at the very least clever, so hopefully she would go to the police to get the thing off before the mastermind found out she failed. And hopefully, she wouldn't be in a public place in case-
Spider-Man felt a tingle in the back of his neck, warning him that danger was behind him. It was faint, so it wasn't a bullet, but Spider-man rolled out of the way all the same. The moment he did so, he heard a loud crack that left his ears ringing. It actually took him a moment to realize that someone was talking to him through the white noise.
"-managed to dodge that," a woman's voice said with a...seductive edge to it. It sounded very familiar.
Turning around, he saw the woman behind him. The most notable difference was that she shed the overcoat and revealed a skin-tight leather suit with a pilots cap with cat ears and goggles. Unfortunately, a suicide vest blocked his view, and he noticed it looked significantly more complicated than the others. More wires, more locks, three different timers...he had no idea what most of it did, but he was willing to bet that they were redundancies. She also had a whip in her hands.
"Huh...you know, I think I had a dream that started off like this once..." Spider-man said absentmindedly. He had, except it had been Black Cat instead of whoever this knockoff was. The resemblance was there, but it was mostly in the cat-like mannerisms and the skin tight clothes that revealed a rather...impressive figure.
However, once he looked past that it was clear that they were different people. For one, this cat person hadn't tried to shove her tongue down his throat. Yet.
The woman let out a laugh that sounded like a purr, "Cute. But this won't be ending like your dream did," she said before she drew back her hand and Spider-man felt his spidey-sense tingle. Turning slightly, he dipped out of the way of the whip that was trying to hit him in the chest.
The crack sounded again, making his ears ring but he didn't press the attack. He angled his body sideways to provide a smaller target, but he didn't attack because the woman seemed faintly surprised.
"Ohh...I'm going to go ahead and assume you can keep doing that," the woman said, sounding thoughtful. She tilted her head to the side, considering him lightly. If he was anything like every other hero in this crazy world, then he either had superpowers or spent his entire life training on some island somewhere. She was going to bet on the former simply because it takes serious reflexes to dodge anything like he did.
Selina Kyle didn't like taking risks as much as one would think. Sure there was a thrill jumping off a building without a plan, or getting in a good fight or ripping off a gang boss for the fun of it. Those were risks, but they were the fun kind of risks.
Fighting an unknown hero when she had a bomb strapped to her chest did not sound like a fun kind of risk.
"You...are the first person to realize that," Peter said, sounding a bit surprised. "Usually, they just start screaming for me to hold still like I'm going to help them kill me." he continued and earned a chuckle from the woman.
"Now then, how about we end this before anyone gets hurt? I'll take that bomb off you, and you go do whatever beautiful women do while dressed up in cats costumes. That way, everyone wins!" Peter said, putting as much enthusiasm as he could into the sales pitch.
"Sounds tempting, but that madman Joker was very through with me," she said, scowling in distaste. Spider-man idly made note of the name of the man who did this. With the ones before, he thought the name was an insult.
"I pick a lock, I explode. I pull a wire, I explode. I tamper with the bomb; I-you get the picture. The only way this thing comes off is if I deliver what's in this banks vaults," she gestured underneath them before she pinned a glare at Spider-man. "Not that I can anymore, thanks for that by the way," she added sarcastically.
"No problem, being a menace is what I do," Spider-man shot back as he turned over the woman's dilemma. Unlike with all the other goons, he couldn't just secure a wire so it wouldn't explode. It sounded like he was right, the bomb was full of redundancies. The only way to deactivate it was to know how or...
"Okay, how about this. I take off that vest, and you tell me which docks this Joker guy is at," he offered, crossing his arms over his chest.
That gave the woman something to think about. She gave him a long look, consider him.
Based on his voice, he was a teenager. What age exactly, she couldn't tell, but she guessed around seventeen or so. His suit did nothing to hide his physique, so she saw that he was well muscled, despite his scrawny nature. He held himself well enough. There was that awkwardness that every teenager had when they saw her, but there weren't any rookie jitters, which was very reassuring.
She didn't know how much experience he had being a hero, not much since she never heard of him before and she made it her business knowing every hero and their sidekick, but he gave the impression that he knew what he was doing.
Not only that, but he dodged her sneak attack. She made sure her approach was silent, only Batman and a handful of others would have noticed her. Based on how Selina didn't see any kind of reaction until she was attacking, she figured he wasn't on that short list. Which meant that he was just that fast and his reflexes were that sharp.
"Hmmm, tempting offer but what makes you think I'm going to trust my life to a punk kid who's trying to be the next Batman?" She asked, trying to rile him. Just trying to get a read on the kid.
'There's that name again,' Spider-man thought. He really needed to Google, this guy.
"You don't have to trust me. If that thing blows up, I'll die with you. And I like living. A lot. Now that I think about it, living is probably my second favorite thing to do." He said, knowing that there was nothing he could say that could gain her trust. If she was anything like Black Cat, which she was, then words were next to worthless.
"Second favorite?" The woman asked, sounding thoroughly amused. This kid was interesting.
"I'm an awkward bundle of hormones known as the teenage boy. You get three guesses."
The woman threw back her head and laughed. It quickly died off into chuckles, but she looked at him with a fond expression, "you're no Batman, but you are a treat. Fine, what's your plan to get this thing off me?" She asked, walking to him with a sway in her hips.
'Doc Ock in a speedo. Doc Ock in a speedo. Doc Ock in a-' Spider-man resisted the cringe from the mental image before he began explaining. 'It's simple really; we just disarm the bombs at the same time."
"Ohh...is that all," she said drily, sounding like she didn't think much of his plan. She stopped in front of him, uncomfortably close. She leaned in, checking her appearance in his reflective eyes and brushed some snow that gathered on her shoulders, flicking her hand down towards her breasts. She didn't even need to see his eyes to know where they were looking.
"Er-yeah. Just give me a minute, and I can figure out which wires will blow us up and which won't. Then we pull them at the same time," Spider-man said, with a shrug and raised his hands to start messing with the wires. A gesture asking for permission and once he received it in the form of a quick nod, he began fiddling with the wires.
He was going to deduce which wires did what by his spidey-sense. It acted on a simple principle; the more danger he was in, the stronger the tingle. It even warned him which direction the danger was coming from.
Peter learned to put a little more faith in the ability, considering it his greatest power. He lost count of how many times he took a hit because he failed to act on the warning, or had been too slow. He was still miles and miles away from mastering the ability, but he was getting a better grip on it.
At first, he looked for red wires, because that's what it always is in the movies but he quickly saw that there weren't any. The bombs were a mess of yellow, orange, green, purple and white. All of them were hooked up to various clocks that housed the explosives. He traced each wire with his finger, acting like he was going to pull it and the tingle in the back of his neck would intensify.
Spider-man was so absorbed in his task that he nearly jumped out of his suit when the woman spoke.
"If we're going to risk death together, you can call me Catwoman," she introduced herself suddenly. Spider-man took a moment to calm his heart that threatened to punch its way out of his chest before responding.
"I'm Spider-man, but most people call me annoying," he introduced, deciding against his usual introduction. He already used it once tonight.
"Yeah, you definitely aren't with Batman. Though, the whole assuring me with mutual destruction was a step in the right direction," Catwoman said thoughtfully, moving her arms so Spider-man could reach a wire. He humphed before he realized that the wire was one that controlled one of the bombs.
"Found one," he said before memorizing the wire and continuing his search for the other two.
"Really?" Catwoman questioned, making note that he just lightly touched the wires before moving on. Despite how casually she was acting, she had some reservations about letting a kid disarm a bomb that was strapped to her chest. Spider-man's reassurance of mutual death and their mutual love of life was the only reason he was letting him near her.
Spider-man made a noise of agreement, but Catwoman wanted an answer.
"How?" she pushed.
"Because I know everything not counting all the things I don't know," he responded carelessly. He grabbed another wire, and he felt the tingling in the back of his neck intensify. "Found another," he informed before searching for the last wire.
Catwoman rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Wow. Dodging questions. You sure Batman isn't your role model? No need to be ashamed about it, there are worse people to look up to than one of the founders of the Justice League." She commented in a dry tone, giving Spider-man a dull stare. It was then that she saw his pause.
'Justice League,' Peter silently questioned. Did she mean the Avengers? He's heard some weird names for them before; freaks and show offs being the chief among them, but never the 'Justice League.' He doubted she meant the Fantastic Four or the X-men, but who else could she mean?
She mentioned it so casually that he doubted it was some secret group of heroes...or maybe it was a group so small that the media just overlooked it? That sounded plausible but when he added up all the other evidence...
Peter shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. He could deal with later, preferably when he wasn't disarming a bomb.
As if fate agreed with him, he found the last wire.
"Three wires for three bombs," he stated after going over all the wires again, just to make sure he hadn't missed one or misjudged. Catwoman looked at him with some hesitation and Spider-man caught the look.
"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet?" He asked and earned a small glare for his teasing tone. Taking the hint, Spider-man switched lanes, "look, you aren't going to die here. I'm going to take this bomb off, you'll tell me where to find the Joker, I'll introduce him to thunder and lightning before I wrap him up with a bow for the boys in blue. It'll be fine, I promise. Pinky promise," he reassured, holding up a pinky.
Catwoman looked down at the kid for a moment before a slow smile tugged at her lips. Yeah, this kid was a real treat.
"You're a good kid," she admitted before she wrapped her pinky around his. It was rare to see in this city. Most kids went one of two ways; they learned only to care about them and their own and those that learned only to care for themselves. It was rare, too rare, to see a kid care about someone that they don't know.
Peter grinned beneath his mask. She really did remind him of Black Cat, a few rough edges, and criminal intentions, but there was good in her. It just needed to be brought out.
"Alright, let's do this." He said, grabbing two of the wires. Catwoman grabbed the last one. They made eye contact, and Spider-man felt his heart try to jump out of his chest. Taking a deep breath, he calmed his nerves.
"Three...two...one!" Spider-man said, yanking the wires with Catwoman. For a brief moment, he worried that he had messed up when he heard a beep, but let out a long sigh of relief when there was no following explosion. He heard Catwoman let out a sigh at the same time before she all but jumped out of the suicide vest and throwing it away from her.
They watched it for a moment and relaxed when it didn't explode.
"See? Told you," Spider-man said in an 'I told you so' tone, placing his hands on his hips. "Now, where's this Joker guy?"
Catwoman let out a soft sigh before she shook her head, "Sorry kid, but I'm not going to send you to that psychopath. Just wait for B-" she started, but she was cut off when Spider-man threw his hands up in exasperation.
"We had a deal-"
"I never shook on it."
"You pinkie swore!"
"Look, kid, I'm grateful that you got the bomb off me. I am. That's why in not letting you anywhere near the Joker! If you lose then, death will be the kindest thing he'll do to you! Just find Batman. He'll deal with him. He always does," She said, sounding frustrated. She also left out that Batman would sit him down and rip him a new one for being a hero in Gotham. He had issues when it came to sharing, not that she had any room to talk.
"I'll be fine," he implored sounding just as frustrated. He knew he was young, even though he was seventeen, but it was downright annoying when people used his age against him. He got it. He was still, technically, a kid but he saw enough and did enough.
Peter Parker put the man in Spider-man.
"You-" Catwoman began before she bit her tongue and huffed out a breath. Really, why was she even getting worked up about this kid? Yeah, he was a good one, but she wasn't exactly known for her altruistic nature. Half her mind said it was because she knew how much of a lunatic the Joker was. The other half said it was just...wrong to send this kid off to his fate after what he did for her.
Seriously, did he not know what kind of monster he was trying to pick a fight with? The entire graveyards the Joker filled as collateral damage in his fight against the Dark Knight? How could he live in Gotham and not hear all the horror stories about this murderous psychopath?
Catwoman let out a groan, throwing her head up to the night sky in exasperation, "Bats, you're a terrible influence." She muttered to herself before looked back at Spider-man, who just stared at her with those creepily large reflective eyes of his.
"Fine, I'll tell you on one condition. I'm going with you," she stated before he had a chance to protest.
"Why," Spider-man demanded, thrown off by the sudden shift in tone. One moment she's stonewalling him and the next she wants to tag along, he didn't get it. Girls were just so confusing.
"Because I'm, unfortunately, developing a conscious and sending a kid to his death goes against it. I'm sure you've racked up a nice amount of experience with dealing with thugs, but the Joker...he a different kind of monster. You're just stubborn enough that I'll know you'll go find him anyway, but at least this way I can pull your ass out of the fire." She stated as she curled up her whip that she dropped.
Spider-man opened his mouth to protest that he could take care of himself, again, but he closed it. It was pointless, she clearly wasn't going to budge on the issue. Her tagging along was the best he was going to get.
"Okay. Where are we going?"
"I'll give you directions. Wouldn't want you trying to leave this cat behind," Selina said, her teasing tone returning. She looked thoroughly pleased with herself when Peter froze, caught planning to do exactly that.
"So, do you have a Spider car? Bug mobile?" She questioned, and she could feel Spider-Man's annoyance roll off him in waves.
"First off, spiders aren't bugs; they're arachnids. Secondly, I have something so much better than a car," he said before walking towards the edge of the building. Out of curiosity, Catwoman followed.
"Hold on tight," he instructed, and Selina did so with some reluctance. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she idly noted that Spider-man felt solid. Everything about him was corded muscle, and she felt it shift underneath her hands; the kid was lanky, but God, every inch of him was dense chiseled muscle.
Before she had time to really think about it, Spider-man jumped off the building. The familiar sense of vertigo rose in her gut before she heard a 'twick' and felt the ice cold wind hitting her face instead of plummeting down to the pavement. When she opened her eyes, she saw lights of the city pass her by.
With a grin, she began telling Spider-man where to go.
(...)
Batman picked up a thug by the throat before slamming him down on a crate, making it explode in a cloud of dust and splinters. Turning on his heel, he turned around and grabbed the pipe aimed at his head before yanking it out of the man's hands as he planted a fist into his stomach, almost lifting him off the ground. The second thug fell to his knees, gasping for breath but Batman didn't hesitate to hit him in the temple with the makeshift weapon, knocking him out.
Silently, he turned around and observed the building filled with bodies of groaning men and women. Most of them had arms or legs jutting out at unnatural angles, making sure they couldn't use the guns that laid near them even if they wanted to.
"Just finished up at warehouse thirteen," he heard Robin say over his com.
"Same here with the Gunners," Batgirl reported.
"Regroup at the clock tower," he commanded, tapping on his ear. Both his apprentices confirmed before the line went dead.
Stepping over the groaning bodies, dropping a tracker for the police to pick up on, his mind turned over the last few hours. Thanks to the bugs he planted in every major gang's hideouts, he knew about the gang war that was about to be sparked tonight before it could get started.
It was going to be a mess. A war zone in the streets of Gotham.
Italian crime families fighting amongst themselves. The Irish against the Ukrainians. The Mexican cartel against the Colombian drug runners. Countless smaller gangs that smelled blood in the water and saw the opportunity to expand their power.
Thankfully, Commissioner Gordon acted on the information he received. They busted and arrested quite a number of Italian gangsters and the Bat-family stopped the Irish, Cartel, Colombians and numerous other gangs along the way. They couldn't stop everything, not with so few, but they avoided the worst of it by stopping the major crime factions.
Dozens of arrests were being carried out, several criminal families being busted on gun charges and reckless endangerment. Before the night was over, more than a few criminal families would put where they belong for a good, long, while.
Unfortunately, a number of gangs, such as the Penguins, Yakuza, Hanoi Ten and the Bloods attacked their rivals and expanded. Dozens were dead all across the city, and more would continue to die because this battle wasn't going to end tonight. The balance of power was collapsing, and there was blood in the water.
Then he hears that there have been numerous bank robberies all across the city.
Batman didn't believe in coincidences. This was planned. While he and the police were distracted with trying to stop the city from becoming a battlefield, someone was trying to rob several banks across the city. Hundreds of millions of dollars if his estimates were correct, and he knew they were.
What's more, all of the bank robbers were wearing suicide vests yet every one of them were professional thieves.
'The money is a means to the end,' Batman deduced as he hopped into the Batmobile. 'Too much work is going into this for money to be the aim. The question is, what's the money for?'
"Just got a report from the police; all of the bank robberies have been stopped," Batgirl informed over the radio. Batman's eyes narrowed, the police were stretched thin as it was and the only way the robberies could have been stopped was if the police were already outside the door.
"Some guy named Spider-man stopped three of them," she continued, answering Batman's question before he had a chance to ask.
That made his eyes narrow even more. A hero operating in his city without his knowledge or, much more importantly, his permission?
"Is he crazy?" Robin asked, sounding a mix of impressed and exasperated. Even Superman knew to stay out of Gotham.
"Don't know, I'm not finding anything on the web about him so he might be a new hero," she continued, and Batman listened intently. He knew he never heard of a 'Spider-man' before so he had to be either a new hero or a very well kept secret. He was betting on the former.
However, if he was a fresh hero, then how had he managed to stop three bank-robbing that had bombs stopped to their chests? Likely a Meta-human. Based on the name alone, Batman deduced spider-like powers.
"But Commissioner Gordon seems to put some stock in him since he put him on patrol on several banks," Batgirl summarized, feeling a little awkward calling her father by their last name. No matter what identity she took, he was always dad to her.
That gave Batman a pause. There were precious few that he trusted as much as James Gordon. While it could be because the police were stretched too thin, but Batman knew for fact that if Gordon thought 'Spider-man' would get in the way, he would arrest him in a heartbeat. So, he had enough skill, or talent, that he could handle professional criminals.
"Find out what you can, but it's not a priority for now. Let him take some pressure off the police while we find out who's responsible for all this chaos." Batman ordered before he sped off into the night.
(...)
"This the place?" Spider-man asked as he touched down on a tall yellow crane that overlooked the docks. He felt the death grip on his throat vanish before Catwoman gave the affirmative.
"Yeah, we're supposed to meet up at dock six and inside a container to exchange the money for getting the bombs off us," she explained, glad to have something solid beneath her.
Selina was no stranger to heights, but Spider-man flipped and twisted enough that her stomach was in knots. She was sure he did it on purpose.
"Neat, but before we do this, is this guy just a regular human?" Spider-man asked and earned a risen eyebrow from Catwoman.
"He has a couple dozen screws missing and a penchant for mass murder, but yeah, I guess so." She answered, "why?"
Spider-man shrugged, "just making sure I don't hit him too hard." With that, he jumped off the crane towards dock six. A quick web to slow his fall and pull him to his destination, he landed with little sound. He focused his hearing and heard footsteps on metal; hoping that it was the Joker and not some security guard, Spider-man crawled through a window and up on the ceiling.
"Puddin, it's past the deadline," a woman's voice reached his ears. He tried to find the source, but it was difficult with all the metal containers. It was high pitched so it carried and Peter could only describe it as bubbly.
"Haha! I suppose it is..." A man voice responded and Spider-Man thought it sounded...unhinged. One of the downsides of putting on a mask and fighting crime was that he dealt with crazy on the regular. He could spot it a mile away, and this guy's voice just oozed crazy. There was just this constant chuckle in his voice like he thought everything was funny in a horribly deranged way.
"You going to push the button, puddin?" The woman asked, and Spider-man heard a loud smack. His head snapped to the source, the woman falling down made enough noise that he knew which container it was.
"You...!" The man's voice started before he paused, "Harley, my sweet, no I'm not going to press the button just yet. Haha, they're just running a little late is all! It would be a shame to blow up all that money," he continued in a less angry voice, but Spider-man could hear the fury building up beneath the surface.
The woman, Harley, apparently couldn't.
"Yeah! Sorry Mista J, I got a little excited," she apologized, and the Joker let out another laugh.
"Quite alright my dear, I know how you get with red buttons."
As they had their conversation, Spider-Man made lowered himself above the container. Then, with a flip with some flare, he jumped in front of it and went to grab the handle but stopped himself. The only things he knew about the Joker was that he was crazy and liked explosives. For all he knew, the guy placed a claymore or something at the entrance.
Raising his hand into a fist, he lightly rapped his knuckles against the door, "Room service!" He called out, throwing on a Spanish accent.
The two went silent before the Joker let out a laugh.
"See Harley? I told you, just running a little-" he said as he opened the door. He was cut off by Spider-man's fist flattening his nose.
"PUDDIN!" Harley screamed as the Joker stumbled backward, blood dripping down his stark white skin. Spider-man walked into the container, and he took a moment to observe his newest opponents.
The Joker was dressed like those he coerced into working for him. The only difference he noticed was that his hair was a moss green and his lips were a ruby red, making his white skin stand out even more.
Harley was wearing a one-piece dress that cut off mid-thigh with several layers of frills. It hugged her torso, cupping her breasts but exposing a fair amount of cleavage before the deep red and blue reached her shoulders and puffed out into white sleeves. Her face was heavy with white makeup, though her lips were painted ruby red and her eyes had black eyeshadow. Her blonde hair was in pigtails; one dyed red while the other was black.
There was also an angry red handprint on one of her cheeks.
"Ohhh...sorry, I got my job mixed up again. What I meant to say is surrender now, so I don't have to wash your blood out of my suit," he said in a light tone, but there was anger building up in his chest.
It wasn't because Joker hit a woman. He believed in equality and, man or woman, if Peter thought you deserved it then you got hit.
It was because he hit her when they had some kind of relationship based on the conversation he overheard and her nickname for the man. Most likely they were lovers-or, at the very least, Harley was in love with the Joker.
And the Joker knew it. He had to. He wasn't a romantically inept teenager like Peter was. The Joker knew that Harley loved him and he hit her.
You...you don't hurt the people that love you. Sometimes it was unavoidable, like how he lied to aunt May to keep her out this dangerous part of his life because if she knew, then she'd be at the front of every crowd, trying to help him when he was being beaten, just like... However, physical abuse, or emotional, was just...reprehensible. There was no reason for it. No excuse.
A relationship was based on respect, trust, and love. To twist that, to use violence to...
In the two years that Spider-man existed, there were few crimes that haunted him more than domestic ones. Those were the ones that kept him up at night. He came to expect cruelty and evilness from his villains; it became all too clear how far they were willing to go just to hurt him or reach their goals.
But domestic violence was different. It was normal people, people he was trying to protect and...it was hard sometimes. There have been times that he saves someone from a mugging or falling debris, but he sees them a week later while they're beating their kids. That's what made it hard.
Peter glared down at the Jokers rising form, cupping a hand over his broken nose.
"You're not Batman," the Joker noted as he rose, his voice muffled by his hand.
"No, I'm not. He sounds like a swell guy though if he kicks your sorry ass," Spider-Man said as he clenched his hands into fists. "I'll be sure to buy him a soda or something after I throw you in the loony bin where you belong."
The Joker laughed at that, removing his hand and revealing a crazed smile with blood stained teeth. "Who are you," he demanded to know, raising a hand that stopped Harley from marching the warpath.
"Does nobody watch the news in this city? I'm Spider-man, for crying out loud!" He said, feeling confused and exasperated in equal measures. Not to toot his own horn, but he was nearing the top ten of the favorite superheroes in gossip magazines. Maybe the people he spoke to tonight just didn't enjoy trashy literature, but it was becoming increasingly disturbing that no one knew who he was. If not by name then by his iconic costume.
"Never heard of you! Now go away!" Joker commanded before he pulled out a Tommy gun from absolutely nowhere. His spidey-sense gave him a moment's warning and he jumped backward as he let his instincts guide him.
The Joker pulled the trigger, cackling madly, and Spider-man contorted his body. He dipped his shoulder out of the way of one bullet while leaning to the side to dodge a bullet that passed under his armpit. He felt the wind hit him from the bullet, but he was otherwise unharmed.
He jumped into the air and started twisting his body out of the path of the bullets. Even in the beginning, gunfire had been more of an annoyance that a problem thanks to his spidey-sense and superhuman reflexes.
However, he couldn't dodge every bullet from a machine gun firing this close, especially with so little room to maneuver, and he felt a sharp stinging pain across the side of his thigh and a similar, though more painful wound, above his hip. His hand dipped down, feeling hot blood against his palm and a growing wetness on his back told him that the bullet had gone all the way through.
Knowing that this couldn't go on else he'd be shot in a more vital area, he shot a bullet of webbing at the Joker. He was aiming for the barrel of the gun, but his missed because he was moving around so much. Instead, it hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
"PUDDIN!" Harley screamed again as she charged him with an oversized hammer, apparently uncaring that she was walking into gunfire. Luckily for the both of them, as the Joker was knocked back, the barrel of the gun was pointed upwards.
Spider-man tensed, ready to dodge the swing aimed at his head but he didn't need to. Before Harley could close the distance, Catwoman entered the container and kicked her in the stomach, sending her sprawling with the Joker.
She let out a grunt before looking up at who attacked her. Her jaw dropped, and an unexpected emotion entered her eyes. Betrayal.
"Cats?! What are you hitting me for?" She demanded as she rose, the Joker behind her. He touched the webbing that splattered across his chest and onto the biceps of his arms. He looked a little panicked when he couldn't move his hand away from it.
"I don't want to hit you, darling. I want to hit that asshole behind you for strapping a bomb to me," Catwoman answered in a hiss. Harley looked shocked at that, hesitantly giving a look over her shoulder.
"Mistah J?" She questioned meekly, but she didn't ask the question that was on her mind.
"I told you, I needed the best thieves in the city! Of course, I included Selina," the Joker responded, and Catwoman went stiff at the mention of her name. A quick glance and Spider-man saw that she had paled, her suspicions confirmed that he knew her identity. He couldn't see beneath her gloves, but he knew that she gripped her whip with white knuckles.
"But she's my friend!" Harley argued though it sounded more like a child making a stand for herself than an adult.
"She would have been fine," the Joker said, dismissing the issue entirely.
"But...," Harley tried to speak up, fidgeting from one foot to the other, "Cat's is my friend." She repeated, glancing at Catwoman and missing the thoroughly annoyed look from the Joker. His eyes narrowed, and Spider-man didn't even need his spidey-sense to warn him.
The Joker reached into his pocket and withdrew a small ball. Knowing what he planned to do, Spider-man reacted with superhuman reflexes and webbed his hand to the ball so he couldn't throw it on the ground.
The Joker looked a bit shocked by that as he glanced at his web covered hand but he simply changed plans. Since he couldn't throw it on the ground, the Joker slammed his fist into the side of the storage container, cracking the ball and smoke flooded the room. Spider-man shot forward before the Joker could escape and reached out blindly into the smoke.
Spider-man grabbed the Joker by the collar through the smoke and punched him in the stomach before he had a chance to flee. He caught air for a moment, folding on the punch, and Spider-man tossed him out of the container. He rolled on the ground, getting his arms and hands even more caught up in the sticky webbing.
"You! You ruined a perfectly good plan," Joker accused as Spider-Man walked out of the smoke-filled container. "I barely even got started! I made sure Bats was busy and everything..." he trailed off, the last part making him sound like a pouting child. He even stuck out his lip to complete the image.
"Ohhhhh, man, I am so not sorry. Plus, being a menace and stopping the bad guy's plans is kind in the superhero handbook," Spider-Man replied flippantly before he webbed Joker's legs together.
"Well, Spider-Man," Joker spat the name out with surprising venom, "I'll make sure my next plan involves dealing with you once I get out of Arkham...again!" He threatened dramatically before he threw his head back and laughed. "It's going to be so much fun! You joke around unlike Bats, always so serious that one. I-" He continued but was cut off by Spider-Man webbing his mouth.
"Sorry, my hand slipped," he said before turning back to the container. He couldn't say he was too shocked to see that it was empty of both smoke and the girls.
'Man, I need to tell Cat that I found her twin or something,' he thought to himself as he shook his head. They had so much in common, including their love for the ninja disappearing act. He was still learning how to pull that off himself.
'Now that's over and done with, I can finally figure out where I am,' He thought to himself as he notified the police that the Joker had been captured. With his work done here, Spider-Man swung off into the night in search of answers and a first-aid kit.
The first 17 chapters were written by him, everything after will be written by me.
Now with all that out of the way, please do enjoy the first chapter!
(...)
"You are needed,"
Spider-man choked as the water he had been drinking suddenly went down the wrong pipe. His lungs burned as he coughed, trying to get the liquid out of his lungs as he searched for the sudden voice that scared off a few years of his life.
He spun around but saw no one. Just an empty rooftop that he was using as a pit stop to take a break. After all, he could hardly save the city on an empty stomach.
"You are needed," the voice repeated. Peter noted that it sounded...familiar. Like someone he knew but hadn't seen, or in this case, heard in a long time.
"Uhh, hello?" Peter questioned, still searching for the source of the voice. He was needed? For what? He hadn't heard anything on the police scanner about trouble, if anything it was a slow day, so he was more than a little puzzled by a mysterious disembodied voice telling him trouble is afoot.
"You are needed, Spider-man. Once your work is done...then you will have to choose," the voice said in a soft whisper, and Peter almost thought she sounded sad. Peter felt a sense of foreboding at that. What work? What did he need to do? What choice was she talking about?
"What do I need to do?" He asked carefully, trying not to give his consent to whatever bout of apparent insanity he was having.
"What you have always done," The voice answered, except this time it was much closer. Directly over his shoulder. A cold chill raced down his spine, like someone pressed and ice cube and traced it. His body tensed and the only reason he didn't lash out was because he didn't feel his spidey-sense tingling.
Slowly, he craned his neck to look behind him. What he saw made his jaw drop in utter confusion. He stared and stared, his mind trying to reject what he was seeing but denial was losing its leg to stand on, and reality was giving it a nice, hard shove. Eventually, after minutes, Peter managed to pick his jaw off the floor.
"I am not in NYC anymore," Peter said flatly. In the past two years he's become very familiar with New York's skyline, he knew it by heart, both day and night. What he was looking at was certainly not his home city. The skyline was all wrong; the Avengers tower was missing, the only skyscraper with a letter on it was one with a giant W. Unless half a dozen skyscrapers were torn down and twice that number had been erected in the past five minutes, he wasn't in New York.
So, where was he? Clearly in another big city, but which one? Sandiego? LA? Boston? Chicago?
Suddenly, Peter realized he was absolutely freezing. He crossed his arms and rubbed his biceps in a vain attempt to warm up before blowing out an annoyed breath, making a cloud of fog form. He could cross LA and Sandiego off the list because they never experienced winter, so he had been told.
What about this made any sense? He hears and a disembodied voice telling him that he's needed for something, and when he looks around, he's been teleported or something to a different city entirely? One that had to quite the trip away because it was nearing Summer time in New York a few minutes ago.
What was the purpose? It clearly wasn't to keep him out of the way for any baddy and their villainous intentions because he found himself on a rooftop in the middle of somewhere. It would be smarter just to lock him in a hole somewhere. He didn't have any letter of demands or threatening blackmail because if someone kidnapped him, Peter assumed the first thing they would do was take off his mask.
If he was drugged, then the question was of what and why. Peter felt fine; no grogginess or any kind soreness. Unless it was a tasteless hallucinogenic, Peter hadn't been drugged. Teleportation was more likely because he didn't think he lost any time. He was just in one place and then another with the blink of an eye.
That voice and what she said were the only clues that he had.
"What did she mean? 'I'm needed?'" Spider-man questioned, cradling his head in his hands and trying not to shiver. For what? Why was he here? What situation was so desperate that he was the go-to-guy instead of Captain America, or Iron Man, or any one of a thousand heroes?
Why was he, Peter Benjamin Parker, needed?
Peter's thoughts were interrupted by sirens going off. Snapping to attention, all thoughts of his current problems being shelved, he used his enhanced hearing and realized that they were police sirens. Peter tapped his ear, flicking on the earpiece that was tuned into the police radios, wanting to know what crime he could expect to stop. However, he only heard static.
Peter groaned again in annoyance before clicking it off. He didn't have a way to change the frequency in the field because he never expected to fight crime outside of New York.
"Guess I'm doing this the old fashion way," he commented to himself before he shot out a web and swung off the building. Idly, he tried to pay attention to names of streets as he swung by, hoping to luck out and recognize a famous one. It was also in the effort to take his mind off of just how cold it was. Spandex was not meant to keep the cold out, and it cut right through Peter like a knife.
'I should know better by now. The only luck I have is the bad kind,' he thought to himself with a self-deprecating grin underneath his mask. You would think that karma would throw him a bone considering all the people he's saved but the universe needed a chew toy, and that seemed to be him on most days.
Peter followed a cop car racing through the streets for a couple of minutes before it reached its destination. Surrounding a bank, there were half a dozen cop cars parked in front, blocking the exits and setting up a perimeter. A quick glance at the writing on top as he landed on a gargoyle gave him his first clue as to where he was.
'Gotham's first national bank, huh?' Peter thought, trying to think if he had ever heard the name of the city. From his birds-eye view, he saw that the city was a big one and on an island. So it was a major city based on size alone, and there were only a handful of cities that were built on islands.
Peter wasn't an expert in geography, but he couldn't recall any other major city in America that was on an island. He would have assumed that he was out of the country, Canada maybe, but he saw an American flag flapping in the wind on a flag post.
"What's going on here," he asked aloud, getting annoyed by the slowly increasing number of questions he had while the answers weren't budging from zero.
One of his questions was answered a moment later when the doors of the bank were suddenly thrown open, and a flood of people came running out.
Spider-man's eyes narrowed, all of the people running out of the bank were dressed identically. They all wore masks of a smiling clown, a purple suit with an orange vest and black dress shoes.
However, what was more eye-catching was what they wore over their clothing.
Suicide vests.
For a brief moment, Spider-man thought that they were terrorists, but that was quickly disproven when he heard all of the people screaming for help as they ran towards the police. A man with a moustache that looked like he was in his fifties was calling out over a megaphone for them to stop where they were until they called a bomb squad.
Naturally, the small horde of people didn't listen and continued to rush to the police line.
Spider-man sprung into action. He leaped off the building and swung over the small plaza. With a little flare, he landed in between the mob and police. That seemed to give them some pause because most of them slowed before Spider-man held up his hands in a reassuring gesture.
"Hey there folks! I know you've had a bit of a scare but try to take a deep breath," Spider-man said to the stunned crowd in a friendly voice. The small mob stopped in their tracks, either because they listened to him or they were surprised by his sudden appearance. It didn't matter because it gave him the opening he needed.
Unfortunately, thanks to the...Goblin..., Spider-man knew a thing or two about explosives. He wasn't an expert, but after giving the vests a critical look over, he saw that they weren't as complicated as they appeared. Sure, there were a lot of wires and flashing lights, but absolutely nothing was attached to the deadbolt lock that prevented the victims from taking them off. Meaning, that if he ripped them off, the vests wouldn't go boom.
Taking a deep breath, he took a step forward, "I'm going to get you out of those vests, okay?" He said in a voice that he hoped sounded reassuring. "But I need all of you to stay very still. I have to do this fast, and I can't do that if you're running around. Please...just trust me," he said as he took another step forward.
Normally he would have let out a quip to put himself at ease in the tense situation, but these guys seemed on the edge of hysterics. Some of them were crying, begging for help while others looked like it was taking all of their self-control not to rip at the vest to get it off. The rest looked like they were going to make a break for it.
Peter couldn't see their faces but a long moment past, everyone holding their breath, and he took that as consent.
Kicking forward, Peter approached the first victim and grabbed the two deadbolts and yanked them off with his super-human strength. The steel crumpled underneath his grip before he dropped them to the ground. Reaching out, he attached his hand to the vest and slid it upwards and once it was clear of the victims head; he threw it upwards as high as he could.
Thankfully, he was right, and there wasn't an explosion, so there was nothing holding him back from brushing past to the next victim with the speed of a bullet. Doing the same to the woman, he tossed the vest into the air before sending up a web, connecting the two in mid-air.
As he moved through the crowd, moving as fast he could, the other vest joined them before the final one was in the air. Once all of them were in the clear, Peter shot out a strand of webbing and grabbed onto the vest of explosives before throwing them towards the entrance of the bank to make sure they got clear of the crowd.
It was then that he noticed another person dressed in a neon purple suit sneaking off with a very large duffel bag on his back in a window of the bank.
Spider-man glanced back at the stunned circle of police officers, "you take care of these guys. I'll go deal with the clown college rejects," he said to the man with a microphone and a mustache. Unlike his colleagues, the older man was pinning a soul-searching gaze on him that almost made him squirm.
Without another word, Spider-man attached two webs to pillars in front of the large entrance door and launched himself through them. The door was knocked open, slamming into the wall as Peter sailed through and a loud bang echoed in the large lobby.
He landed on the front desk, but he didn't see anyone. They shut off the lights, leaving the sizable building pitch black. The only light source were the red and blue cop cars from outside, making the shadows dance but Peter couldn't peer into the dark shadows even when he tried. However, tilting his head to the side, he heard the faint sounds of footsteps and a door closing.
With an inhuman jump, Spider-man launched himself across the lobby and made his way to the back of the building. He made sure to stick to the walls and ceiling, just in case the bank robbers left him a little surprise.
'Though, at least they're being smart about it and not charging through the front door.' Spider-man thought to himself, feeling a little conflicted about the signs of increased intelligence in criminals. On the one hand, smarter criminals meant more work to him. On the other, he wouldn't have his faith in humanity chipped away every day by the stunning lack of common sense.
Spider-man sighed as he disabled a claymore mine by snapping the trip wire and sealing it in a bubble of webbing. These guys definitely knew what they were doing, and he was willing to bet that they weren't just packing explosives.
Sticking to the ceiling, he made his way to the back door and heard voices through the door. Rolling his shoulders, he webbed the sides of the door before launching himself through it much like before. His feet hit the push lock with enough force the door was almost knocked off its hinges and sent one man flying.
Spider-man skidded to a halt in between the remaining three, all of them looking at him with wide eyes beneath their masks. Peter was looking right back at them, a quip on his tongue but it died on his lips when he noticed something.
These guys were wearing suicide vests too.
Feeling a more than a little panic, Spider-man realized that he didn't have time to yank off the vests before one of them had the chance to detonate. Instead, with a fury of fists, Spider-man struck out.
While one of the bank robbers was recovering from getting slammed with the door, Spider-man punched the closest one to him in the jaw. The bank robber's head snapped to the side, the tension leaving his body as he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
His spidey-sense flashed, warning him that danger was coming from behind him, so he jumped upwards. He nearly jumped two stories high, giving him more than enough room to do a tight half back flip, so his head was facing the pavement. Right when the bank robbers started to point their guns up, Peter used two webs and covered the barrels.
He was too late to pull the weapons out of their hands because one of them pulled the trigger, making a loud bang ring out in the alley. While the bank robber managed to fire off his gun, the bullet failed to get past Spider-man's webbing. It was as strong as steel while being stretchy like elastic to those that had enough strength to tug at it.
A bullet didn't, making the gun barrel explode outwards in the man's hands. The other bank robber was either smart enough not to fire off a shot or was too busy watching his friend stumble backward, his eyes wide as he looked down at the ruined weapon.
It made it so very easy for Peter to close the distance between them once he landed. He planted a fist in the bank robber with a gun's stomach, making all the breath in his explode out of his mouth in a rugged gasp before he slid past him and slugged the shell-shocked bank robber in the temple, dropping him.
Looking around, the alleyway was now filled with groaning bodies; he let out a breath of relief. Now that he had a moment, he gave the vest a look over and saw that they were different than the victims on the other side of the bank.
These bombs were more complicated. Wires were wrapped around the deadlocks in a messy knot, and the wire was connected to the bomb by...by...oh man...by a single, oh so very thin stripped wire.
If that wire had slipped out during the fight...boom...
Peter had uncountable close calls since he put this mask on, but it still got his heart pumping away knowing that he had been one move away from meeting the reaper.
Walking over, he grabbed the nearest bank robber that he hit with the door and lifted him, so they were eye to eye. The man seemed terrified, but he quickly schooled his emotions before taking a swing at Spider-man. He didn't even look away as he caught the man's fist with a grip of steel.
Just like that, the fight left the man's eyes.
"Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you didn't strap on those bombs because it's the newest winter fashion," Spider-man began as he lifted the man into the air with ease, holding him by his jacket. The bank robber couldn't see it, but Peter's eyes were trained on the wire connected to the bomb. He wouldn't do anything to put either of them at risk, but the bank robber didn't know that he knew about the thin wire.
"N-no," the man said, struggling to keep the fear out of his voice. "That whack job Joker put them on us! Told us to rob the bank and-" the man cut himself off with a click.
Spider-man sighed theatrically as he shook his head. "Ahh, don't be like that! Don't stop when you're getting to the good part," he said, making his voice go higher like a child whining. He gave the man a little shake, not enough to hurt him but enough to remind him that he was dealing with someone that could squish him. Also to give him a little dose of fear that they might explode.
Not that he would, but what the guy didn't know wouldn't hurt him.
"Okay! Okay! H-he told us to meet him at the docks! We were supposed to rendezvous with the others and then he would let us go! That's all I know, I swear!" The man shouted, starting to squirm in his grip.
Spider-man's eyes narrowed beneath the one-way mirror lend, "others?" He questioned, pulling the man closer to his reflective eyes.
"Y-yeah! Others, he grabbed like twenty of us and said that we had to rob a bank or he'd kill us!" The man shouted, doing his best to seem as pathetic as possible. However, Spider-man saw right through that. He caught a glimpse of the bank vault, everything about this heist was clean.
He didn't know who these guys were, but they had experience, and nothing about them screamed civilian.
"How many teams are there," Peter demanded to know, and the man whimpered in response. Peter gave him a little shake, scaring the daylights out of him as he told him to stop or they'd blow up.
"Then tell me what you know! Which banks, how many groups and which docks you're meeting the Joker at," Peter demanded to know, cutting to the chase. He did not have time to be gentle with this guy right now, not when there was a string of bank robberies to stop.
"F-Fine! Ah, I, I think there're four teams of five, except us since we only use four guys! I don't know which banks they are robbing- I swear! Me and the boys were told to rob this one or he'd kill us! And, and, I don't know where we were supposed to bring the money to! I just know we were supposed to bring it to the docks! That's all I know; I swear it! I swear!" The man cried out, and the cogs in Peter's brain were turning furiously.
He didn't know this cities layout and his radio wasn't working, so it would be a little more challenging than normal, but he already had a couple of half-baked plans turning around in his head. One of the perks of being a genius and impulsive. He needed a map of the banks to start...
"Now let me go," the man demanded, breaking Spider-man from his thoughts.
"Hm? Oh, sure," he dismissed by throwing the man up lightly and webbing him by his hands and the wire so it wouldn't explode even if it was jostled. As the man cursed Spider-man, Peter reached in and grabbed the bank robber's cell phone. He needed it more than him right now.
He walked over and did the same to the other bank robbers, securing both them and the bombs. Spider-man also made sure to leave a nice note in the snow about how his webbing dissolves into a powder after a few hours and to be careful when disarming the bombs. He even added a little smiley face for good measure.
"Now, adios muchachos," Spider-man said in a goodbye, jumping up onto the fire escape and using the extent of what he learned in Spanish class. However, before he could swing away, a voice called out to him.
"Wait," a single word from a rough, scratchy voice and Peter obeyed instantly. He heard it over the bank robber's cursing and the groans of the others, so Peter looked over his shoulder and saw someone walking into the alley with two others at his side.
At first, he thought it was some villain that wanted to pick a fight and get their teeth kicked in, but he saw that it was the guy with the mustache and a microphone from before. He was flanked by two police officers, both their guns aimed at his chest and Spider-man resisted the urge to sigh. It really got old being treated as badly as the criminals that he helped the police catch.
The man stopped some feet away and pinned that soul searching gaze at him. Spider-man had to remind himself that he was wearing a mask because the look just cut right through him. It felt like he was standing before Nick Fury instead of a police commissioner.
"Who are you," the man demanded in a gruff voice, and Spider-man stood a little straighter in response.
"I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-man. Well, not this neighborhood, but I was in town when I saw these jokers stealing their tuition for their next semester of clown college." He responded in a flippant tone, but he was on edge. Jeez, what did this guy go through to earn a stare like that? He's met gods that were less intimidating.
The man stared at him for a moment longer before he raised his hand. Spider-man tensed but relaxed when he saw it was a gesture for the police officers to put their guns away. Both of them looked unsure for a moment before they followed the man's orders.
"You're not with Batman," the man declared and that made him pause for a moment.
Was this 'Gotham' already being protected by a hero? He didn't know every hero on the planet, but he heard of most through the grapevine and he liked to think he would have heard of a hero who's name was so similar to his own. That and the fact that Gotham was a sizable city, so Batman would be one of the more well-known heroes simply because his actions would affect a larger number of people at their hometown.
Thus, like him, he would be a more widely known hero. New York had nearly twenty million people in it, so when they would send out a tweet or post a video on Youtube, it generated more attention because people in New York would look at it and share it with their friends that were out of state. Then it would spread across the nation if the news was crazy enough.
"No. No, I am not. More of a solo guy myself, but I'm sure he's a swell guy." Spider-man said absentmindedly, trying to think of a reason why he wouldn't have heard of Batman. He was having some trouble, and that wasn't a good sign.
'Where am I?' Peter questioned, he brow scrunching up beneath his mask. The more he learned, the less everything made sense.
'I'll figure it out later,' Spider-man decided. He still had some robberies to stop and bust the mastermind.
Surprising the man with a mustache, Spider-man webbed the radio strapped to his belt and caught it. Both of the police officers whipped their guns back out, but the man lowered them by placing a hand on their wrists as he watched the teenager.
"I'm going to borrow this for a bit. The fashion disasters said that they were told to rob the bank by some guy that put suicide vests on them. Though these guys put them on the guys and gals I saved, but he also said that there's going to be another three robberies tonight. I'll bust them, you cuff 'em," Spider-man said as he leaped high and was about to swing away, but he paused when he heard the man call out to him again.
"Why are you doing this?" He asked barely raising his voice, but it seemed to carry in the alleyway. Spider-man paused, knowing the meaning behind the question.
Luckily, it was a question he had asked himself hundreds of times. When things were at their darkest when being Spider-man meant nothing but pain and heartache, why would he put it on and save others? Even when it came at his own expense.
"Because...with great power comes great responsibility," he answered simply. He didn't know how else to explain it but that to use uncle Ben's final words. Spider-man knew he was failing epically to explain what that phrase meant to him, but he just couldn't put it in words. Yet again, he became painfully aware of the burden that was placed on his shoulders due to a freak accident.
However, he had to bear it. It was his responsibility.
To his surprise, the man's face showed some elements of approval.
Standing a little straighter, Spider-man swung off into the night and within seconds he was gone.
(...)
James Gordon took a cigarette out of the box and lite it with his old lighter. Taking a deep breath, savoring the feeling of the smoke filling his lungs before he let it all out in a long, weary, sigh.
"Sir," asked the officer on his right, looking helplessly confused. Gordon idly realized that he was the new transfer from Boston, so he probably wasn't used to men in masks doing the police's job for them. It was a very different experience from seeing it on your tv screen compared to seeing it in real life.
"With great power comes great responsibility, huh," Gordon mused to himself, taking another drag. He turned over the phrase in his mind for a couple of seconds, and he decided that he liked it. It was a good phrase; a good code. One that would steer whoever followed it in the right direction.
It said a lot about the kid if he followed it. Hell, it said a lot about him that he had those powers and the first thing he did has become a hero instead of another villain that only cared for himself, or desired to see everyone around him dead or worse. Especially in this city that just seemed to breed the worst kind of villains.
"You heard him; tonight's going to get even busier than we thought! Alert all units and I want the addresses of every bank in the city, and I wanted it yesterday. Also, arrest these clowns; these are the Rosso brothers; they've been robbing banks since you were in training." Gordon barked at the officers, making them spring into action, as he turned to his car.
Even though he knew he had a long night ahead of him, he couldn't help but think about how unhappy Batman would be when he hears that someone's in his stomping grounds.
(…)
"Hello there! License and registration please," Spider-man asked, holding his hand out expectantly through the window that he just punched in. The driver let out an impressive string of curses, the rude fellow.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Sheesh, I'm at an impressionable age you know," he said as he grabbed the man's shirt and slammed him forward. His head bounced off the steering wheel, and when he leaned back to hold his broken nose, it gave Spider-man the chance to web the loose wire so it wouldn't blow up.
"Excuse me, beg your pardon," he said as he pulled him out of the vehicle. The man let out a shout as he flailed helplessly into the air before being suspended by a web. With that done, Peter slid into the truck and slammed on the breaks. The car lurched, and the tires skidded, trying to comply with the demand, before coming to a stop nearly fifty feet later.
After turning the truck off, he strolled out, clicked the beeper to lock the doors before tossing the keys to a cop that pulled up. The man fumbled with the keys for a moment before giving Spider-man a helpless look. Peter responded by giving him the fingers guns and clicking his tongue. That was still cool, right?
Yeah, finger guns were always cool.
After making his exit, he swung upwards onto a building and pulled out the iPhone he lifted from the bank robber. He pulled up the map function and entered in the name Gotham and searched for banks in the city.
Spider-Man looked at for a moment, trying his best to ignore how much the island looked like New York...wow...it was on the east coast and everything...No, no! Deal with that later! Focus!
'Alright, just one group left,' Spider-man thought to himself, shaking his head free of the stray thoughts. The police already caught one when he was scrambling to figure out just where he was going. It was for that reason he found this police chase and stopped his second team of bank robbers.
'Just need to nab these last guys and find out which docks they're bringing the money to.' Unfortunately, there were a few different docks in Gotham, and he already knocked out the other bank robbers so they couldn't point him in the right direction. That was a mistake; Peter needed to work on that.
He turned the radio up as he climbed onto a vantage point, listening for news of the next robbery.
"We have gunshots on Main street-"
"Suspicious activity in-"
"Requesting backup-"
"Car chase on Wayne street, in hot pursuit-"
"Alarm tripped at antique store-"
"Wow," Spider-man, sounding a bit dazed. Was it just because he was here or was it always this crazy? From the sound of it, there was enough crime going on tonight to fill up his quota for the week.
"Agh...I'm not getting any sleep tonight...or figuring out where the hell I am," he said with a sigh as he straightened out from his crouch. He looked down at his new phone and saw that it had finally finished loading all the banks. Parker luck struck again; no signal when he wanted to use a phone for something other than candy crush.
He saw nearly a dozen dots.
Pursing his lips, he thought about it for a moment. He couldn't swing by every bank and check if they had been robbed, while he was at the wrong one the right one could get away scot free.
Putting the radio near his mouth, he pressed the button and said, "Spider-man here. Just busted some guys that were robbing, uh, Welsfargo. Can someone tell me which banks are being watched?" He asked and with that question he heard the chatter on the radio cease.
He stared at it for a few moments, waiting for an answer. When the silence stretched on and on, he started to wonder if the thing was busted.
"We're stretched thin right now, but we can have a squad car outside of every bank if you take the upper half of Gotham," Spider-man heard a familiar voice say.
"Roger, roger," he said, taking a glance at the phone and saw that he had seven banks in his half.
With a destination set, he swung off the building.
He swung by the first two, giving them a quick look over. From what he saw, things seemed relatively normal. People went in then they came out clutching their purse or man-purse/satchel. It was really telling at the level of crime this city had when people's first instinct when having money was expecting to be mugged.
He swung by the third bank and saw it was much the same if a little more dead than the others. From his window seat, he saw the teller playing bejeweled on her phone, the heathen, and the security guard struggling to stay awake. There weren't any customers, so they could afford to slack off a little.
Spider-man was about to leave, going to check his other banks, but paused when a woman walked through the door.
And boy, was she a woman.
Short raven black hair with bright blue eyes. Her skin was white, with a healthy tan to it, but she seemed more of a night owl. A strong jaw that lead to a pointed chin. Kissable lips that were painted black matching her eye shadow. A cute as a button nose that was flanked by cheekbones that most girls would murder for. He couldn't see her body underneath the black trench coat she wore, but she moved with a cat-like grace that seemed familiar to him.
All in all, 10/10. Would stare creepily through a window again.
She strode across the lobby, earning the attention of both the teller and the security with her high heels clacking on the floor with confidence. He watched in some amusement as the security's guards mouth drop and the teller just turned green with envy. Not that Peter had any room to talk, but he was a perfectly healthy teenage boy. It was his excuse, and he was sticking with it.
"Hello, I was hoping to open up an account, if it wouldn't be any trouble," the woman said with a sly grin that would make most men go weak at the knees and, judging by the air of confidence she carried herself with, she knew it too. The teller, Amy based on her name tag, stammered out that it wouldn't be any trouble at all.
However, with his enhanced hearing, he heard the security guard telling his mate to check out the beauty that just walked in. While he couldn't make out the response, he managed to guess that it was an agreement when the security camera moved towards her.
It was as he straining his hearing, trying to hear the conversation between them that he heard something else entirely. It almost sounded like a...blowtorch? It was a steady 'foosh' that was accompanied by little pops.
'What...ah!' Spider-Man wondered before it clicked. The old distraction technique! He almost, totally fell for it.
Slowly, Spider-man pushed on the window using his adhesive ability to keep his grip, and slowly he opened the window. After a few seconds and a mini heart attack when the window made a squeak, earning a glance from the black-haired woman, it was open enough for him to crawl through.
He was grateful for the change in temperature. Most of his body was starting to go numb from swinging around the city in this weather.
After making note where the security cameras were, he made his way behind the lobby by crawling on the ceiling. Spider-man followed the sound of the blowtorch that was slowly growing louder. Finally, he found the source of it in the vault room. Peeking through a little window above the door, he saw exactly what he was expecting to see.
Four men were in the room; two had guns pointed at the door while the other two were working on getting through the door.
It was a different approach to the usual heist, that much he would give them. Waiting until the had a skeleton crew, using a distraction and putting up a photo in front of the security camera to make the cameraman think nothing was wrong. They entered through the floor, probably through the sewer. Because there was always a sewer beneath the vault. Why no one saw that designs flaw was just beyond him.
Cracking his neck and limbering up, Spider-man gripped the door frame and jumped up lightly. "Maximum effort," he said, quoting a friend before he swung himself into the door. The plywood door exploded into a shower of splinters, earning a surprised shout from the gunmen before they thought to pull the trigger. By the time the room erupted in gunfire, Spider-man was already in the room.
His foot connected to the chest of one gunman, knocking the wind out of him and sending the man backward. As Spider-man was carried forward by his momentum, he grabbed the barrel of the gun that the second man carried.
The man pulled the trigger, and Peter felt like he just put his hand on a stove, but he ignored it in favor of pulling the gunman towards him, ripping the gun out of his hands but carrying him by the strap around his shoulders. The gunman was pulled off balance by Spider-Man grabbing the gun, and he started to follow him with his momentum. Once the gunman was close enough, completely off balance due to Spider-man's momentum, Spider-man lashed out and socked him in the face, rattling his teeth.
Spider-man landed on his feet and looked over his shoulder at the last two men. Both were looking at him with a stunned expression, clearly unprepared for a man in tights kicking the door in and incapacitating their guards in seconds.
Popping out the magazine, Spider-man spin on his heel and threw both the gun and the magazine at the men. Both smacked them in the face, breaking them from their stupor to let out cries of pain, but as they went to grip their faces, Peter webbed their hands together. To make extra sure they didn't get away, he webbed their hands to the ceiling along with their two unconscious friends.
"Well, that was easy," he commented to himself as he turned the blowtorch off. Perhaps it was just the gap in strength thanks to his spider-like abilities, or it was just a matter of perspective since he's been dealing with highly trained soldiers or jerks in super suits recently. Guys like these just seemed so...easy in comparison. He almost felt like a bully.
"Now, just gotta arrest that woman," he said, dusting his hands of splinters. He knew he was going to be picking them out of his suit for days.
Spider-man started to walk out of the room when he saw the security guard running down the hallway with his pistol out, frantically calling for backup. Knowing what was coming, Spider-man just held up a hand and pointed at the room that he just left, "just stopped a bank robbery. You're welcome," he said a little more patronizingly than he had intended.
The man just blinked and, surprise surprise, he didn't believe him. Sometimes having a mask was just a pain in his butt; who knew it would make him seem so untrustworthy?
"Put your hands in the air freak!" The man, Jim, screamed as he gestured pointedly with his gun.
"Hey, words hurt! And I did your job for you, take a look," he refuted, gesturing to the room again. Unfortunately, Jim wasn't having any of it, assuming that it was a trap. Very smart of him, Spider-man would have been proud of it wasn't so terribly inconvenient.
"I don't have time for this," he said, webbing the guards gun before he had a chance to react. The man just gaped at him, but Peter jumped over him and ran towards the lobby. Unsurprisingly, the woman was gone.
Knowing that he couldn't waste any time, he launched himself out of the building. A quick scan of the dark, snow-covered streets told him that the woman was gone. Cursing to himself, he ran up the building, sticking to the walls with such strength that duck-tap would be jealous.
With a flip with flare, he landed on top of the bank and searched for a clue from his bird's eye view.
"Agh...she got away," he said, not seeing any tell-tale signs of someone fleeing. It seemed she was smart as she was beautiful because he didn't have a clue which direction he needed to head to now.
Now he had a bank robber with a suicide vest running about. She was smart, or at the very least clever, so hopefully she would go to the police to get the thing off before the mastermind found out she failed. And hopefully, she wouldn't be in a public place in case-
Spider-Man felt a tingle in the back of his neck, warning him that danger was behind him. It was faint, so it wasn't a bullet, but Spider-man rolled out of the way all the same. The moment he did so, he heard a loud crack that left his ears ringing. It actually took him a moment to realize that someone was talking to him through the white noise.
"-managed to dodge that," a woman's voice said with a...seductive edge to it. It sounded very familiar.
Turning around, he saw the woman behind him. The most notable difference was that she shed the overcoat and revealed a skin-tight leather suit with a pilots cap with cat ears and goggles. Unfortunately, a suicide vest blocked his view, and he noticed it looked significantly more complicated than the others. More wires, more locks, three different timers...he had no idea what most of it did, but he was willing to bet that they were redundancies. She also had a whip in her hands.
"Huh...you know, I think I had a dream that started off like this once..." Spider-man said absentmindedly. He had, except it had been Black Cat instead of whoever this knockoff was. The resemblance was there, but it was mostly in the cat-like mannerisms and the skin tight clothes that revealed a rather...impressive figure.
However, once he looked past that it was clear that they were different people. For one, this cat person hadn't tried to shove her tongue down his throat. Yet.
The woman let out a laugh that sounded like a purr, "Cute. But this won't be ending like your dream did," she said before she drew back her hand and Spider-man felt his spidey-sense tingle. Turning slightly, he dipped out of the way of the whip that was trying to hit him in the chest.
The crack sounded again, making his ears ring but he didn't press the attack. He angled his body sideways to provide a smaller target, but he didn't attack because the woman seemed faintly surprised.
"Ohh...I'm going to go ahead and assume you can keep doing that," the woman said, sounding thoughtful. She tilted her head to the side, considering him lightly. If he was anything like every other hero in this crazy world, then he either had superpowers or spent his entire life training on some island somewhere. She was going to bet on the former simply because it takes serious reflexes to dodge anything like he did.
Selina Kyle didn't like taking risks as much as one would think. Sure there was a thrill jumping off a building without a plan, or getting in a good fight or ripping off a gang boss for the fun of it. Those were risks, but they were the fun kind of risks.
Fighting an unknown hero when she had a bomb strapped to her chest did not sound like a fun kind of risk.
"You...are the first person to realize that," Peter said, sounding a bit surprised. "Usually, they just start screaming for me to hold still like I'm going to help them kill me." he continued and earned a chuckle from the woman.
"Now then, how about we end this before anyone gets hurt? I'll take that bomb off you, and you go do whatever beautiful women do while dressed up in cats costumes. That way, everyone wins!" Peter said, putting as much enthusiasm as he could into the sales pitch.
"Sounds tempting, but that madman Joker was very through with me," she said, scowling in distaste. Spider-man idly made note of the name of the man who did this. With the ones before, he thought the name was an insult.
"I pick a lock, I explode. I pull a wire, I explode. I tamper with the bomb; I-you get the picture. The only way this thing comes off is if I deliver what's in this banks vaults," she gestured underneath them before she pinned a glare at Spider-man. "Not that I can anymore, thanks for that by the way," she added sarcastically.
"No problem, being a menace is what I do," Spider-man shot back as he turned over the woman's dilemma. Unlike with all the other goons, he couldn't just secure a wire so it wouldn't explode. It sounded like he was right, the bomb was full of redundancies. The only way to deactivate it was to know how or...
"Okay, how about this. I take off that vest, and you tell me which docks this Joker guy is at," he offered, crossing his arms over his chest.
That gave the woman something to think about. She gave him a long look, consider him.
Based on his voice, he was a teenager. What age exactly, she couldn't tell, but she guessed around seventeen or so. His suit did nothing to hide his physique, so she saw that he was well muscled, despite his scrawny nature. He held himself well enough. There was that awkwardness that every teenager had when they saw her, but there weren't any rookie jitters, which was very reassuring.
She didn't know how much experience he had being a hero, not much since she never heard of him before and she made it her business knowing every hero and their sidekick, but he gave the impression that he knew what he was doing.
Not only that, but he dodged her sneak attack. She made sure her approach was silent, only Batman and a handful of others would have noticed her. Based on how Selina didn't see any kind of reaction until she was attacking, she figured he wasn't on that short list. Which meant that he was just that fast and his reflexes were that sharp.
"Hmmm, tempting offer but what makes you think I'm going to trust my life to a punk kid who's trying to be the next Batman?" She asked, trying to rile him. Just trying to get a read on the kid.
'There's that name again,' Spider-man thought. He really needed to Google, this guy.
"You don't have to trust me. If that thing blows up, I'll die with you. And I like living. A lot. Now that I think about it, living is probably my second favorite thing to do." He said, knowing that there was nothing he could say that could gain her trust. If she was anything like Black Cat, which she was, then words were next to worthless.
"Second favorite?" The woman asked, sounding thoroughly amused. This kid was interesting.
"I'm an awkward bundle of hormones known as the teenage boy. You get three guesses."
The woman threw back her head and laughed. It quickly died off into chuckles, but she looked at him with a fond expression, "you're no Batman, but you are a treat. Fine, what's your plan to get this thing off me?" She asked, walking to him with a sway in her hips.
'Doc Ock in a speedo. Doc Ock in a speedo. Doc Ock in a-' Spider-man resisted the cringe from the mental image before he began explaining. 'It's simple really; we just disarm the bombs at the same time."
"Ohh...is that all," she said drily, sounding like she didn't think much of his plan. She stopped in front of him, uncomfortably close. She leaned in, checking her appearance in his reflective eyes and brushed some snow that gathered on her shoulders, flicking her hand down towards her breasts. She didn't even need to see his eyes to know where they were looking.
"Er-yeah. Just give me a minute, and I can figure out which wires will blow us up and which won't. Then we pull them at the same time," Spider-man said, with a shrug and raised his hands to start messing with the wires. A gesture asking for permission and once he received it in the form of a quick nod, he began fiddling with the wires.
He was going to deduce which wires did what by his spidey-sense. It acted on a simple principle; the more danger he was in, the stronger the tingle. It even warned him which direction the danger was coming from.
Peter learned to put a little more faith in the ability, considering it his greatest power. He lost count of how many times he took a hit because he failed to act on the warning, or had been too slow. He was still miles and miles away from mastering the ability, but he was getting a better grip on it.
At first, he looked for red wires, because that's what it always is in the movies but he quickly saw that there weren't any. The bombs were a mess of yellow, orange, green, purple and white. All of them were hooked up to various clocks that housed the explosives. He traced each wire with his finger, acting like he was going to pull it and the tingle in the back of his neck would intensify.
Spider-man was so absorbed in his task that he nearly jumped out of his suit when the woman spoke.
"If we're going to risk death together, you can call me Catwoman," she introduced herself suddenly. Spider-man took a moment to calm his heart that threatened to punch its way out of his chest before responding.
"I'm Spider-man, but most people call me annoying," he introduced, deciding against his usual introduction. He already used it once tonight.
"Yeah, you definitely aren't with Batman. Though, the whole assuring me with mutual destruction was a step in the right direction," Catwoman said thoughtfully, moving her arms so Spider-man could reach a wire. He humphed before he realized that the wire was one that controlled one of the bombs.
"Found one," he said before memorizing the wire and continuing his search for the other two.
"Really?" Catwoman questioned, making note that he just lightly touched the wires before moving on. Despite how casually she was acting, she had some reservations about letting a kid disarm a bomb that was strapped to her chest. Spider-man's reassurance of mutual death and their mutual love of life was the only reason he was letting him near her.
Spider-man made a noise of agreement, but Catwoman wanted an answer.
"How?" she pushed.
"Because I know everything not counting all the things I don't know," he responded carelessly. He grabbed another wire, and he felt the tingling in the back of his neck intensify. "Found another," he informed before searching for the last wire.
Catwoman rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Wow. Dodging questions. You sure Batman isn't your role model? No need to be ashamed about it, there are worse people to look up to than one of the founders of the Justice League." She commented in a dry tone, giving Spider-man a dull stare. It was then that she saw his pause.
'Justice League,' Peter silently questioned. Did she mean the Avengers? He's heard some weird names for them before; freaks and show offs being the chief among them, but never the 'Justice League.' He doubted she meant the Fantastic Four or the X-men, but who else could she mean?
She mentioned it so casually that he doubted it was some secret group of heroes...or maybe it was a group so small that the media just overlooked it? That sounded plausible but when he added up all the other evidence...
Peter shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. He could deal with later, preferably when he wasn't disarming a bomb.
As if fate agreed with him, he found the last wire.
"Three wires for three bombs," he stated after going over all the wires again, just to make sure he hadn't missed one or misjudged. Catwoman looked at him with some hesitation and Spider-man caught the look.
"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet?" He asked and earned a small glare for his teasing tone. Taking the hint, Spider-man switched lanes, "look, you aren't going to die here. I'm going to take this bomb off, you'll tell me where to find the Joker, I'll introduce him to thunder and lightning before I wrap him up with a bow for the boys in blue. It'll be fine, I promise. Pinky promise," he reassured, holding up a pinky.
Catwoman looked down at the kid for a moment before a slow smile tugged at her lips. Yeah, this kid was a real treat.
"You're a good kid," she admitted before she wrapped her pinky around his. It was rare to see in this city. Most kids went one of two ways; they learned only to care about them and their own and those that learned only to care for themselves. It was rare, too rare, to see a kid care about someone that they don't know.
Peter grinned beneath his mask. She really did remind him of Black Cat, a few rough edges, and criminal intentions, but there was good in her. It just needed to be brought out.
"Alright, let's do this." He said, grabbing two of the wires. Catwoman grabbed the last one. They made eye contact, and Spider-man felt his heart try to jump out of his chest. Taking a deep breath, he calmed his nerves.
"Three...two...one!" Spider-man said, yanking the wires with Catwoman. For a brief moment, he worried that he had messed up when he heard a beep, but let out a long sigh of relief when there was no following explosion. He heard Catwoman let out a sigh at the same time before she all but jumped out of the suicide vest and throwing it away from her.
They watched it for a moment and relaxed when it didn't explode.
"See? Told you," Spider-man said in an 'I told you so' tone, placing his hands on his hips. "Now, where's this Joker guy?"
Catwoman let out a soft sigh before she shook her head, "Sorry kid, but I'm not going to send you to that psychopath. Just wait for B-" she started, but she was cut off when Spider-man threw his hands up in exasperation.
"We had a deal-"
"I never shook on it."
"You pinkie swore!"
"Look, kid, I'm grateful that you got the bomb off me. I am. That's why in not letting you anywhere near the Joker! If you lose then, death will be the kindest thing he'll do to you! Just find Batman. He'll deal with him. He always does," She said, sounding frustrated. She also left out that Batman would sit him down and rip him a new one for being a hero in Gotham. He had issues when it came to sharing, not that she had any room to talk.
"I'll be fine," he implored sounding just as frustrated. He knew he was young, even though he was seventeen, but it was downright annoying when people used his age against him. He got it. He was still, technically, a kid but he saw enough and did enough.
Peter Parker put the man in Spider-man.
"You-" Catwoman began before she bit her tongue and huffed out a breath. Really, why was she even getting worked up about this kid? Yeah, he was a good one, but she wasn't exactly known for her altruistic nature. Half her mind said it was because she knew how much of a lunatic the Joker was. The other half said it was just...wrong to send this kid off to his fate after what he did for her.
Seriously, did he not know what kind of monster he was trying to pick a fight with? The entire graveyards the Joker filled as collateral damage in his fight against the Dark Knight? How could he live in Gotham and not hear all the horror stories about this murderous psychopath?
Catwoman let out a groan, throwing her head up to the night sky in exasperation, "Bats, you're a terrible influence." She muttered to herself before looked back at Spider-man, who just stared at her with those creepily large reflective eyes of his.
"Fine, I'll tell you on one condition. I'm going with you," she stated before he had a chance to protest.
"Why," Spider-man demanded, thrown off by the sudden shift in tone. One moment she's stonewalling him and the next she wants to tag along, he didn't get it. Girls were just so confusing.
"Because I'm, unfortunately, developing a conscious and sending a kid to his death goes against it. I'm sure you've racked up a nice amount of experience with dealing with thugs, but the Joker...he a different kind of monster. You're just stubborn enough that I'll know you'll go find him anyway, but at least this way I can pull your ass out of the fire." She stated as she curled up her whip that she dropped.
Spider-man opened his mouth to protest that he could take care of himself, again, but he closed it. It was pointless, she clearly wasn't going to budge on the issue. Her tagging along was the best he was going to get.
"Okay. Where are we going?"
"I'll give you directions. Wouldn't want you trying to leave this cat behind," Selina said, her teasing tone returning. She looked thoroughly pleased with herself when Peter froze, caught planning to do exactly that.
"So, do you have a Spider car? Bug mobile?" She questioned, and she could feel Spider-Man's annoyance roll off him in waves.
"First off, spiders aren't bugs; they're arachnids. Secondly, I have something so much better than a car," he said before walking towards the edge of the building. Out of curiosity, Catwoman followed.
"Hold on tight," he instructed, and Selina did so with some reluctance. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she idly noted that Spider-man felt solid. Everything about him was corded muscle, and she felt it shift underneath her hands; the kid was lanky, but God, every inch of him was dense chiseled muscle.
Before she had time to really think about it, Spider-man jumped off the building. The familiar sense of vertigo rose in her gut before she heard a 'twick' and felt the ice cold wind hitting her face instead of plummeting down to the pavement. When she opened her eyes, she saw lights of the city pass her by.
With a grin, she began telling Spider-man where to go.
(...)
Batman picked up a thug by the throat before slamming him down on a crate, making it explode in a cloud of dust and splinters. Turning on his heel, he turned around and grabbed the pipe aimed at his head before yanking it out of the man's hands as he planted a fist into his stomach, almost lifting him off the ground. The second thug fell to his knees, gasping for breath but Batman didn't hesitate to hit him in the temple with the makeshift weapon, knocking him out.
Silently, he turned around and observed the building filled with bodies of groaning men and women. Most of them had arms or legs jutting out at unnatural angles, making sure they couldn't use the guns that laid near them even if they wanted to.
"Just finished up at warehouse thirteen," he heard Robin say over his com.
"Same here with the Gunners," Batgirl reported.
"Regroup at the clock tower," he commanded, tapping on his ear. Both his apprentices confirmed before the line went dead.
Stepping over the groaning bodies, dropping a tracker for the police to pick up on, his mind turned over the last few hours. Thanks to the bugs he planted in every major gang's hideouts, he knew about the gang war that was about to be sparked tonight before it could get started.
It was going to be a mess. A war zone in the streets of Gotham.
Italian crime families fighting amongst themselves. The Irish against the Ukrainians. The Mexican cartel against the Colombian drug runners. Countless smaller gangs that smelled blood in the water and saw the opportunity to expand their power.
Thankfully, Commissioner Gordon acted on the information he received. They busted and arrested quite a number of Italian gangsters and the Bat-family stopped the Irish, Cartel, Colombians and numerous other gangs along the way. They couldn't stop everything, not with so few, but they avoided the worst of it by stopping the major crime factions.
Dozens of arrests were being carried out, several criminal families being busted on gun charges and reckless endangerment. Before the night was over, more than a few criminal families would put where they belong for a good, long, while.
Unfortunately, a number of gangs, such as the Penguins, Yakuza, Hanoi Ten and the Bloods attacked their rivals and expanded. Dozens were dead all across the city, and more would continue to die because this battle wasn't going to end tonight. The balance of power was collapsing, and there was blood in the water.
Then he hears that there have been numerous bank robberies all across the city.
Batman didn't believe in coincidences. This was planned. While he and the police were distracted with trying to stop the city from becoming a battlefield, someone was trying to rob several banks across the city. Hundreds of millions of dollars if his estimates were correct, and he knew they were.
What's more, all of the bank robbers were wearing suicide vests yet every one of them were professional thieves.
'The money is a means to the end,' Batman deduced as he hopped into the Batmobile. 'Too much work is going into this for money to be the aim. The question is, what's the money for?'
"Just got a report from the police; all of the bank robberies have been stopped," Batgirl informed over the radio. Batman's eyes narrowed, the police were stretched thin as it was and the only way the robberies could have been stopped was if the police were already outside the door.
"Some guy named Spider-man stopped three of them," she continued, answering Batman's question before he had a chance to ask.
That made his eyes narrow even more. A hero operating in his city without his knowledge or, much more importantly, his permission?
"Is he crazy?" Robin asked, sounding a mix of impressed and exasperated. Even Superman knew to stay out of Gotham.
"Don't know, I'm not finding anything on the web about him so he might be a new hero," she continued, and Batman listened intently. He knew he never heard of a 'Spider-man' before so he had to be either a new hero or a very well kept secret. He was betting on the former.
However, if he was a fresh hero, then how had he managed to stop three bank-robbing that had bombs stopped to their chests? Likely a Meta-human. Based on the name alone, Batman deduced spider-like powers.
"But Commissioner Gordon seems to put some stock in him since he put him on patrol on several banks," Batgirl summarized, feeling a little awkward calling her father by their last name. No matter what identity she took, he was always dad to her.
That gave Batman a pause. There were precious few that he trusted as much as James Gordon. While it could be because the police were stretched too thin, but Batman knew for fact that if Gordon thought 'Spider-man' would get in the way, he would arrest him in a heartbeat. So, he had enough skill, or talent, that he could handle professional criminals.
"Find out what you can, but it's not a priority for now. Let him take some pressure off the police while we find out who's responsible for all this chaos." Batman ordered before he sped off into the night.
(...)
"This the place?" Spider-man asked as he touched down on a tall yellow crane that overlooked the docks. He felt the death grip on his throat vanish before Catwoman gave the affirmative.
"Yeah, we're supposed to meet up at dock six and inside a container to exchange the money for getting the bombs off us," she explained, glad to have something solid beneath her.
Selina was no stranger to heights, but Spider-man flipped and twisted enough that her stomach was in knots. She was sure he did it on purpose.
"Neat, but before we do this, is this guy just a regular human?" Spider-man asked and earned a risen eyebrow from Catwoman.
"He has a couple dozen screws missing and a penchant for mass murder, but yeah, I guess so." She answered, "why?"
Spider-man shrugged, "just making sure I don't hit him too hard." With that, he jumped off the crane towards dock six. A quick web to slow his fall and pull him to his destination, he landed with little sound. He focused his hearing and heard footsteps on metal; hoping that it was the Joker and not some security guard, Spider-man crawled through a window and up on the ceiling.
"Puddin, it's past the deadline," a woman's voice reached his ears. He tried to find the source, but it was difficult with all the metal containers. It was high pitched so it carried and Peter could only describe it as bubbly.
"Haha! I suppose it is..." A man voice responded and Spider-Man thought it sounded...unhinged. One of the downsides of putting on a mask and fighting crime was that he dealt with crazy on the regular. He could spot it a mile away, and this guy's voice just oozed crazy. There was just this constant chuckle in his voice like he thought everything was funny in a horribly deranged way.
"You going to push the button, puddin?" The woman asked, and Spider-man heard a loud smack. His head snapped to the source, the woman falling down made enough noise that he knew which container it was.
"You...!" The man's voice started before he paused, "Harley, my sweet, no I'm not going to press the button just yet. Haha, they're just running a little late is all! It would be a shame to blow up all that money," he continued in a less angry voice, but Spider-man could hear the fury building up beneath the surface.
The woman, Harley, apparently couldn't.
"Yeah! Sorry Mista J, I got a little excited," she apologized, and the Joker let out another laugh.
"Quite alright my dear, I know how you get with red buttons."
As they had their conversation, Spider-Man made lowered himself above the container. Then, with a flip with some flare, he jumped in front of it and went to grab the handle but stopped himself. The only things he knew about the Joker was that he was crazy and liked explosives. For all he knew, the guy placed a claymore or something at the entrance.
Raising his hand into a fist, he lightly rapped his knuckles against the door, "Room service!" He called out, throwing on a Spanish accent.
The two went silent before the Joker let out a laugh.
"See Harley? I told you, just running a little-" he said as he opened the door. He was cut off by Spider-man's fist flattening his nose.
"PUDDIN!" Harley screamed as the Joker stumbled backward, blood dripping down his stark white skin. Spider-man walked into the container, and he took a moment to observe his newest opponents.
The Joker was dressed like those he coerced into working for him. The only difference he noticed was that his hair was a moss green and his lips were a ruby red, making his white skin stand out even more.
Harley was wearing a one-piece dress that cut off mid-thigh with several layers of frills. It hugged her torso, cupping her breasts but exposing a fair amount of cleavage before the deep red and blue reached her shoulders and puffed out into white sleeves. Her face was heavy with white makeup, though her lips were painted ruby red and her eyes had black eyeshadow. Her blonde hair was in pigtails; one dyed red while the other was black.
There was also an angry red handprint on one of her cheeks.
"Ohhh...sorry, I got my job mixed up again. What I meant to say is surrender now, so I don't have to wash your blood out of my suit," he said in a light tone, but there was anger building up in his chest.
It wasn't because Joker hit a woman. He believed in equality and, man or woman, if Peter thought you deserved it then you got hit.
It was because he hit her when they had some kind of relationship based on the conversation he overheard and her nickname for the man. Most likely they were lovers-or, at the very least, Harley was in love with the Joker.
And the Joker knew it. He had to. He wasn't a romantically inept teenager like Peter was. The Joker knew that Harley loved him and he hit her.
You...you don't hurt the people that love you. Sometimes it was unavoidable, like how he lied to aunt May to keep her out this dangerous part of his life because if she knew, then she'd be at the front of every crowd, trying to help him when he was being beaten, just like... However, physical abuse, or emotional, was just...reprehensible. There was no reason for it. No excuse.
A relationship was based on respect, trust, and love. To twist that, to use violence to...
In the two years that Spider-man existed, there were few crimes that haunted him more than domestic ones. Those were the ones that kept him up at night. He came to expect cruelty and evilness from his villains; it became all too clear how far they were willing to go just to hurt him or reach their goals.
But domestic violence was different. It was normal people, people he was trying to protect and...it was hard sometimes. There have been times that he saves someone from a mugging or falling debris, but he sees them a week later while they're beating their kids. That's what made it hard.
Peter glared down at the Jokers rising form, cupping a hand over his broken nose.
"You're not Batman," the Joker noted as he rose, his voice muffled by his hand.
"No, I'm not. He sounds like a swell guy though if he kicks your sorry ass," Spider-Man said as he clenched his hands into fists. "I'll be sure to buy him a soda or something after I throw you in the loony bin where you belong."
The Joker laughed at that, removing his hand and revealing a crazed smile with blood stained teeth. "Who are you," he demanded to know, raising a hand that stopped Harley from marching the warpath.
"Does nobody watch the news in this city? I'm Spider-man, for crying out loud!" He said, feeling confused and exasperated in equal measures. Not to toot his own horn, but he was nearing the top ten of the favorite superheroes in gossip magazines. Maybe the people he spoke to tonight just didn't enjoy trashy literature, but it was becoming increasingly disturbing that no one knew who he was. If not by name then by his iconic costume.
"Never heard of you! Now go away!" Joker commanded before he pulled out a Tommy gun from absolutely nowhere. His spidey-sense gave him a moment's warning and he jumped backward as he let his instincts guide him.
The Joker pulled the trigger, cackling madly, and Spider-man contorted his body. He dipped his shoulder out of the way of one bullet while leaning to the side to dodge a bullet that passed under his armpit. He felt the wind hit him from the bullet, but he was otherwise unharmed.
He jumped into the air and started twisting his body out of the path of the bullets. Even in the beginning, gunfire had been more of an annoyance that a problem thanks to his spidey-sense and superhuman reflexes.
However, he couldn't dodge every bullet from a machine gun firing this close, especially with so little room to maneuver, and he felt a sharp stinging pain across the side of his thigh and a similar, though more painful wound, above his hip. His hand dipped down, feeling hot blood against his palm and a growing wetness on his back told him that the bullet had gone all the way through.
Knowing that this couldn't go on else he'd be shot in a more vital area, he shot a bullet of webbing at the Joker. He was aiming for the barrel of the gun, but his missed because he was moving around so much. Instead, it hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
"PUDDIN!" Harley screamed again as she charged him with an oversized hammer, apparently uncaring that she was walking into gunfire. Luckily for the both of them, as the Joker was knocked back, the barrel of the gun was pointed upwards.
Spider-man tensed, ready to dodge the swing aimed at his head but he didn't need to. Before Harley could close the distance, Catwoman entered the container and kicked her in the stomach, sending her sprawling with the Joker.
She let out a grunt before looking up at who attacked her. Her jaw dropped, and an unexpected emotion entered her eyes. Betrayal.
"Cats?! What are you hitting me for?" She demanded as she rose, the Joker behind her. He touched the webbing that splattered across his chest and onto the biceps of his arms. He looked a little panicked when he couldn't move his hand away from it.
"I don't want to hit you, darling. I want to hit that asshole behind you for strapping a bomb to me," Catwoman answered in a hiss. Harley looked shocked at that, hesitantly giving a look over her shoulder.
"Mistah J?" She questioned meekly, but she didn't ask the question that was on her mind.
"I told you, I needed the best thieves in the city! Of course, I included Selina," the Joker responded, and Catwoman went stiff at the mention of her name. A quick glance and Spider-man saw that she had paled, her suspicions confirmed that he knew her identity. He couldn't see beneath her gloves, but he knew that she gripped her whip with white knuckles.
"But she's my friend!" Harley argued though it sounded more like a child making a stand for herself than an adult.
"She would have been fine," the Joker said, dismissing the issue entirely.
"But...," Harley tried to speak up, fidgeting from one foot to the other, "Cat's is my friend." She repeated, glancing at Catwoman and missing the thoroughly annoyed look from the Joker. His eyes narrowed, and Spider-man didn't even need his spidey-sense to warn him.
The Joker reached into his pocket and withdrew a small ball. Knowing what he planned to do, Spider-man reacted with superhuman reflexes and webbed his hand to the ball so he couldn't throw it on the ground.
The Joker looked a bit shocked by that as he glanced at his web covered hand but he simply changed plans. Since he couldn't throw it on the ground, the Joker slammed his fist into the side of the storage container, cracking the ball and smoke flooded the room. Spider-man shot forward before the Joker could escape and reached out blindly into the smoke.
Spider-man grabbed the Joker by the collar through the smoke and punched him in the stomach before he had a chance to flee. He caught air for a moment, folding on the punch, and Spider-man tossed him out of the container. He rolled on the ground, getting his arms and hands even more caught up in the sticky webbing.
"You! You ruined a perfectly good plan," Joker accused as Spider-Man walked out of the smoke-filled container. "I barely even got started! I made sure Bats was busy and everything..." he trailed off, the last part making him sound like a pouting child. He even stuck out his lip to complete the image.
"Ohhhhh, man, I am so not sorry. Plus, being a menace and stopping the bad guy's plans is kind in the superhero handbook," Spider-Man replied flippantly before he webbed Joker's legs together.
"Well, Spider-Man," Joker spat the name out with surprising venom, "I'll make sure my next plan involves dealing with you once I get out of Arkham...again!" He threatened dramatically before he threw his head back and laughed. "It's going to be so much fun! You joke around unlike Bats, always so serious that one. I-" He continued but was cut off by Spider-Man webbing his mouth.
"Sorry, my hand slipped," he said before turning back to the container. He couldn't say he was too shocked to see that it was empty of both smoke and the girls.
'Man, I need to tell Cat that I found her twin or something,' he thought to himself as he shook his head. They had so much in common, including their love for the ninja disappearing act. He was still learning how to pull that off himself.
'Now that's over and done with, I can finally figure out where I am,' He thought to himself as he notified the police that the Joker had been captured. With his work done here, Spider-Man swung off into the night in search of answers and a first-aid kit.
edmantgoog
init high just high
good to see this back
RichardWhereat
Feanor did nothing wrong.
- Location
- Australia
Ah, I wondered why I recognised the chapter. Forgot it wasn't here thst I read it.
Rinn
Coffee Addict
- Location
- Cornfield County, Ohio
Did you even read it? Author's notes say, right at the beginning: Reposted and continued, with the original author's support. You could probably confirm it if you wanted to go that far.
- Location
- West Virginia
I believe the technical term is stickem powers.
Ah, no wonder it looked familiar.
A long night leads to a long day
"Ahhh," Peter groaned more out of annoyance than pain. The air was so cold outside that once his blood cooled down, it started to ice over. Pulling up his suit was uncomfortable and painful, but it needed to be done to make sure his insides weren't becoming outsides in some dingy alleyway.
Some hours ago Peter used his webbing in mist form to stop the bleeding, so there was a fair amount of the white powder mixed in with his icy blood. Other than that it looked roughly like all the other times he had been shot. Little round hole leading to a tunnel through his body and hurt like a mother. Reaching back, he winced when he lightly touched the matching hole on the other side of him.
"It didn't hit anything important, at least," Peter muttered as he pushed his suit back down. He was shot in the fleshy area above his hip, so none of his organs had been harmed. Though, it was fairly annoying that a single inch to the right and he'd be fine.
"I need to get better at dodging bullets," he muttered to himself before he let out a loud yawn. He pulled out the phone that he lifted earlier and saw it was nearing five in the morning. Not counting the long hours in New York, he's busted bad guys for about seven hours, and dear lord did he bust bad guys. He burned through three separate capsules of webbing tonight alone just from stringing them up.
Looking down at the phone, he frowned slightly before tilting his head to the side. A few seconds ticked by and he couldn't hear anything nearby, so with a flick of his thumb he brought the main screen up. Naturally it needed a password and, naturally, it was 1111.
Bringing up Google, he muttered underneath his breath as he typed away, "who is Batman?" The spinning wheel of death spun around and a few times as Peter tapped his foot impatiently. His face was numb from swinging around the city and he was anxious.
This was fine, right? Could he multitask for a few moments? There wasn't anything going on nearby...hmmm...maybe if he patrolled and Googled at the same time...? No! No, that would send a terrible message to the kids! J.J. would rip him a new one on the front page.
He could see the headline now; 'Spider-Man, texting and swinging instead of protecting citizens!' Gah, the jerk...
Shaking his head of stray thoughts Peter clicked on the first link that he saw. He didn't get a good look at it, but it looked like it was some forum. He was proven right when a familiar looking front page popped up.
Peter's eyes nearly fell out his head when he saw that his question had well over five thousand pages worth of others trying to answer it. The threads were long, filled to the brim with what the posters thought was evidence that supported their theories. The forum was overfilled with information, even if someone did guess correctly then it would be lost in a sea of wrong guesses. It surpassed Spider-Man's similar forum by several thousand pages.
"Uhhh," Peter got out and for once, he was reduced speechless by what he was seeing. Batman wasn't some small time hero. Based on this alone then he was several hundred times more popular than Spider-Man. Not that he was jealous, or anything.
'Then why have I never heard of him before,' Peter asked himself, a sinking feeling forming in his gut. Adding this to the fact that Gotham was where New York was supposed to be, no one having heard of Spider-man, the change in season...
A picture was being formed and Peter didn't like it one bit.
Letting out a haggard breath, Peter clicked on a link that one of the posters attached to a thread. Two words jumped out at him; Justice League. Like Se...Catwoman said; Batman was apparently a founder of the organization that he's never heard of.
A web page appeared and Peter's first impression was that it was very generic. He remembered being similarly let down when the Avengers created their own website. They really should have taken his offer to design it. He had plenty of practice on the Bugle's and traffic to the site went up twenty percent because of him. Their loss.
Scanning the top options he clicked the info tab. Roster seemed appealing, as did Help, but Info was what he was looking for. The spinning wheel of death circled on and on as if it knew Peter was on edge and it relished in his suffering.
"Come on...," Peter muttered, tapping his foot. "I did not kick Ultron's ass just to lose to you. Go faster, you little...!" Peter trailed off and as if the phone heard his threats, the info tab appeared. Wasting no time, he scrolled through it. With practiced ease, he picked through the important information while ignoring the rest.
Things like dates, names, names of treaties, or in this case a charter, and important events.
The pit in Peter's stomach sunk lower and lower as he read on. By the end, his stomach felt like it was resting in his shoes. He stared at the screen, the cogs trying to move in his head but they were clogged with disbelief. He felt numb, but it wasn't the cold.
"Shit," Peter said. The word just slipping out of his mouth. He sucked in a ragged breath as he managed to look away from the screen, only to put his hands on his knees and bent over. "Shit," Peter repeated, letting the breath out. If Aunt May could see him now she'd wash his mouth out with soap.
'Except she's not here...I'm...I'm...,' Peter thought, dragging a hand down his face. This didn't make any sense. Not at all. How...why...he knew the answers to both those questions. That voice and apparently he was needed.
"Shit," Peter breathed as he tried forcing the cogs to turn. Taking him from...his home and dropping him off here, just for tonight seemed like a bit much. Sure, it had been a crazy night but it wasn't worth yanking him from his home when there were plenty of other heroes to choose from. Most of them could do what he did and do it better.
That much was confirmed when he clicked on the Roster. A space alien that's embodies the American way? A woman from the Amazon that could punch through mountains and fly? A man that was a part of an intergalactic police force that used a ring to create anything he could imagine? A green man from Mars that could read minds? A Speedster that could run as fast as the speed of light?
"I'm in a different universe," Peter said, finally saying it aloud. He knew of their existence, that cat got out the bag when Thor announced where he was from, but he never expected to be sent to one! He had no idea how he was supposed to even get back!
Peter clenched his eyes shut and let out a long breath. Taking deep breaths always helped him when something stupidly crazy happened to him. Like getting superpowers from a spider bite or being bonded with an alien parasite with rejection issues.
Counting to ten, Peter opened his eyes as he took in another deep breath, "Okay." He said, trying to wrap his head around this. It was a struggle, a real one, but he could do this.
"Okay, I'm in a different universe," he said, trying to break up any denial that might try to cling on. He had to face the truth and he needed to face it now, no matter how much he didn't want to. He was alone, with no money, in a city smack dab in the middle of winter and the only thing that he had was his suit. To top that off, his web shooters were running low, on their next to last capsule, in a city that had more crime by the hour than New York had in a day.
"Okay. Okay. Okay. You got this! I got this. I'm Spider-man, I totally got this," Peter said, wishing that his little pep talk had actually worked before he looked back down at the phone screen. His eyes honed in on the Help tab and acting on an impulse, he clicked on it. Peter was never one to ask for help but if he ever needed it then it was now.
A drop box fell and revealed a list of common complaints. Impossibly, the pit in Peters' gut went deeper and didn't stop until it hit bedrock. With a shaking hand, he pressed on one of the complaints and a screen appeared. It was a basic form asking for things like his name, birthday, and so on. It was the basic stuff. Nothing that he hadn't seen a thousand times before.
The only thing that made it different was the large text box towards the bottom. A simple sentence above it and asking for him to provide his reasoning below.
Why do you believe you are in a different universe/dimension?
Peter gripped the phone so tight that the screen cracked making him stop instantly. This was his only tool for gathering information. He couldn't break it just because he felt like screaming his frustration to the heavens and throwing a tantrum worthy of legends.
Counting to ten, just like aunt May taught him, Peter filled the boxes with random nonsense before clicking enter. As he expected when the next screen appeared it was a box telling him that his form had been received and that the Justice League would be with him in a few short YEARS!
In a way, Peter could understand. Life sucked and when it sucked, it sucked hard. So, when someone was down in the dumps for whatever reason and they just don't have the strength to undo whatever mistake or injustice was done. Then they hear about an alternate reality; what do you think goes through their mind?
Most would dismiss it altogether in favor of wallowing in their self-pity. However, some would see a glimmer of hope. After all, there had to be a them in a different dimension, right? With how utterly awful things are here it can only be better, right?
Naturally, they cling to that hope and they go bother the Justice League about it in the hopes that they'll be believed. In the hopes that when they're dropped off in the new reality whatever bad decision wasn't made or whatever injustice was done to them can be avoided. In hopes of a clean slate, they try to abandon the one that they have.
Enough of them did this that Peter was going to have to wait two fucking years for his case to be heard if he went through the normal channels.
'Either I don't go through the proper channels or...what, built a cross-multidimensional portal,' Peter thought to himself. He didn't have the money nor the know how. He was a lover of science; chemistry and biology being his areas of expertise. Engineering became a necessity considering the kind of tech his baddies had and the need to make the most of what he had.
However, crossing the universes required math. A lot of math. Unholy amounts of math. Pages and pages and pages of math. Enough math that Mephisto himself would turn away from it in disgust, saying such vile amounts of math was simply too cruel.
Peter could understand high-level physics, far better than most, but there was a line and building that kind of portal passed it by miles.
'I could find someone...,' Peter thought, reaching for options but he shook his head again. In his experience, there were two kinds of people that had access to cross-multidimensional portals; heroes and villains. He was far better off trying to skip that stupidly long line.
Or … he was dropped off here for a reason, right? Because he was needed...Peter doubted that it was just for tonight. There was no way that he was plucked from his universe just to bust some thugs. So, he was needed for something big, something that was worth all the trouble of bringing him here because he was the only one that could deal with it.
'Then I just need to do whatever it is,' Peter thought, feeling hope well up in him. 'There's just the problem of finding what it is … and doing it … and...,' Peter continued to think, the flame of hope was flickering as he thought about all the problems with that plan. He didn't know the who, what, when, where or why. Standing around Gotham and waiting for something to kick off was impractical considering that it felt like it was sub-zero temperatures and he didn't know how long he'd have to wait for.
Then a thought struck him like a truck. It knocked the wind out of him, expelling the breaths he took, and he couldn't focus on anything other than that one thought.
"What if I can't get back," Peter asked the alleyway, looking up at the night sky. The stars were beginning to dim and the pitch black darkness was starting to ebb away to show that morning was coming. The longest night of his life was almost over but the longest day was about to begin.
What if he couldn't get back? What would he do? What would aunt May...
"I can't deal with this now," Peter said, sounding resolute to push that issue away. He would get back to aunt May. No matter what. He was not leaving her alone, not after she lost uncle Ben. He turned and began walking towards the exit of the alleyway.
"And I need to stop talking to myself. Someone'll think I'm crazy," Peter said to himself, trying his age old trick to help him cope with the stress. It didn't work.
What he wasn't expecting was an answer at his lame attempt to keep himself from having a mental breakdown.
"I'd recommend that, but running around dressed in spandex and fighting criminals already isn't doing you any favors," noted a woman's voice from in front of him as she stepped into the exit of the alleyway. Peter's attention snapped up and he saw that it was an older woman around sixty or so. Short hair that was a deep silver, pale skin with wrinkles around her eyes. Her lips were pressed into a grim line so it made it look like she was scowling at him.
He didn't think that she was because her eyes just seemed so sad. Like she was watching one of those 'donate to animal shelters' commercials that used all those cats and dogs...god, and the music...if Peter wasn't broke as a joke he'd throw money at the screen until he stopped crying about the unfairness of it all.
"Er-yeah, but at least I don't talk back to the voices in my head," Spider-Man shot back as he took a step back. Was everyone in this city half ninja or something? Based on that coat he was guessing she was either a scientist or a doctor, both of which he needed so Peter stopped in his tracks.
"Funny," the woman said but her tone indicated she thought it was anything but. Her eyes dipped down to his hip and her eyes narrowed. "You've been shot," she deduced as she walked into the alleyway with a sense of purpose.
Spider-man took another step back, "Uh, it's a flesh wound?" Good to see that mere bullets and world shattering events can't stop him from making Monty Python references.
The woman stopped right in front of him and with precisely zero hesitation she grabbed his hand and pried it away from the wound. His spidey-sense wasn't acting up so Peter lets her examine the wound. Didn't mean he wasn't eying her suspiciously.
She made a humming noise before she turned him around by the shoulder and Peter complied with some hesitance.
"So, are you a doctor?" He decided to ask after a moment. He was in a new city and if Gotham was anything like New York, it was chock-fulll of wackos. Best to make sure. That and it was highly suspicious that a doctor was around when he, kinda, needed one. Most would just call that lucky but Peter Parker knew for a fact that the only luck he had was the bad kind.
"Yes," the woman said curtly before letting go of Peter. He was quick to turn back around and put a little distance between them. "You're lucky. The bullet didn't hit anything important."
"So, it was just a flesh wound," Peter said a bit smugly, glad that she was mirroring his thoughts on the new tunnel through him. The woman let out a huff that could have been a laugh if she hadn't nipped it in the bud.
"You...," she let out a sigh and the sadness in her eyes grew more intense. She opened her mouth to say something before shutting it with a click. Peter was about to ask what she wanted to say but she shook her head, displacing some snow before she looked into Spider-Man's reflective eyes.
"I run a clinic a block from here. Follow me," she said before turning around. It didn't take long for her to glance over her shoulder when she didn't hear Spider-Man following her. Her eyes narrowed, a question in them and Spider-Man gave a shrug.
"My aunt said never go anywhere with strangers," he said with a grin in his voice. The woman looked at him for a long moment before she shook her head.
"My name's Leslie Tompkins," Leslie introduced herself before pinning a glare on him. "Now hurry up before you bleed out," she commanded as she exited the alley. Peter hesitated a long moment, weighing to pro's and cons of following.
In the end, he needed to get patched up before he went back out. Thinking that he'd get a quick stitch or two, Peter followed the doctor.
It was a short walk to the clinic, but time seemed to stretch on for Peter. The city was eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that belonged in a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, not a grand city like Gotham. If...if it was like New York then there were around twenty million people in this city.
Yet, it was quite. He couldn't hear the familiar sounds of cars honking, people shouting over each other, or even the footsteps of hundreds as they went about their lives. New York was awake and loud no matter what time it was. Gotham...it was like Gotham was holding its breath, waiting for the chance to breathe again.
POP POP POP!
Spider-man's attention snapped up, homing in on the direction of the gunshots. They weren't close but he could still bust the perp. Hopefully, no one had been hurt but Spider-man knew better than that. He took a step in the direction, his wrist out and his fingers in position to fire off a web but he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You've been shot," Leslie pointed out. "Let Batman and the police deal with that," she ordered gently.
"Um, no way," he dismissed the thought instantly. He didn't know this Batman guy and the police can't be everywhere. Plus, he was already right here and Peter's never been one to look away from a crime.
With ease, he shrugged off her hand, "I'll be back in a second. I might bring a guest so-" Peter said, shooting off a web and preparing to swing off. However, persistently, the hand returned and Peter let out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation.
"I'll be fine-" Peter turned and began to snap at the woman before he felt his spidey-sense tingle. It was light like someone brushed their fingertips against the back of his neck and the source of it was coming from in front of him. Out of reflex, he jumped backward, trying to put some distance between whatever it was but it didn't do any good.
A mist hit him in the face and it burned. Not the kind of 'my face is on fire' but more of 'jalapeno pepper juice in my eyes' kind of burn. Thankfully, his reflective lenses protected his eyes from the offending substance but it got in his mouth and nose.
He coughed, trying to do...something. Anything that would make the burning stop and it was for that reason he missed it when his spidey-sense acted up again. He felt a sharp prick in the neck, the uncomfortable pain of a needle, and Peter smacked the hands away before backpedaling.
"You...!" Peter began but he trailed off as another coughing fit kicked up and silenced him. He noticed that his tongue felt numb and heavy like it was made of lead. He took another step backward and nearly tripped as his head suddenly felt so light.
'A sedative,' Peter deduced, his thoughts moving sluggishly.
"I'm saving your life you, stupid child. Running around with a bullet wound...! I'm taking you back to my clinic, patching you up and then I'm going to beat some sense into your thick skull." Leslie snapped at him and he saw she was drawing nearer.
"I'mmmmm...," Peter drawled out but whatever he was going to say was lost when the darkness overtook him and he slipped into unconsciousness.
(...)
"I want a sitrep," James Gordon said to the police officer to his right. Renee Montoya barely missed a beat even though she was caught off guard by the demand.
"Sir," Renee began before she had to pause, pain flashing in her eyes before she squared her shoulders. "Sir, the Beretti, Cassamento, Inzerillo and Panessa families on the east end have all but been destroyed tonight. Officers James Cuttie, Samantha Rose, Joshua Stone, Jacob Calleyway, Richard Smith and Tommy Gustus were killed in action. There were members of SWAT that were killed, and others that were injured but … but most of them look promising." Renee said, swallowing her discomfort.
Gordon clenched his fist hard enough that he bled, but he simply took out another cigarette, his tenth tonight. Barbara was going to kill him. However, he took a long drag from it all the same. Looking up at the night sky, he nodded to show her to continue.
"We've busted a lot of the Falcone crime family, but Carmine isn't in custody yet. If we flip some of his guys, though...," she trailed off before refocusing. That could be dealt with later. "The Ibanescu family and the Maroni family are in custody. The Riely family is going strong, but we've arrested a few high ranking officers. The same with the Yakuza," she continued as she followed Gordon.
"How many were killed," Gordon asked as he walked to his police cruiser. Renee didn't comment on it but Commissioner Gordon, for a brief moment, really looked his age.
"Another ten on our side, sir. I-I don't have their names yet," Renee said, praying to whatever twisted god in that sky that her partner wasn't on that list of names. Harvey was a damn good man with a family. He did not deserve to die tonight.
"I think around fifteen or more were killed for the crime families. A lot more were injured and are being treated but I'd expect for that number to go up higher."
"Civilian casualties," Gordon said as he slid into his police cruiser. He grabbed the ice cold coffee that's been sitting in it for the past five hours and drained it. It was a chore not to cringe at the taste, it was bad coffee when it was made and now it was cold and old. However, it did its job and gave him the kick he needed.
"...More than there should be, sir," Renee said after a moment and said nothing when Gordon gripped the wheel with white knuckles. Managing to pry his hands off the wheel he turned his car on and threw it in drive.
They drove in silence for a few moments, the city unusually quiet, before the silence was broken.
"Sir, this isn't over...is it?" Renee asked, watching the ruined buildings go by. Gordon glanced over at her before looking back at the road.
"No," he said, drawing the word out and sounding utterly exhausted.
"...The bottom feeders smell blood and they'll go into a frenzy," Renee said voicing her theory. Her eyes snapping to the side as she heard gunshots in the distance. The gunfire continued for a few long seconds before it stopped abruptly. Then, the only thing she heard was Commissioner Gordon cursing underneath his breath.
"They are," Gordon said before taking another drag of his cigarette. He was going to need to buy a new pack before the night was over. When the night began it had been a scramble to make as many arrests as they could to put a dent in organized crime. Most would be brought up on illegally owning guns, resisting arrest, attempt of murder and whatever else they could get to stick.
Naturally, Gordon would cut some deals so he could get something on the criminal family leaders. With the help of Batman, they've managed to cut the heads off several snakes. Their bodies were thrashing now but soon they would stop … and then the vultures would come and pick the corpses clean.
This was just round one. This fight was far from over.
Almost of third of his forces have been killed or injured and things were only going to get harder. It would be a total upheaval, the balance of power in the underworld was shattered and every idiot with a gun was going to try to pick up the pieces for themselves. This calm … this quite … it wouldn't last. This last hour before dawn was the quiet before the storm and James Gordon didn't know how he could brace his city against what was to come.
The only good that had come out of tonight was Spider-man and that psychopathic monster was well on his way to Arkham. Hopefully, he'd stay there for awhile. At least until all of this was sorted out.
Speaking of which, "any word on Spider-Man?" He asked, with a flick of a button, his siren was on as he turned down a road in the direction of the gunshots. Renee used the radio to let the other officers know that they were heading towards them.
"No, sir. Last we heard, he webbed a couple of gangs on his way towards Crime Alley. I'm guessing that he's taking a pit stop to patch himself up," she guessed. Say what you want about hero's; some of them were self-centered show offs that were more concerned with publicity than saving people, but they were built tough.
Commissioner Gordon put Spider-Man somewhere between mid-teens and early twenties, so he was likely a teenager. Renee could honestly say if she had been shot at that age then the last thing she would be doing would be swinging around the city and knocking heads together.
Gordon frowned, "No. He's too stubborn for that," he deduced, Spider-man's phrase ringing in his ears. "That kid's only going to stop when something kills him," he said and, despite only meeting him once, James was really hoping that wasn't anytime soon. There were too few good men in Gotham city.
"Doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head of stray thoughts as he sped through the empty streets of Gotham. Thankfully, the curfew was being listened to for once. The civilians were off the streets and probably barricading their doors. He blew through red lights, putting the pedal to the metal as he glared at the road.
"He can head in for tonight … but come tomorrow, we are going to need his help. Whether Batman wants to admit it or not."
(...)
POP POP POP!
Gunfire erupted in the condemned building, flashes of light illuminating the darkness for brief moments. However, it was long enough for the thugs to catch a glimpse of the cloaked figure they were aiming at. It looked little more than a shadow that darted between the gaps in the ruined wall; they might have even thought it was just a figment of their imagination if said figment hadn't an already taken down most of their gang.
Barbara Gordon kept running, bullets impacting her makeshift cover in random places, making splinters of rotten wood rain down upon her. She ignored it, even as she internally growled how tedious it would be to get them out of her hair before morning. Barbara just kept running until she reached a door and, not slowing down in the slightest, she slammed her shoulder into it and all but knocked the thing off its rusty hinges.
The sound drew the attention of the gangsters and bullets punched through the decrepit walls as if they were tissue paper. Barbara was just out of reach from where they thought she was and she didn't wait a moment to spring into action. Tapping her visor, the thin translucent membrane that covered her eyes colored as she activated her inferred function.
'Five gunmen,' Barbara observed, noting their locations. All were clustered together but there was enough room between them that it would be difficult to subdue them in time if she just tossed in a flash-bang since they would be likely to shoot at random. Tapping her visor again, the bright red of the men faded and everything was replaced with darkness. All except the weapons in the gangster's hands.
'Three AK-47s, one 9mm pistol...and one desert eagle,' Barbara observed. From the text boxes that flanked the weapons, she saw that the would have to reload soon but it would be best to end this before someone was killed by a stray bullet. Tapping her visor again, the membrane faded back to a clear, translucent color.
Reaching to her belt, Barbara pulled out a laser pen and aimed it at the hinges of the door that connected the two rooms. The hinges glowed bright red for a moment to let her know they had been cut. Taking a breath, she pulled out her grappling gun and aimed at the door before she pulled the trigger. The grappling hook punching through the door as if it wasn't there and continuing to punch through the wall on the far side of the room.
The gunfire came to a halt and Barbara didn't even need her infrared vision to know that the gangsters were looking at it the cord stupidly. With no hesitation, she pulled the trigger again a second before she let go of her grappling gun. The gun smacked into the door with a heavy thump before the door was drug along with the gun.
The door flew across the room before it came to an abrupt stop on the faces of two gangsters. The door exploded in a shower of splinters, knocking the two men out. While their attention was diverted to their fallen comrades, Batgirl dove into the room and let two batarangs fly free. They collided with one AK-47 and the desert eagle, knocking the weapons from the gangster's hands.
As the guns clattered uselessly onto the floor Batgirl dashed forward to the closest one, who still had a gun. The gangster didn't manage to fire off a shot before Batgirl closed the distance, batting his hands aside while she delivered a powerful uppercut to the man's chin. The gangster's head snapped back before it knocked forward as Batgirl followed it up with a knee to the stomach. To finish him off, she punched him in the temple before grabbing the back of his pants and shirt so she could throw the unconscious body at one of the gangsters.
She lacked super strength, but after years of intense training, Barbara's muscles were like cords of steel; taut and powerful. The gangster collided with his friends, knocking him off his feet, and giving Barbara time to move towards her next victim.
Unlike the gangsters, her eyes had no trouble seeing in the darkness so, while a gangster scrambled to find his gun Barbara jumped up and hit him with a flying knee to the nose. When she landed and as the gangster stumbled backward, cupping his flattened nose, she continued her onslaught with a shot to the liver. The gangster dropped his hands, either to lash out at her or cup his injured side, but it didn't matter when Batgirl delivered a left hook that snapped his head to the side and dropped him.
Groaning filled the dark room but Barbara ignored it as she spun on her heel and dashed at the last standing gangster. He was blindly lashing out, just trying to hit something, and only succeeded when Batgirl caught his punch before slamming her elbow into his chin. As the gangster slumped forward, she heard scrambling behind her.
Pivoting, she raised her leg as she dropped the gangster before dropping a heel kick on a gangster that took a dive at her. However, the same moment her foot made contact a device shot across the room and hit the gangster in the chest. A short scream filled the abandoned building as several hundred volts arced through the gangster before Barbara silenced him with her kick.
A beat passed and Batgirl didn't see any of the gangsters making any moves to get back up. Seeing that her work was done, she grabbed a few of her zip-ties and began cuffing the criminals. Thankfully, she had enough but she was down to her last two.
"I had it," Barbara said into the darkness as she worked. A second later she heard someone drop down from the ceiling. She didn't even need to turn around to know that Nightwing stood behind her. He entered the room without that cocky swagger of his and gave a single shoulder shrug.
"I'd just figure that I'd help out a little," he said coming to a stop behind her. Based on the soft squeak of the floorboards, Barbara knew that he was shifting from foot to foot.
"What are you doing here? There's still a good hour before dawn," Barbara replied as she tied up another gangster. To those that knew them both, they would note the lack of any fondness in her voice. She wasn't as cold as the chill of winter, but she wasn't exactly an inviting fire.
"It's gotten real quiet outside. Real quiet. I think this will be it for the night, but tomorrow...," Dick Grayson, or Nightwing, trailed off before he shrugged again. "I came to check up on you to see how you're doing," he said, the squeak becoming more frequent as he spoke. Shifting was always Dick's tell. Even when he was Robin.
"And you have," Batgirl said, still not looking at Dick. The dismissal was clear in her tone.
Dick rubbed the back of his neck, "Baa-tgirl," he said, almost tripping up when she used 'The Voice' on him. "Please? I just-," he tried to get out but Barbara was quick to cut him off.
"I know. This is hardly the first time we've done this Nightwing and I think I've heard all you have to say," Barbara said, her voice remaining professional but she tightened the zip-tie a tad too tight. "You're with Starfire. Again. After … what, a week after you broke it off with me? Again," she said as she finished her work. Barbara was thankful that she had her back turned to Dick because her lip quivered, though she was quick to school her expression. Batgirl was supposed to be calm, cool and collected; not a teenage girl that cried her heart out at the thought of seeing her ex with another woman.
"I, ah, I know it looks bad, but-" Dick got out but Barbara was quick to cut him off again.
"We were fighting a lot. You were acting too much like Batman," she didn't need to look at him to know that he stiffened at the accusation. "And I was pissed that you went to Jump City without telling me. Which is where Starfire is. Who you are dating a few days after we break up-" Barbara cut herself off to take a deep breath.
"Like I said, we've had this conversation a thousand times and I'm not interested in having it again." Again, the dismissal was clear in her tone but Dick wasn't having it. Not until he said his piece.
"I didn't cheat on you," he blurted out forcefully. "I would never-"
"When you left Gotham for Jump city and she kissed you?"
"She needed to learn the language!"
"By sticking her tongue down your throat?"
The sound of Dicks teeth grinding was audible and Barbara almost felt guilty for enjoying the sound. She knew it was the truth but she'd be a lair if Barbara said she didn't feel a flash of satisfaction that her words got to him.
"Yes, but that was years ago," he pointed out. He had been young and was totally taken by surprise. Plus, they had been at the age where being boyfriend and girlfriend meant you held hands and exchanged phone numbers.
"Fine. When you two were sucking faces in Tokyo," Barbara pointed out and that time Dick did wince.
"I-we hadn't seen each other in like a year, and you weren't returning my calls-" Dick said, trying to defend himself. It had been a moment of weakness. He worked with Starfire for over a year and lack of any real contact with Barbara for any the same amount of time. He fell in love with Starfire and he fell hard when he was supposed to be Barbara's boyfriend.
Barbara pressed her lips into a thin line and she knew that was true. It wasn't the first time they had this conversation nor was it the first time she used that card against him. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Barbara knew she wasn't blameless in Dick breaking things off with her that time. She had a lot on her plate with Jason, with Bruce and with what the Joker did to-. Barbara could admit that she hadn't been a good girlfriend at the time and she could hardly blame Dick for falling for Kory. That time.
However, there was one card she had up her sleeve and it was a card she hadn't used before.
"How about that one time where Batman put you in charge of the city, all your Teen Titan friends came over and she. Wore. My. Suit," Barbara hissed, whipping around and glaring at her ex-boyfriend. It was worthy of Alfred.
Dick hung his head low, a scarlet flush creeping on his cheeks. He thought he deleted all the footage of that in the Cave. "That-Starfire, she just...-Look, I know I'm … I haven't been the best boyfriend," he said and Barbara made a noise of agreement that he promptly ignored.
"I just – I just want us to be friends. I know that I'm the last face you want to see right now, and I get that, but...!" Dick forced out and cursed how clumsy it sounded. He had all the words in his head but none of them managed to get out his mouth the way that he wanted them to.
Barbara's glare softened before the fight let her in a small sigh. "I know," she said, turning away from him, "I know. Usually, we have a city between us whenever this happens so we can cool off. We can't have that now. Gotham's going to become a bloodbath and we need all hands on deck," she continued before looking back at Dick.
"Are we good then," Dick asked a bit hopefully. He took a step forward and was thoroughly disheartened when Barbara took a step back.
"We are," she said, her words not matching her actions. "Just … I can work with you Nightwing. I can put my feelings aside and work with you but that's it. So, please, just … just leave me alone," there were so many things that she wanted to say. Some were what her heart was compelling her to while her brain said different things entirely. What came out her mouth would give her time to sort out how she was feeling.
As of right now, she was torn between kissing Dick and punching him in the mouth.
Dick looked disappointed but he slowly shook his head all the same. He opened his mouth to say something but he seemed to think better of it before turning away and walking out the room.
Barbara was left alone in the darkness, only her thoughts keeping her company.
(...)
The first thing that Peter did after waking up was to immediately regret the decision. His throat burned and it felt like peppers were shoved up his nose given how clogged his nostrils were. He also woke up hours earlier than his body wanted because his eyelids felt like lead weights and the did everything in their power to remain closed.
Naturally, he turned on his side and tried pushing off the hellish nightmare that was reality in favor of spending a few more hours in dreamland. Letting out a sigh, he tried to relax his body and ignore the aches and pains. It worked for a few moments before a draft hit him with icy cold air and he shivered.
Letting out a small groan of annoyance, Peter looked up in hopes of finding a blanket. He blinked owlishly as he realized that he wasn't in his uncomfortable bed at home but in some kind of doctor's office. Then the last memories he had jumped out at him and hit him like a semi.
Jumping out of bed, his hand shot up to his face. Ice cold dread clutched his heart when he felt naked skin where his mask was supposed to be. Peter was still wearing his suit, but his gloves were missing and he saw ink in between the grooves of his finger pads. He was too busy panicking to notice that the bullet wound above his hip and the graze on his thigh were sutured neatly.
Peter's heart was trying to punch its way out of his chest yet the rest of his body was frozen stiff. The one nightmare that he never hoped to experience was happening again and he had no idea what to do. Someone, that woman that pepper sprayed him, saw his face. She took his fingerprints and God knows what else to him after she knocked him out.
'She knows who I am,' ice formed in his veins at the thought and it was a fight for every breath. What did he do? What could he do? He wasn't prepared for this. All the plans and the ideas of what he thought he would went right out the window.
Peter's panic attack was interrupted by the door behind him opening. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder and saw it was Leslie. She looked at him with unimpressed eyes as she strode into the room and locked the door behind her.
"You're already awake," she observed as she crossed the room and opened a drawer. "That sedative should have knocked you out for another four hours," she mused more to herself but her words made Peter glance up at the clock on the wall. It was twelve o'clock, a full eight hours since he was kidnapped.
That was a lot of time. It didn't seem like it, no more than someone spends at a job or school. Yet, all the same, eight hours was a lot of time for her too, say upload his identity to the internet.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was a niggling something screaming at him that he forgot something important but Peter couldn't hear it. Not when one of his deepest darkest fears being realized for the second time.
"I did some blood work while you were asleep. Your DNA is a mess, by the way, but I also noticed that you're slightly malnourished. Take these vitamins and-" Leslie said as she approached but she was cut off by Peter grabbing her by the front of her coat and lifting her into the air with ease. Peter didn't even realize he was moving until he was looking up at her. Nor did he notice that the ice left his veins because they were boiling with rage.
"You," he hissed. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things that could only convey a fraction of how completely and utterly pissed off he was. There was fear underneath it all, a very deep and primal fear but it was hidden underneath a great amount of anger. However, that word seemed to be all that he could get out.
"Me," Leslie agreed. "Brat, I deal with the worst kind of scum in this city. You're hardly the first super-powered person that I've patched up and pissed off, so if you want to intimidate me you'll have to try harder." She informed, looking very much unaffected by the snarl etched into Peter's face.
"What did you do," Peter spat out and Leslie lets out a sigh before her eyes hardened into a glare.
"Nothing. For now," she replied and Peter's eyes narrowed dangerously. He felt like a cornered animal and he didn't enjoy it one bit.
"And I won't do anything with it if you-" She began before Peter dropped her without warning. She stumbled slightly but when she regained her balance, she looked up and saw Peter towering over her. For so long he cursed his height because it made him awkward, but in moments like these, he relished it. He was a head taller than her, but now she had to crane her neck up to look at him.
"I'm not committing any crimes for you," he stated flatly. His mind was turning, thinking furiously to how to turn this around. Once it got out that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, his enemies were going to go after aunt May. If he could get in contact with SHIELD, then she can be moved to a safe location.
She wouldn't be happy about it, but she'd be safe. Mary Jane was a different beast entirely but-
'Oh,' Peter thought suddenly. If Leslie was standing here, if he was here, then that meant he was in Gotham, right? Which meant that he was in a different universe...oh...right... Well, that solved some problems at least. Peter wasn't exactly happy that it wasn't all some crazy dream but he did feel relief flow through him when he realized that aunt May and MJ would be safe.
"Oh," Leslie echoed, mirroring his thoughts. There was a curious glint in her eyes as she regarded him with cruel interest.
"Not even if I were to reveal your identity to the world? From what the news is saying about you, you put away a fair few gangs and the Joker. I imagine that they won't think fondly of you. They might hate you enough to go after your family to get to you," Leslie pointed out. That was Peter's greatest fear.
It was one that was realized once before.
"No," Peter refused instantly. She barely finished her sentence before he gave his refusal.
Leslie was expecting that answer. After all, it takes a fair amount of resolve to put on a mask dedicate your nightlife to beating up criminals. If anything, she would have been shocked if Spider-Man just caved to her threat like a house of cards. However, she hadn't expected how quickly he responded nor the sense of finality in his tone.
She rose a gray eyebrow, "You seem very willing to risk your parents lives." Leslie noted as a frown tugged at her lips. Looking at him now with those dark bags under his eyes and tousled hair, he seemed so young. He had the eyes of a man but Leslie couldn't help but see a child.
"Kinda hard to risk what they already lost," Peter said flatly. There was a time when his lack of parents was a tender spot, but that void had been filled by uncle Ben and aunt May.
The harsh look in Leslie's eyes faded a fraction, "Guardian?" She inquired and Peter's eyes narrowed.
"Gone," he shot down. Uncle Ben was murdered because of him and aunt May was a universe away. Both were painfully out of reach.
"Siblings?"
"Only child."
"Friends?"
"Don't have any." Mary Jane was his last one and, hopefully, she was with aunt May.
Leslie let out an exasperated breath and looked up at Peter with eyes full of pity. "So, the only life you're throwing away is your own, huh?" She asked but it didn't sound like she expected an answer.
Leslie took a step back and before Peter could get back in her face, she said, "I'm not going to blackmail you into committing any crimes. The police have enough on their plate as it is."
Peter blinked in confusion at that. She wasn't going to blackmail him? Now that was a curveball.
"Then why did you-?" He began to ask before Leslie cocked her head to the side.
"Because I'm blackmailing you to stop being a vigilante," she answered before he could finish. Her tone was deadly serious and her eyes were trying to cut right through Peter, so he immediately tossed out the idea of it being a joke.
Wow. Waking up really was a poor decision. He didn't have nearly enough sleep or caffeine to deal with this. The past few hours had just been a wild roller coaster and Peter wanted off.
"That's not going to happen," he stated with certainty. Like it or not, Spider-Man was a part of who he was now. He couldn't put up the suit any easier than he could part with an arm. Even when he wanted to, even when being Spider-Man ruined Peter Parker's life, he couldn't and wouldn't stop. He had a responsibility.
"It will. You're taking off that suit and you're going to burn it. Then, you stubborn idiot, you will go to school and be a normal teenager. You'll have crushes and you'll get bad grades. You'll have a normal life without all...all of this," she stated, gesturing to Peter. There was anger in her voice and disappointment.
"No."
That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back because the sadness in her eyes suddenly became anger. Peter didn't move when Leslie took two quick steps to close the distance nor did he back down when she got in his face. From this close, he idly noticed that it looked like she was about to cry.
"You will," she repeated. "You-you-you will! You don't understand what this city is capable of. You're just a child playing hero and you don't have a fucking idea what it means. This will kill you, don't you understand that? Do you not understand what kind of enemies you made last night!? The Joker will torture you to death if you're lucky. If you're not then he'll unleash horrors on you that only that madhouse he calls a brain can come up with!" She screamed at him with genuine fury.
"You wouldn't be the first hero he's killed-," she clamped down on her anger with a vice grip. Pain shined in her eyes before she glanced at a picture sitting on a counter behind Peter. Looking down he saw it was a younger Leslie and a dark haired boy wearing a stained tank top a few sizes too big. He had a large smile plastered on his face that looked a little goofy because he was missing his two front teeth.
When he looked back at Leslie, she was glaring at him hard enough to burn a hole through his head. "I-I get that you want to do something. You, Batman, the Justice League; you want to help. I understand that, but there are better ways to do it. You're smart," she said softly before pulling one of his web shooters from her pocket.
"You made these out of old watch parts. The formula for your webs is nothing like I've ever seen. Your smart...use that. Go to school, go to college then do something with that head of yours. Become a billionaire and throw money at charities or invent some kind of life changing product. There are better ways to help people than putting on a mask and risking your life every night." She continued, her voice slowly growing softer.
For years, decades, Leslie worked in this clinic and helped those that needed it when they needed it. All that time, she did everything she could to help. She was a doctor, so she provided free check-ups and emergencies. When winter came in and the homeless were dying of hypothermia, she bought the building next to the clinic and provided them warm beds and three meals.
However, it wasn't always enough. As much good as Leslie did, it was outweighed by the bad. She couldn't help everyone and, at times, it felt like she wasn't helping at all when the crime rates grew until they were monstrously high. High enough that Park Row was renamed, Crime Alley. Then she could only watch as it wasn't enough.
Leslie was absolutely sick and tired of seeing good kids killed on the streets.
Peter was silent for a long moment. She was worried for him. This woman, who he's never met, was worried sick that he was going to get himself killed. This wasn't what he was expecting. He was expecting someone to blackmail him so they could get the amazing Spider-Man to dance to their tune. Peter was completely unprepared for dealing with a stranger trying to stop him from doing what he had to do.
So, he did what he would have done if it was aunt May standing in front of him.
Ever so gently, he rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Leslie looked up at him with hopeful eyes, praying that she got through to him, and Peter took a breath.
"I'm not going to stop," just like that, the hope was dashed. "I can't look away when someone needs my help. I won't. I'm sorry, but no matter what you do or say, I'm not going to stop being Spider-Man. Ever." There it was. The cold, hard truth.
Leslie looked at him for a long time and Peter patiently awaited her response. This woman pepper sprayed him, sedated him and then kidnapped him but she was doing it out of concern for his safety. Peter couldn't say that he forgave her what she did but he didn't hold it against her. Her methods needed work, a lot of it, but her heart was in the right place and that what Peter cared about.
"You're a damn fool. Just as big as Batman ever was," she said after the silence stretched on and on. She scowled when Peter cracked a half grin, "Fine. I can't stop you and I'll destroy the evidence but you-," her expression turned fierce again. "You will be receiving check-ups every week, and I mean every week. You're young and you have superpowers but don't you dare get it in your head that you're invincible."
Peter gave a very hesitant nod at that demand. He really didn't want to and he didn't exactly trust Leslie if that was even her name, but Peter saw that he wasn't exactly in a position to refuse.
"Brat, I've been a doctor longer than you've been alive. I know when someone is lying to me," Leslie snapped, picking up on his hesitance. "What's your address? If you miss an appointment, and I mean one, I'll drag you to my clinic by your ear. And you even think about lying to me where you live..." She gave a threat but Peter was too distracted to hear it.
He needed to give his address but Peter was seeing a glaring problem with that.
"I don't...," the words slipped out in shock. Peter realized that he was homeless. That realization sparked off a connection to all the other problems he hadn't even thought of in the craziness of his first day in a new universe.
It was in the middle of winter and he didn't have a home. The only money he had was ten dollars that were meant for lunch. He didn't have any clothes other than his suit. Heck, Peter didn't even have an identity! Unless there was a doppelganger in this universe than Peter didn't exist in the eyes of the world. He didn't have a social security number, a birth certificate, no records of any kind.
Meaning that he couldn't get a job, he couldn't open a bank account because he didn't have a social security number, he couldn't do anything. The only money he could make would have to be in cash and the list of jobs a teenager could get without any known experience were few and far between. Even more so considering that most of them would be illegal.
That was a problem.
Leslie looked stricken before her eyes narrowed into slits, "You're homeless." she repeated and Peter had the urge to deny what he said. However, knowing better, he nodded mutely as his brain recovered from the sudden influx of problems that he now had.
Really, he had ninety-nine problems and not a single solution.
"You," Leslie looked like she got worked up again but cut her anger off before she could begin. "What was your plan? Sleep on the streets during the day and fight crime at night," she asked aloud but Peter got the impression it was a rhetorical question. He also got the impression that she'd yell at him if he did answer it.
"Do you even have a job?" She asked, sounding drained. Peter didn't comment because he was feeling much the same.
"I get by with photography," he answered, thinking that he wasn't technically lying. It wasn't the truth but it wasn't a lie. Perhaps that's how he could make some money to live off of? He'd have to get his hands on a camera but it was doable. A good photo to the right buyer could triple the money he put into buying the camera.
Leslie closed her eyes for a long moment before she reached into her coat pocket and shoved his mask into his hands. Peter looked down at it in puzzlement but he was quick to put it on. Once it was firmly back over his face, Leslie shoved his web shooters at him along with his gloves.
Now suited up and feeling complete, he opened his mouth to let out a quip so he could relieve some stress but Leslie cut him off before he could begin.
"Go to the build on the right. The third floor, next to last room on the right. Go there," she instructed before turning on her heel and walking out the room. Peter just watched as the door was closed and stared at it for a long moment. Then he glanced at the window.
'Should I run?' He asked himself, his brow furrowing in thought. She still had evidence of his identity but she didn't seem like she was willing to use it. It also didn't seem like she was luring him into a trap. Yet, Peter found it difficult to give her the benefit of the doubt when she kidnapped him.
After scratching his head through his mask, Peter pulled up the window and began crawling through it. He was hit with a blast of cold air and goose flesh rose in response but it wasn't as cold as it was last night. With practiced ease, he slipped out the window and closed it behind him. He looked at the city for a moment, idly thinking that it now sounded alive with noise before he looked towards the window that Leslie directed him to.
Making a decision, he crawled to the window and tried to peer through it before he entered but the glass was covered in grime. While not a promising sign, Peter placed a hand on the window and pushed it up using his adhesive abilities.
He slid in, thankful that it was a little warmer in here before he paused to look around him. It was an apartment and it looked like it should have been condemned months ago.
It was a studio apartment. From where he stood, he could see a dingy old bed that's sheets needed to be changed a decade ago, a small stove that was missing three grills and a microwave that was missing the door, and a toilet that looked like it belonged in a public restroom. The room stunk, a mixture of old sweat combined with general filth that was lightly marked with the smell of lemon, which only made it worse. Then there was the fact that there was just so much dust in the room. It looked like no one's stepped for in here for years.
Looking up at the ceiling, he saw yellow spots from water damage and black mold gathering in the corners. Then he realized that he could hear everything that was going on in the rooms next to him so he tried to dampen his heightened hearing but Peter quickly figured out that the walls were just paper thin. His neighbor on the left was watching the news while the neighbor on the right was playing a video game. Based on the children claiming to have banged his mother, Peter was guessing Call of Duty.
Then he heard the door open behind him and Leslie entered the room. If she was surprised that he was already here then she didn't show it in favor of throwing something at him. Peter caught it out of reflex and saw that it was a key.
"Rent's a hundred a month. Find a job to pay for it because if you don't, I'll throw you out myself," she said stiffly, keeping her eyes firmly on Peter. "I can't stop you from being an idiot but this is all the help you'll be getting from me," she continued firmly. Yet she didn't enter the room.
"Uh, right. A hundred dollars a month. Don't be late or you'll kick my ass. Roger," he said quickly, hoping to appease her. She glared at him for a long moment but sensing that her point had been made clear, she promptly turned on her heel and walked down the stairs back to the clinic.
Peter looked up at the ceiling in exhaustion. It was barely past midday and he just wanted to crawl into bed and fall asleep forever.
"I want to go home."
(...)
Decades of hard work...ruined. Careful, meticulous planning...for nothing. All the hard work, all of his sacrifices, all of the blood, pain, sweat, and tears...utterly meaningless. It was all for naught. All that he built, all that he crafted, the empire he forged with his hands...collapsed. Gone.
All because of a single madman's whims.
Roman Sonios, otherwise knows as Black Mask, watched the city he all but controlled out of his window. The moon hung overhead, not a cloud in sight, the informally agreed soon signal for the criminals of this city to apply their trade. He could already hear the gunshots as the gangs he once controlled tore into each other like ravenous beasts. All eager for territory that they never had under his thumb, yearning for a few extra dollars in their pocket from an extra street to sell their drugs on.
"Pathetic," he said to himself, sipping from his glass of well-aged scotch. 1943...not exactly a good year, but the best generation sure knew how to make a drink. He took a larger sip, enjoying the burn as it tracked down his throat.
Roman antagonized over the exact moment that his empire was doomed to fall since everything went spiraling down the drain. For hours and hours, he gazed down at the city, out of this window, drinking his drink of choice and wondering where it all went wrong.
Roman sighed, "I should have killed him." There were so many chances, so many opportunities, that it honestly hurt knowing that he didn't take them. At the time, he was blind. Stupid and blind.
He didn't see how it could bite him in the ass by letting that fucking lunatic running about. At the time, Roman didn't see the harm. Hell, he had even broken the Joker out of his reserved room in Arkham because when he was out, Batman focused on the Joker and the pressure was taken off him. Sure, the Joker would kill a couple of his guys but they were stupid and easily replaceable. When the Joker was out and about, profits rose and jobs went without a hitch because the Batman wasn't focusing on street level crime.
Roman thought the reward outweighed the risk. Time and time again, he was proven right and then...
Roman drained the last of his drink and carelessly threw the glass to the side and ignored the sound of it shattering.
What's worse, he had no idea how the hell it happened.
The day his empire fell started like any normal day. He woke up, he ate, he made some calls, then his other phone started ringing. It was a mess and, at first, Roman thought it was a joke. The Russians wanted him to mediate with the Ukrainians. The Spanish drug cartels were calling about the Yakuza and how they were preparing to cut into their territory. Irish were pissed as all hell and wanted to fight everyone because they thought everyone wanted to fight them.
Roman did everything that he could. He tried to mediate, he tried to set up meetings and he tried to talk down the gang lords from doing something stupid. It hadn't worked in the end. If he managed to convince one then he didn't convince the other. If he convinced both then both were attacked by different factions.
In the span of an hour, his empire was torn at the seams and he was left watching as the pieces tore each other apart.
"That freaks plan didn't even work," Roman noted, torn between feeling glad at that fact or fury. His empire was destroyed as collateral for a plan that didn't even work. Whatever the Joker cooked up in that madhouse he calls a brain barely even begun before it was stopped by the new hero in town.
Spider-man...apparently the guy could dodge bullets and stop a car going eighty dead in its tracks with his bare hands. A legitimate superhero. He wasn't working with the bat family but who knows how long that would last. Even when they weren't working together, the heroes of Gotham were busting criminals left and right, ruining any chances that he could restore his rule. He just didn't have the manpower anymore.
Roman sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Batman was an almost insurmountable obstacle on his own but now Gotham had a hero with real powers. Time would tell if he would become a serious threat to the underworld of Gotham, but if what he's done so far was any indication...
His empire was gone. Vanished without a trace...and...he just didn't have it in him to try to rebuild it. Too much work, too much heartache, too much of a pain in his ass. It had taken him over a decade it build his empire and he didn't fancy spending his fifties redoing it all.
"I'm going to retire," Roman decided, pursing his lips in thought. He still had millions of dollars stashed away in case he had to flee. Even bought a little island in the tropics to live his life in luxury. His business would fall apart without him, but he didn't really care. It had always been a front for his real passion projects. Now there wasn't a point anymore.
Tearing his eyes from his view, he walked over to his desk and tapped on his receiver, "Jiliè, I'm activating code Black Six." Instead of the confirmation that he had been expecting, there was only silence.
Roman narrowed his eyes, repeating the order in case she was just stunned into silence but there was still no response.
'Something's wrong,' he realized as his hand dipped down to grab the assault rifle hidden beneath his desk. Jiliè knew better than to leave her desk and in the fifteen years as his secretary, she never to miss a call.
"Don't look so nervous Roman," a voice said just over his shoulder. He whipped around, gun at the ready, but he saw no one was there. He searched the darkness for a figure, knowing all too well that it wasn't his imagination, but he found none. Gulping, he turned around and saw a woman standing behind him, smiling in amusement as she leaned on his desk.
However, when he saw red hair, his eyes went to her concealed breasts. "Whisper," he hissed, fingering the trigger. Cold sweat dropped down his spine at the sight of the woman.
He met Whisper A'Daire only once before, early in his rise to power. She was an agent of Ras A Ghul and she had been sent to kill him, along with her mutt of a bodyguard, but failed. However, thanks to the encounter, he knew her abilities rather well and he wasn't going to fall for them a second time.
"My eyes are up here, Roman," Whisper said with some amusement. She cupped her cheek as she smiled fondly at the masked man. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to look anywere else, her hands dipped down and to the bottle of sctoch and a glass.
Roman snorted, "I prefer to look at your only redeeming feature, you snake." He spat and Whisper chuckled lightly, not insulted in the slightest. She expected more venom from one of the few targets that slipped through her grasp.
"I'm wounded...Kyle?" Whisper said and a moment later, the gun was ripped out of Roman's hands and tossed to the side. He barely had a chance to shout before he felt an iron grip around the back of his neck and lifting him like a doll. Roman cursed and kicked, both at Whisper and Kyle, her bodyguard, behind him. His feet missed the woman by miles and he might as well have kicked a brick wall behind him.
"Hmmm...that's a good look for you, Black Mask. Scared and struggling...but, I didn't come here to tease you. In fact, I'm here on business." Whisper said, walking around his desk. Roman looked up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze at any cost.
"Oh? Who's bitch are you now that Ras-" Roman began but he felt the grip around his neck tighten painfully. He trailed off with a gasp, clawing at his hand that held him but to no avail.
"That's enough," Whisper said sharply and instantly the pressure eased.
"As for who I work for...I'm the manager of Gotham's branch of HSC International Banking," she said with a grin in her voice.
"Intergang," Roman wheezed out, his mind turning over the revelation. HSC was one of Intergang's many fronts as the world's largest, and most dangerous gang. They had high friends in high places and the weaponry the created with the help Apoklipsis, they had the edge in any gun fight.
It was one of the few gangs in the world that went head to head with upper tier heroes and survive. The fact that they were even still around, despite several heroes trying to disband it spoke just how much power the gang held.
"You bitch, I told that fat bastard that Gotham is my city. You can take your-" Roman started but the pressure returned. Slowly it grew as Kyle's fingers dug into his neck until he felt hot blood trickle down his neck. Roman let out a silent scream as he fought against the pain as time seemed to drag its feet.
"M-make him stop," Roman managed to get out and he heard Whisper let out a low hum like she was thinking about it.
"I don't know~! You didn't ask nicely and said such hurtful things," she said in a teasing tone before she paused. "I'll consider it if you tell me what code Black Six is," she questioned, curious. Based on what she overheard earlier, Roman was planning to leave the city. If that was the case, then what was with the six?
Whisper asked purely out of curiosity but she was stunned by what she heard.
"I-I release all the dirt I have on everyone! To the public! That's for Gordon in case he got near to busting me but the rest is for Batman! All the plans I know about that his Rogues are going to use, where they are-" Black Mask answered before he ran out of air, and Whisper was taken back. she nursed her drink to hide it but her mind was racing.
It was ruthlessly brilliant, Whisper had to admit. He would clog the bureaucratic machine by exposing all kinds of corruption; judges, lawyers, civil servants, doctors...who knew just how rotten Gotham was at its core. To cover his own escape, Roman would shove it into the light of day and use the chaos to get the police off his back. After all, Gordon would be a little preoccupied arresting half his police force.
As for Batman, it was a no brainier to answer who he would choose to pursue; the worst of his villains or one criminal overlord?
A slow smile tugged at Whisper's lips as she reached up to caress Roman's face, "look at me, Roman." She commanded and the man just clenched his eyes shut. The pressure around his neck increased and he let out a whimper of pain.
"Look into my eyes," she pushed, "I'll tell him to stop hurting you...all you have to do is look into my eyes."
It was a bad idea. A terrible one. However, it felt like his spine was going to be ripped out at his neck, his heart was trying to leap out his chest and she was speaking to him in such a tone...like a lover trying to coax him back to bed to be swallowed in her embrace.
It was a bad idea. Roman knew it. Yet, he looked into her eye's all the same and fell under her spell.
Some hours ago Peter used his webbing in mist form to stop the bleeding, so there was a fair amount of the white powder mixed in with his icy blood. Other than that it looked roughly like all the other times he had been shot. Little round hole leading to a tunnel through his body and hurt like a mother. Reaching back, he winced when he lightly touched the matching hole on the other side of him.
"It didn't hit anything important, at least," Peter muttered as he pushed his suit back down. He was shot in the fleshy area above his hip, so none of his organs had been harmed. Though, it was fairly annoying that a single inch to the right and he'd be fine.
"I need to get better at dodging bullets," he muttered to himself before he let out a loud yawn. He pulled out the phone that he lifted earlier and saw it was nearing five in the morning. Not counting the long hours in New York, he's busted bad guys for about seven hours, and dear lord did he bust bad guys. He burned through three separate capsules of webbing tonight alone just from stringing them up.
Looking down at the phone, he frowned slightly before tilting his head to the side. A few seconds ticked by and he couldn't hear anything nearby, so with a flick of his thumb he brought the main screen up. Naturally it needed a password and, naturally, it was 1111.
Bringing up Google, he muttered underneath his breath as he typed away, "who is Batman?" The spinning wheel of death spun around and a few times as Peter tapped his foot impatiently. His face was numb from swinging around the city and he was anxious.
This was fine, right? Could he multitask for a few moments? There wasn't anything going on nearby...hmmm...maybe if he patrolled and Googled at the same time...? No! No, that would send a terrible message to the kids! J.J. would rip him a new one on the front page.
He could see the headline now; 'Spider-Man, texting and swinging instead of protecting citizens!' Gah, the jerk...
Shaking his head of stray thoughts Peter clicked on the first link that he saw. He didn't get a good look at it, but it looked like it was some forum. He was proven right when a familiar looking front page popped up.
Peter's eyes nearly fell out his head when he saw that his question had well over five thousand pages worth of others trying to answer it. The threads were long, filled to the brim with what the posters thought was evidence that supported their theories. The forum was overfilled with information, even if someone did guess correctly then it would be lost in a sea of wrong guesses. It surpassed Spider-Man's similar forum by several thousand pages.
"Uhhh," Peter got out and for once, he was reduced speechless by what he was seeing. Batman wasn't some small time hero. Based on this alone then he was several hundred times more popular than Spider-Man. Not that he was jealous, or anything.
'Then why have I never heard of him before,' Peter asked himself, a sinking feeling forming in his gut. Adding this to the fact that Gotham was where New York was supposed to be, no one having heard of Spider-man, the change in season...
A picture was being formed and Peter didn't like it one bit.
Letting out a haggard breath, Peter clicked on a link that one of the posters attached to a thread. Two words jumped out at him; Justice League. Like Se...Catwoman said; Batman was apparently a founder of the organization that he's never heard of.
A web page appeared and Peter's first impression was that it was very generic. He remembered being similarly let down when the Avengers created their own website. They really should have taken his offer to design it. He had plenty of practice on the Bugle's and traffic to the site went up twenty percent because of him. Their loss.
Scanning the top options he clicked the info tab. Roster seemed appealing, as did Help, but Info was what he was looking for. The spinning wheel of death circled on and on as if it knew Peter was on edge and it relished in his suffering.
"Come on...," Peter muttered, tapping his foot. "I did not kick Ultron's ass just to lose to you. Go faster, you little...!" Peter trailed off and as if the phone heard his threats, the info tab appeared. Wasting no time, he scrolled through it. With practiced ease, he picked through the important information while ignoring the rest.
Things like dates, names, names of treaties, or in this case a charter, and important events.
The pit in Peter's stomach sunk lower and lower as he read on. By the end, his stomach felt like it was resting in his shoes. He stared at the screen, the cogs trying to move in his head but they were clogged with disbelief. He felt numb, but it wasn't the cold.
"Shit," Peter said. The word just slipping out of his mouth. He sucked in a ragged breath as he managed to look away from the screen, only to put his hands on his knees and bent over. "Shit," Peter repeated, letting the breath out. If Aunt May could see him now she'd wash his mouth out with soap.
'Except she's not here...I'm...I'm...,' Peter thought, dragging a hand down his face. This didn't make any sense. Not at all. How...why...he knew the answers to both those questions. That voice and apparently he was needed.
"Shit," Peter breathed as he tried forcing the cogs to turn. Taking him from...his home and dropping him off here, just for tonight seemed like a bit much. Sure, it had been a crazy night but it wasn't worth yanking him from his home when there were plenty of other heroes to choose from. Most of them could do what he did and do it better.
That much was confirmed when he clicked on the Roster. A space alien that's embodies the American way? A woman from the Amazon that could punch through mountains and fly? A man that was a part of an intergalactic police force that used a ring to create anything he could imagine? A green man from Mars that could read minds? A Speedster that could run as fast as the speed of light?
"I'm in a different universe," Peter said, finally saying it aloud. He knew of their existence, that cat got out the bag when Thor announced where he was from, but he never expected to be sent to one! He had no idea how he was supposed to even get back!
Peter clenched his eyes shut and let out a long breath. Taking deep breaths always helped him when something stupidly crazy happened to him. Like getting superpowers from a spider bite or being bonded with an alien parasite with rejection issues.
Counting to ten, Peter opened his eyes as he took in another deep breath, "Okay." He said, trying to wrap his head around this. It was a struggle, a real one, but he could do this.
"Okay, I'm in a different universe," he said, trying to break up any denial that might try to cling on. He had to face the truth and he needed to face it now, no matter how much he didn't want to. He was alone, with no money, in a city smack dab in the middle of winter and the only thing that he had was his suit. To top that off, his web shooters were running low, on their next to last capsule, in a city that had more crime by the hour than New York had in a day.
"Okay. Okay. Okay. You got this! I got this. I'm Spider-man, I totally got this," Peter said, wishing that his little pep talk had actually worked before he looked back down at the phone screen. His eyes honed in on the Help tab and acting on an impulse, he clicked on it. Peter was never one to ask for help but if he ever needed it then it was now.
A drop box fell and revealed a list of common complaints. Impossibly, the pit in Peters' gut went deeper and didn't stop until it hit bedrock. With a shaking hand, he pressed on one of the complaints and a screen appeared. It was a basic form asking for things like his name, birthday, and so on. It was the basic stuff. Nothing that he hadn't seen a thousand times before.
The only thing that made it different was the large text box towards the bottom. A simple sentence above it and asking for him to provide his reasoning below.
Why do you believe you are in a different universe/dimension?
Peter gripped the phone so tight that the screen cracked making him stop instantly. This was his only tool for gathering information. He couldn't break it just because he felt like screaming his frustration to the heavens and throwing a tantrum worthy of legends.
Counting to ten, just like aunt May taught him, Peter filled the boxes with random nonsense before clicking enter. As he expected when the next screen appeared it was a box telling him that his form had been received and that the Justice League would be with him in a few short YEARS!
In a way, Peter could understand. Life sucked and when it sucked, it sucked hard. So, when someone was down in the dumps for whatever reason and they just don't have the strength to undo whatever mistake or injustice was done. Then they hear about an alternate reality; what do you think goes through their mind?
Most would dismiss it altogether in favor of wallowing in their self-pity. However, some would see a glimmer of hope. After all, there had to be a them in a different dimension, right? With how utterly awful things are here it can only be better, right?
Naturally, they cling to that hope and they go bother the Justice League about it in the hopes that they'll be believed. In the hopes that when they're dropped off in the new reality whatever bad decision wasn't made or whatever injustice was done to them can be avoided. In hopes of a clean slate, they try to abandon the one that they have.
Enough of them did this that Peter was going to have to wait two fucking years for his case to be heard if he went through the normal channels.
'Either I don't go through the proper channels or...what, built a cross-multidimensional portal,' Peter thought to himself. He didn't have the money nor the know how. He was a lover of science; chemistry and biology being his areas of expertise. Engineering became a necessity considering the kind of tech his baddies had and the need to make the most of what he had.
However, crossing the universes required math. A lot of math. Unholy amounts of math. Pages and pages and pages of math. Enough math that Mephisto himself would turn away from it in disgust, saying such vile amounts of math was simply too cruel.
Peter could understand high-level physics, far better than most, but there was a line and building that kind of portal passed it by miles.
'I could find someone...,' Peter thought, reaching for options but he shook his head again. In his experience, there were two kinds of people that had access to cross-multidimensional portals; heroes and villains. He was far better off trying to skip that stupidly long line.
Or … he was dropped off here for a reason, right? Because he was needed...Peter doubted that it was just for tonight. There was no way that he was plucked from his universe just to bust some thugs. So, he was needed for something big, something that was worth all the trouble of bringing him here because he was the only one that could deal with it.
'Then I just need to do whatever it is,' Peter thought, feeling hope well up in him. 'There's just the problem of finding what it is … and doing it … and...,' Peter continued to think, the flame of hope was flickering as he thought about all the problems with that plan. He didn't know the who, what, when, where or why. Standing around Gotham and waiting for something to kick off was impractical considering that it felt like it was sub-zero temperatures and he didn't know how long he'd have to wait for.
Then a thought struck him like a truck. It knocked the wind out of him, expelling the breaths he took, and he couldn't focus on anything other than that one thought.
"What if I can't get back," Peter asked the alleyway, looking up at the night sky. The stars were beginning to dim and the pitch black darkness was starting to ebb away to show that morning was coming. The longest night of his life was almost over but the longest day was about to begin.
What if he couldn't get back? What would he do? What would aunt May...
"I can't deal with this now," Peter said, sounding resolute to push that issue away. He would get back to aunt May. No matter what. He was not leaving her alone, not after she lost uncle Ben. He turned and began walking towards the exit of the alleyway.
"And I need to stop talking to myself. Someone'll think I'm crazy," Peter said to himself, trying his age old trick to help him cope with the stress. It didn't work.
What he wasn't expecting was an answer at his lame attempt to keep himself from having a mental breakdown.
"I'd recommend that, but running around dressed in spandex and fighting criminals already isn't doing you any favors," noted a woman's voice from in front of him as she stepped into the exit of the alleyway. Peter's attention snapped up and he saw that it was an older woman around sixty or so. Short hair that was a deep silver, pale skin with wrinkles around her eyes. Her lips were pressed into a grim line so it made it look like she was scowling at him.
He didn't think that she was because her eyes just seemed so sad. Like she was watching one of those 'donate to animal shelters' commercials that used all those cats and dogs...god, and the music...if Peter wasn't broke as a joke he'd throw money at the screen until he stopped crying about the unfairness of it all.
"Er-yeah, but at least I don't talk back to the voices in my head," Spider-Man shot back as he took a step back. Was everyone in this city half ninja or something? Based on that coat he was guessing she was either a scientist or a doctor, both of which he needed so Peter stopped in his tracks.
"Funny," the woman said but her tone indicated she thought it was anything but. Her eyes dipped down to his hip and her eyes narrowed. "You've been shot," she deduced as she walked into the alleyway with a sense of purpose.
Spider-man took another step back, "Uh, it's a flesh wound?" Good to see that mere bullets and world shattering events can't stop him from making Monty Python references.
The woman stopped right in front of him and with precisely zero hesitation she grabbed his hand and pried it away from the wound. His spidey-sense wasn't acting up so Peter lets her examine the wound. Didn't mean he wasn't eying her suspiciously.
She made a humming noise before she turned him around by the shoulder and Peter complied with some hesitance.
"So, are you a doctor?" He decided to ask after a moment. He was in a new city and if Gotham was anything like New York, it was chock-fulll of wackos. Best to make sure. That and it was highly suspicious that a doctor was around when he, kinda, needed one. Most would just call that lucky but Peter Parker knew for a fact that the only luck he had was the bad kind.
"Yes," the woman said curtly before letting go of Peter. He was quick to turn back around and put a little distance between them. "You're lucky. The bullet didn't hit anything important."
"So, it was just a flesh wound," Peter said a bit smugly, glad that she was mirroring his thoughts on the new tunnel through him. The woman let out a huff that could have been a laugh if she hadn't nipped it in the bud.
"You...," she let out a sigh and the sadness in her eyes grew more intense. She opened her mouth to say something before shutting it with a click. Peter was about to ask what she wanted to say but she shook her head, displacing some snow before she looked into Spider-Man's reflective eyes.
"I run a clinic a block from here. Follow me," she said before turning around. It didn't take long for her to glance over her shoulder when she didn't hear Spider-Man following her. Her eyes narrowed, a question in them and Spider-Man gave a shrug.
"My aunt said never go anywhere with strangers," he said with a grin in his voice. The woman looked at him for a long moment before she shook her head.
"My name's Leslie Tompkins," Leslie introduced herself before pinning a glare on him. "Now hurry up before you bleed out," she commanded as she exited the alley. Peter hesitated a long moment, weighing to pro's and cons of following.
In the end, he needed to get patched up before he went back out. Thinking that he'd get a quick stitch or two, Peter followed the doctor.
It was a short walk to the clinic, but time seemed to stretch on for Peter. The city was eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that belonged in a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, not a grand city like Gotham. If...if it was like New York then there were around twenty million people in this city.
Yet, it was quite. He couldn't hear the familiar sounds of cars honking, people shouting over each other, or even the footsteps of hundreds as they went about their lives. New York was awake and loud no matter what time it was. Gotham...it was like Gotham was holding its breath, waiting for the chance to breathe again.
POP POP POP!
Spider-man's attention snapped up, homing in on the direction of the gunshots. They weren't close but he could still bust the perp. Hopefully, no one had been hurt but Spider-man knew better than that. He took a step in the direction, his wrist out and his fingers in position to fire off a web but he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You've been shot," Leslie pointed out. "Let Batman and the police deal with that," she ordered gently.
"Um, no way," he dismissed the thought instantly. He didn't know this Batman guy and the police can't be everywhere. Plus, he was already right here and Peter's never been one to look away from a crime.
With ease, he shrugged off her hand, "I'll be back in a second. I might bring a guest so-" Peter said, shooting off a web and preparing to swing off. However, persistently, the hand returned and Peter let out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation.
"I'll be fine-" Peter turned and began to snap at the woman before he felt his spidey-sense tingle. It was light like someone brushed their fingertips against the back of his neck and the source of it was coming from in front of him. Out of reflex, he jumped backward, trying to put some distance between whatever it was but it didn't do any good.
A mist hit him in the face and it burned. Not the kind of 'my face is on fire' but more of 'jalapeno pepper juice in my eyes' kind of burn. Thankfully, his reflective lenses protected his eyes from the offending substance but it got in his mouth and nose.
He coughed, trying to do...something. Anything that would make the burning stop and it was for that reason he missed it when his spidey-sense acted up again. He felt a sharp prick in the neck, the uncomfortable pain of a needle, and Peter smacked the hands away before backpedaling.
"You...!" Peter began but he trailed off as another coughing fit kicked up and silenced him. He noticed that his tongue felt numb and heavy like it was made of lead. He took another step backward and nearly tripped as his head suddenly felt so light.
'A sedative,' Peter deduced, his thoughts moving sluggishly.
"I'm saving your life you, stupid child. Running around with a bullet wound...! I'm taking you back to my clinic, patching you up and then I'm going to beat some sense into your thick skull." Leslie snapped at him and he saw she was drawing nearer.
"I'mmmmm...," Peter drawled out but whatever he was going to say was lost when the darkness overtook him and he slipped into unconsciousness.
(...)
"I want a sitrep," James Gordon said to the police officer to his right. Renee Montoya barely missed a beat even though she was caught off guard by the demand.
"Sir," Renee began before she had to pause, pain flashing in her eyes before she squared her shoulders. "Sir, the Beretti, Cassamento, Inzerillo and Panessa families on the east end have all but been destroyed tonight. Officers James Cuttie, Samantha Rose, Joshua Stone, Jacob Calleyway, Richard Smith and Tommy Gustus were killed in action. There were members of SWAT that were killed, and others that were injured but … but most of them look promising." Renee said, swallowing her discomfort.
Gordon clenched his fist hard enough that he bled, but he simply took out another cigarette, his tenth tonight. Barbara was going to kill him. However, he took a long drag from it all the same. Looking up at the night sky, he nodded to show her to continue.
"We've busted a lot of the Falcone crime family, but Carmine isn't in custody yet. If we flip some of his guys, though...," she trailed off before refocusing. That could be dealt with later. "The Ibanescu family and the Maroni family are in custody. The Riely family is going strong, but we've arrested a few high ranking officers. The same with the Yakuza," she continued as she followed Gordon.
"How many were killed," Gordon asked as he walked to his police cruiser. Renee didn't comment on it but Commissioner Gordon, for a brief moment, really looked his age.
"Another ten on our side, sir. I-I don't have their names yet," Renee said, praying to whatever twisted god in that sky that her partner wasn't on that list of names. Harvey was a damn good man with a family. He did not deserve to die tonight.
"I think around fifteen or more were killed for the crime families. A lot more were injured and are being treated but I'd expect for that number to go up higher."
"Civilian casualties," Gordon said as he slid into his police cruiser. He grabbed the ice cold coffee that's been sitting in it for the past five hours and drained it. It was a chore not to cringe at the taste, it was bad coffee when it was made and now it was cold and old. However, it did its job and gave him the kick he needed.
"...More than there should be, sir," Renee said after a moment and said nothing when Gordon gripped the wheel with white knuckles. Managing to pry his hands off the wheel he turned his car on and threw it in drive.
They drove in silence for a few moments, the city unusually quiet, before the silence was broken.
"Sir, this isn't over...is it?" Renee asked, watching the ruined buildings go by. Gordon glanced over at her before looking back at the road.
"No," he said, drawing the word out and sounding utterly exhausted.
"...The bottom feeders smell blood and they'll go into a frenzy," Renee said voicing her theory. Her eyes snapping to the side as she heard gunshots in the distance. The gunfire continued for a few long seconds before it stopped abruptly. Then, the only thing she heard was Commissioner Gordon cursing underneath his breath.
"They are," Gordon said before taking another drag of his cigarette. He was going to need to buy a new pack before the night was over. When the night began it had been a scramble to make as many arrests as they could to put a dent in organized crime. Most would be brought up on illegally owning guns, resisting arrest, attempt of murder and whatever else they could get to stick.
Naturally, Gordon would cut some deals so he could get something on the criminal family leaders. With the help of Batman, they've managed to cut the heads off several snakes. Their bodies were thrashing now but soon they would stop … and then the vultures would come and pick the corpses clean.
This was just round one. This fight was far from over.
Almost of third of his forces have been killed or injured and things were only going to get harder. It would be a total upheaval, the balance of power in the underworld was shattered and every idiot with a gun was going to try to pick up the pieces for themselves. This calm … this quite … it wouldn't last. This last hour before dawn was the quiet before the storm and James Gordon didn't know how he could brace his city against what was to come.
The only good that had come out of tonight was Spider-man and that psychopathic monster was well on his way to Arkham. Hopefully, he'd stay there for awhile. At least until all of this was sorted out.
Speaking of which, "any word on Spider-Man?" He asked, with a flick of a button, his siren was on as he turned down a road in the direction of the gunshots. Renee used the radio to let the other officers know that they were heading towards them.
"No, sir. Last we heard, he webbed a couple of gangs on his way towards Crime Alley. I'm guessing that he's taking a pit stop to patch himself up," she guessed. Say what you want about hero's; some of them were self-centered show offs that were more concerned with publicity than saving people, but they were built tough.
Commissioner Gordon put Spider-Man somewhere between mid-teens and early twenties, so he was likely a teenager. Renee could honestly say if she had been shot at that age then the last thing she would be doing would be swinging around the city and knocking heads together.
Gordon frowned, "No. He's too stubborn for that," he deduced, Spider-man's phrase ringing in his ears. "That kid's only going to stop when something kills him," he said and, despite only meeting him once, James was really hoping that wasn't anytime soon. There were too few good men in Gotham city.
"Doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head of stray thoughts as he sped through the empty streets of Gotham. Thankfully, the curfew was being listened to for once. The civilians were off the streets and probably barricading their doors. He blew through red lights, putting the pedal to the metal as he glared at the road.
"He can head in for tonight … but come tomorrow, we are going to need his help. Whether Batman wants to admit it or not."
(...)
POP POP POP!
Gunfire erupted in the condemned building, flashes of light illuminating the darkness for brief moments. However, it was long enough for the thugs to catch a glimpse of the cloaked figure they were aiming at. It looked little more than a shadow that darted between the gaps in the ruined wall; they might have even thought it was just a figment of their imagination if said figment hadn't an already taken down most of their gang.
Barbara Gordon kept running, bullets impacting her makeshift cover in random places, making splinters of rotten wood rain down upon her. She ignored it, even as she internally growled how tedious it would be to get them out of her hair before morning. Barbara just kept running until she reached a door and, not slowing down in the slightest, she slammed her shoulder into it and all but knocked the thing off its rusty hinges.
The sound drew the attention of the gangsters and bullets punched through the decrepit walls as if they were tissue paper. Barbara was just out of reach from where they thought she was and she didn't wait a moment to spring into action. Tapping her visor, the thin translucent membrane that covered her eyes colored as she activated her inferred function.
'Five gunmen,' Barbara observed, noting their locations. All were clustered together but there was enough room between them that it would be difficult to subdue them in time if she just tossed in a flash-bang since they would be likely to shoot at random. Tapping her visor again, the bright red of the men faded and everything was replaced with darkness. All except the weapons in the gangster's hands.
'Three AK-47s, one 9mm pistol...and one desert eagle,' Barbara observed. From the text boxes that flanked the weapons, she saw that the would have to reload soon but it would be best to end this before someone was killed by a stray bullet. Tapping her visor again, the membrane faded back to a clear, translucent color.
Reaching to her belt, Barbara pulled out a laser pen and aimed it at the hinges of the door that connected the two rooms. The hinges glowed bright red for a moment to let her know they had been cut. Taking a breath, she pulled out her grappling gun and aimed at the door before she pulled the trigger. The grappling hook punching through the door as if it wasn't there and continuing to punch through the wall on the far side of the room.
The gunfire came to a halt and Barbara didn't even need her infrared vision to know that the gangsters were looking at it the cord stupidly. With no hesitation, she pulled the trigger again a second before she let go of her grappling gun. The gun smacked into the door with a heavy thump before the door was drug along with the gun.
The door flew across the room before it came to an abrupt stop on the faces of two gangsters. The door exploded in a shower of splinters, knocking the two men out. While their attention was diverted to their fallen comrades, Batgirl dove into the room and let two batarangs fly free. They collided with one AK-47 and the desert eagle, knocking the weapons from the gangster's hands.
As the guns clattered uselessly onto the floor Batgirl dashed forward to the closest one, who still had a gun. The gangster didn't manage to fire off a shot before Batgirl closed the distance, batting his hands aside while she delivered a powerful uppercut to the man's chin. The gangster's head snapped back before it knocked forward as Batgirl followed it up with a knee to the stomach. To finish him off, she punched him in the temple before grabbing the back of his pants and shirt so she could throw the unconscious body at one of the gangsters.
She lacked super strength, but after years of intense training, Barbara's muscles were like cords of steel; taut and powerful. The gangster collided with his friends, knocking him off his feet, and giving Barbara time to move towards her next victim.
Unlike the gangsters, her eyes had no trouble seeing in the darkness so, while a gangster scrambled to find his gun Barbara jumped up and hit him with a flying knee to the nose. When she landed and as the gangster stumbled backward, cupping his flattened nose, she continued her onslaught with a shot to the liver. The gangster dropped his hands, either to lash out at her or cup his injured side, but it didn't matter when Batgirl delivered a left hook that snapped his head to the side and dropped him.
Groaning filled the dark room but Barbara ignored it as she spun on her heel and dashed at the last standing gangster. He was blindly lashing out, just trying to hit something, and only succeeded when Batgirl caught his punch before slamming her elbow into his chin. As the gangster slumped forward, she heard scrambling behind her.
Pivoting, she raised her leg as she dropped the gangster before dropping a heel kick on a gangster that took a dive at her. However, the same moment her foot made contact a device shot across the room and hit the gangster in the chest. A short scream filled the abandoned building as several hundred volts arced through the gangster before Barbara silenced him with her kick.
A beat passed and Batgirl didn't see any of the gangsters making any moves to get back up. Seeing that her work was done, she grabbed a few of her zip-ties and began cuffing the criminals. Thankfully, she had enough but she was down to her last two.
"I had it," Barbara said into the darkness as she worked. A second later she heard someone drop down from the ceiling. She didn't even need to turn around to know that Nightwing stood behind her. He entered the room without that cocky swagger of his and gave a single shoulder shrug.
"I'd just figure that I'd help out a little," he said coming to a stop behind her. Based on the soft squeak of the floorboards, Barbara knew that he was shifting from foot to foot.
"What are you doing here? There's still a good hour before dawn," Barbara replied as she tied up another gangster. To those that knew them both, they would note the lack of any fondness in her voice. She wasn't as cold as the chill of winter, but she wasn't exactly an inviting fire.
"It's gotten real quiet outside. Real quiet. I think this will be it for the night, but tomorrow...," Dick Grayson, or Nightwing, trailed off before he shrugged again. "I came to check up on you to see how you're doing," he said, the squeak becoming more frequent as he spoke. Shifting was always Dick's tell. Even when he was Robin.
"And you have," Batgirl said, still not looking at Dick. The dismissal was clear in her tone.
Dick rubbed the back of his neck, "Baa-tgirl," he said, almost tripping up when she used 'The Voice' on him. "Please? I just-," he tried to get out but Barbara was quick to cut him off.
"I know. This is hardly the first time we've done this Nightwing and I think I've heard all you have to say," Barbara said, her voice remaining professional but she tightened the zip-tie a tad too tight. "You're with Starfire. Again. After … what, a week after you broke it off with me? Again," she said as she finished her work. Barbara was thankful that she had her back turned to Dick because her lip quivered, though she was quick to school her expression. Batgirl was supposed to be calm, cool and collected; not a teenage girl that cried her heart out at the thought of seeing her ex with another woman.
"I, ah, I know it looks bad, but-" Dick got out but Barbara was quick to cut him off again.
"We were fighting a lot. You were acting too much like Batman," she didn't need to look at him to know that he stiffened at the accusation. "And I was pissed that you went to Jump City without telling me. Which is where Starfire is. Who you are dating a few days after we break up-" Barbara cut herself off to take a deep breath.
"Like I said, we've had this conversation a thousand times and I'm not interested in having it again." Again, the dismissal was clear in her tone but Dick wasn't having it. Not until he said his piece.
"I didn't cheat on you," he blurted out forcefully. "I would never-"
"When you left Gotham for Jump city and she kissed you?"
"She needed to learn the language!"
"By sticking her tongue down your throat?"
The sound of Dicks teeth grinding was audible and Barbara almost felt guilty for enjoying the sound. She knew it was the truth but she'd be a lair if Barbara said she didn't feel a flash of satisfaction that her words got to him.
"Yes, but that was years ago," he pointed out. He had been young and was totally taken by surprise. Plus, they had been at the age where being boyfriend and girlfriend meant you held hands and exchanged phone numbers.
"Fine. When you two were sucking faces in Tokyo," Barbara pointed out and that time Dick did wince.
"I-we hadn't seen each other in like a year, and you weren't returning my calls-" Dick said, trying to defend himself. It had been a moment of weakness. He worked with Starfire for over a year and lack of any real contact with Barbara for any the same amount of time. He fell in love with Starfire and he fell hard when he was supposed to be Barbara's boyfriend.
Barbara pressed her lips into a thin line and she knew that was true. It wasn't the first time they had this conversation nor was it the first time she used that card against him. As much as she didn't want to admit it, Barbara knew she wasn't blameless in Dick breaking things off with her that time. She had a lot on her plate with Jason, with Bruce and with what the Joker did to-. Barbara could admit that she hadn't been a good girlfriend at the time and she could hardly blame Dick for falling for Kory. That time.
However, there was one card she had up her sleeve and it was a card she hadn't used before.
"How about that one time where Batman put you in charge of the city, all your Teen Titan friends came over and she. Wore. My. Suit," Barbara hissed, whipping around and glaring at her ex-boyfriend. It was worthy of Alfred.
Dick hung his head low, a scarlet flush creeping on his cheeks. He thought he deleted all the footage of that in the Cave. "That-Starfire, she just...-Look, I know I'm … I haven't been the best boyfriend," he said and Barbara made a noise of agreement that he promptly ignored.
"I just – I just want us to be friends. I know that I'm the last face you want to see right now, and I get that, but...!" Dick forced out and cursed how clumsy it sounded. He had all the words in his head but none of them managed to get out his mouth the way that he wanted them to.
Barbara's glare softened before the fight let her in a small sigh. "I know," she said, turning away from him, "I know. Usually, we have a city between us whenever this happens so we can cool off. We can't have that now. Gotham's going to become a bloodbath and we need all hands on deck," she continued before looking back at Dick.
"Are we good then," Dick asked a bit hopefully. He took a step forward and was thoroughly disheartened when Barbara took a step back.
"We are," she said, her words not matching her actions. "Just … I can work with you Nightwing. I can put my feelings aside and work with you but that's it. So, please, just … just leave me alone," there were so many things that she wanted to say. Some were what her heart was compelling her to while her brain said different things entirely. What came out her mouth would give her time to sort out how she was feeling.
As of right now, she was torn between kissing Dick and punching him in the mouth.
Dick looked disappointed but he slowly shook his head all the same. He opened his mouth to say something but he seemed to think better of it before turning away and walking out the room.
Barbara was left alone in the darkness, only her thoughts keeping her company.
(...)
The first thing that Peter did after waking up was to immediately regret the decision. His throat burned and it felt like peppers were shoved up his nose given how clogged his nostrils were. He also woke up hours earlier than his body wanted because his eyelids felt like lead weights and the did everything in their power to remain closed.
Naturally, he turned on his side and tried pushing off the hellish nightmare that was reality in favor of spending a few more hours in dreamland. Letting out a sigh, he tried to relax his body and ignore the aches and pains. It worked for a few moments before a draft hit him with icy cold air and he shivered.
Letting out a small groan of annoyance, Peter looked up in hopes of finding a blanket. He blinked owlishly as he realized that he wasn't in his uncomfortable bed at home but in some kind of doctor's office. Then the last memories he had jumped out at him and hit him like a semi.
Jumping out of bed, his hand shot up to his face. Ice cold dread clutched his heart when he felt naked skin where his mask was supposed to be. Peter was still wearing his suit, but his gloves were missing and he saw ink in between the grooves of his finger pads. He was too busy panicking to notice that the bullet wound above his hip and the graze on his thigh were sutured neatly.
Peter's heart was trying to punch its way out of his chest yet the rest of his body was frozen stiff. The one nightmare that he never hoped to experience was happening again and he had no idea what to do. Someone, that woman that pepper sprayed him, saw his face. She took his fingerprints and God knows what else to him after she knocked him out.
'She knows who I am,' ice formed in his veins at the thought and it was a fight for every breath. What did he do? What could he do? He wasn't prepared for this. All the plans and the ideas of what he thought he would went right out the window.
Peter's panic attack was interrupted by the door behind him opening. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder and saw it was Leslie. She looked at him with unimpressed eyes as she strode into the room and locked the door behind her.
"You're already awake," she observed as she crossed the room and opened a drawer. "That sedative should have knocked you out for another four hours," she mused more to herself but her words made Peter glance up at the clock on the wall. It was twelve o'clock, a full eight hours since he was kidnapped.
That was a lot of time. It didn't seem like it, no more than someone spends at a job or school. Yet, all the same, eight hours was a lot of time for her too, say upload his identity to the internet.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was a niggling something screaming at him that he forgot something important but Peter couldn't hear it. Not when one of his deepest darkest fears being realized for the second time.
"I did some blood work while you were asleep. Your DNA is a mess, by the way, but I also noticed that you're slightly malnourished. Take these vitamins and-" Leslie said as she approached but she was cut off by Peter grabbing her by the front of her coat and lifting her into the air with ease. Peter didn't even realize he was moving until he was looking up at her. Nor did he notice that the ice left his veins because they were boiling with rage.
"You," he hissed. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things that could only convey a fraction of how completely and utterly pissed off he was. There was fear underneath it all, a very deep and primal fear but it was hidden underneath a great amount of anger. However, that word seemed to be all that he could get out.
"Me," Leslie agreed. "Brat, I deal with the worst kind of scum in this city. You're hardly the first super-powered person that I've patched up and pissed off, so if you want to intimidate me you'll have to try harder." She informed, looking very much unaffected by the snarl etched into Peter's face.
"What did you do," Peter spat out and Leslie lets out a sigh before her eyes hardened into a glare.
"Nothing. For now," she replied and Peter's eyes narrowed dangerously. He felt like a cornered animal and he didn't enjoy it one bit.
"And I won't do anything with it if you-" She began before Peter dropped her without warning. She stumbled slightly but when she regained her balance, she looked up and saw Peter towering over her. For so long he cursed his height because it made him awkward, but in moments like these, he relished it. He was a head taller than her, but now she had to crane her neck up to look at him.
"I'm not committing any crimes for you," he stated flatly. His mind was turning, thinking furiously to how to turn this around. Once it got out that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, his enemies were going to go after aunt May. If he could get in contact with SHIELD, then she can be moved to a safe location.
She wouldn't be happy about it, but she'd be safe. Mary Jane was a different beast entirely but-
'Oh,' Peter thought suddenly. If Leslie was standing here, if he was here, then that meant he was in Gotham, right? Which meant that he was in a different universe...oh...right... Well, that solved some problems at least. Peter wasn't exactly happy that it wasn't all some crazy dream but he did feel relief flow through him when he realized that aunt May and MJ would be safe.
"Oh," Leslie echoed, mirroring his thoughts. There was a curious glint in her eyes as she regarded him with cruel interest.
"Not even if I were to reveal your identity to the world? From what the news is saying about you, you put away a fair few gangs and the Joker. I imagine that they won't think fondly of you. They might hate you enough to go after your family to get to you," Leslie pointed out. That was Peter's greatest fear.
It was one that was realized once before.
"No," Peter refused instantly. She barely finished her sentence before he gave his refusal.
Leslie was expecting that answer. After all, it takes a fair amount of resolve to put on a mask dedicate your nightlife to beating up criminals. If anything, she would have been shocked if Spider-Man just caved to her threat like a house of cards. However, she hadn't expected how quickly he responded nor the sense of finality in his tone.
She rose a gray eyebrow, "You seem very willing to risk your parents lives." Leslie noted as a frown tugged at her lips. Looking at him now with those dark bags under his eyes and tousled hair, he seemed so young. He had the eyes of a man but Leslie couldn't help but see a child.
"Kinda hard to risk what they already lost," Peter said flatly. There was a time when his lack of parents was a tender spot, but that void had been filled by uncle Ben and aunt May.
The harsh look in Leslie's eyes faded a fraction, "Guardian?" She inquired and Peter's eyes narrowed.
"Gone," he shot down. Uncle Ben was murdered because of him and aunt May was a universe away. Both were painfully out of reach.
"Siblings?"
"Only child."
"Friends?"
"Don't have any." Mary Jane was his last one and, hopefully, she was with aunt May.
Leslie let out an exasperated breath and looked up at Peter with eyes full of pity. "So, the only life you're throwing away is your own, huh?" She asked but it didn't sound like she expected an answer.
Leslie took a step back and before Peter could get back in her face, she said, "I'm not going to blackmail you into committing any crimes. The police have enough on their plate as it is."
Peter blinked in confusion at that. She wasn't going to blackmail him? Now that was a curveball.
"Then why did you-?" He began to ask before Leslie cocked her head to the side.
"Because I'm blackmailing you to stop being a vigilante," she answered before he could finish. Her tone was deadly serious and her eyes were trying to cut right through Peter, so he immediately tossed out the idea of it being a joke.
Wow. Waking up really was a poor decision. He didn't have nearly enough sleep or caffeine to deal with this. The past few hours had just been a wild roller coaster and Peter wanted off.
"That's not going to happen," he stated with certainty. Like it or not, Spider-Man was a part of who he was now. He couldn't put up the suit any easier than he could part with an arm. Even when he wanted to, even when being Spider-Man ruined Peter Parker's life, he couldn't and wouldn't stop. He had a responsibility.
"It will. You're taking off that suit and you're going to burn it. Then, you stubborn idiot, you will go to school and be a normal teenager. You'll have crushes and you'll get bad grades. You'll have a normal life without all...all of this," she stated, gesturing to Peter. There was anger in her voice and disappointment.
"No."
That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back because the sadness in her eyes suddenly became anger. Peter didn't move when Leslie took two quick steps to close the distance nor did he back down when she got in his face. From this close, he idly noticed that it looked like she was about to cry.
"You will," she repeated. "You-you-you will! You don't understand what this city is capable of. You're just a child playing hero and you don't have a fucking idea what it means. This will kill you, don't you understand that? Do you not understand what kind of enemies you made last night!? The Joker will torture you to death if you're lucky. If you're not then he'll unleash horrors on you that only that madhouse he calls a brain can come up with!" She screamed at him with genuine fury.
"You wouldn't be the first hero he's killed-," she clamped down on her anger with a vice grip. Pain shined in her eyes before she glanced at a picture sitting on a counter behind Peter. Looking down he saw it was a younger Leslie and a dark haired boy wearing a stained tank top a few sizes too big. He had a large smile plastered on his face that looked a little goofy because he was missing his two front teeth.
When he looked back at Leslie, she was glaring at him hard enough to burn a hole through his head. "I-I get that you want to do something. You, Batman, the Justice League; you want to help. I understand that, but there are better ways to do it. You're smart," she said softly before pulling one of his web shooters from her pocket.
"You made these out of old watch parts. The formula for your webs is nothing like I've ever seen. Your smart...use that. Go to school, go to college then do something with that head of yours. Become a billionaire and throw money at charities or invent some kind of life changing product. There are better ways to help people than putting on a mask and risking your life every night." She continued, her voice slowly growing softer.
For years, decades, Leslie worked in this clinic and helped those that needed it when they needed it. All that time, she did everything she could to help. She was a doctor, so she provided free check-ups and emergencies. When winter came in and the homeless were dying of hypothermia, she bought the building next to the clinic and provided them warm beds and three meals.
However, it wasn't always enough. As much good as Leslie did, it was outweighed by the bad. She couldn't help everyone and, at times, it felt like she wasn't helping at all when the crime rates grew until they were monstrously high. High enough that Park Row was renamed, Crime Alley. Then she could only watch as it wasn't enough.
Leslie was absolutely sick and tired of seeing good kids killed on the streets.
Peter was silent for a long moment. She was worried for him. This woman, who he's never met, was worried sick that he was going to get himself killed. This wasn't what he was expecting. He was expecting someone to blackmail him so they could get the amazing Spider-Man to dance to their tune. Peter was completely unprepared for dealing with a stranger trying to stop him from doing what he had to do.
So, he did what he would have done if it was aunt May standing in front of him.
Ever so gently, he rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Leslie looked up at him with hopeful eyes, praying that she got through to him, and Peter took a breath.
"I'm not going to stop," just like that, the hope was dashed. "I can't look away when someone needs my help. I won't. I'm sorry, but no matter what you do or say, I'm not going to stop being Spider-Man. Ever." There it was. The cold, hard truth.
Leslie looked at him for a long time and Peter patiently awaited her response. This woman pepper sprayed him, sedated him and then kidnapped him but she was doing it out of concern for his safety. Peter couldn't say that he forgave her what she did but he didn't hold it against her. Her methods needed work, a lot of it, but her heart was in the right place and that what Peter cared about.
"You're a damn fool. Just as big as Batman ever was," she said after the silence stretched on and on. She scowled when Peter cracked a half grin, "Fine. I can't stop you and I'll destroy the evidence but you-," her expression turned fierce again. "You will be receiving check-ups every week, and I mean every week. You're young and you have superpowers but don't you dare get it in your head that you're invincible."
Peter gave a very hesitant nod at that demand. He really didn't want to and he didn't exactly trust Leslie if that was even her name, but Peter saw that he wasn't exactly in a position to refuse.
"Brat, I've been a doctor longer than you've been alive. I know when someone is lying to me," Leslie snapped, picking up on his hesitance. "What's your address? If you miss an appointment, and I mean one, I'll drag you to my clinic by your ear. And you even think about lying to me where you live..." She gave a threat but Peter was too distracted to hear it.
He needed to give his address but Peter was seeing a glaring problem with that.
"I don't...," the words slipped out in shock. Peter realized that he was homeless. That realization sparked off a connection to all the other problems he hadn't even thought of in the craziness of his first day in a new universe.
It was in the middle of winter and he didn't have a home. The only money he had was ten dollars that were meant for lunch. He didn't have any clothes other than his suit. Heck, Peter didn't even have an identity! Unless there was a doppelganger in this universe than Peter didn't exist in the eyes of the world. He didn't have a social security number, a birth certificate, no records of any kind.
Meaning that he couldn't get a job, he couldn't open a bank account because he didn't have a social security number, he couldn't do anything. The only money he could make would have to be in cash and the list of jobs a teenager could get without any known experience were few and far between. Even more so considering that most of them would be illegal.
That was a problem.
Leslie looked stricken before her eyes narrowed into slits, "You're homeless." she repeated and Peter had the urge to deny what he said. However, knowing better, he nodded mutely as his brain recovered from the sudden influx of problems that he now had.
Really, he had ninety-nine problems and not a single solution.
"You," Leslie looked like she got worked up again but cut her anger off before she could begin. "What was your plan? Sleep on the streets during the day and fight crime at night," she asked aloud but Peter got the impression it was a rhetorical question. He also got the impression that she'd yell at him if he did answer it.
"Do you even have a job?" She asked, sounding drained. Peter didn't comment because he was feeling much the same.
"I get by with photography," he answered, thinking that he wasn't technically lying. It wasn't the truth but it wasn't a lie. Perhaps that's how he could make some money to live off of? He'd have to get his hands on a camera but it was doable. A good photo to the right buyer could triple the money he put into buying the camera.
Leslie closed her eyes for a long moment before she reached into her coat pocket and shoved his mask into his hands. Peter looked down at it in puzzlement but he was quick to put it on. Once it was firmly back over his face, Leslie shoved his web shooters at him along with his gloves.
Now suited up and feeling complete, he opened his mouth to let out a quip so he could relieve some stress but Leslie cut him off before he could begin.
"Go to the build on the right. The third floor, next to last room on the right. Go there," she instructed before turning on her heel and walking out the room. Peter just watched as the door was closed and stared at it for a long moment. Then he glanced at the window.
'Should I run?' He asked himself, his brow furrowing in thought. She still had evidence of his identity but she didn't seem like she was willing to use it. It also didn't seem like she was luring him into a trap. Yet, Peter found it difficult to give her the benefit of the doubt when she kidnapped him.
After scratching his head through his mask, Peter pulled up the window and began crawling through it. He was hit with a blast of cold air and goose flesh rose in response but it wasn't as cold as it was last night. With practiced ease, he slipped out the window and closed it behind him. He looked at the city for a moment, idly thinking that it now sounded alive with noise before he looked towards the window that Leslie directed him to.
Making a decision, he crawled to the window and tried to peer through it before he entered but the glass was covered in grime. While not a promising sign, Peter placed a hand on the window and pushed it up using his adhesive abilities.
He slid in, thankful that it was a little warmer in here before he paused to look around him. It was an apartment and it looked like it should have been condemned months ago.
It was a studio apartment. From where he stood, he could see a dingy old bed that's sheets needed to be changed a decade ago, a small stove that was missing three grills and a microwave that was missing the door, and a toilet that looked like it belonged in a public restroom. The room stunk, a mixture of old sweat combined with general filth that was lightly marked with the smell of lemon, which only made it worse. Then there was the fact that there was just so much dust in the room. It looked like no one's stepped for in here for years.
Looking up at the ceiling, he saw yellow spots from water damage and black mold gathering in the corners. Then he realized that he could hear everything that was going on in the rooms next to him so he tried to dampen his heightened hearing but Peter quickly figured out that the walls were just paper thin. His neighbor on the left was watching the news while the neighbor on the right was playing a video game. Based on the children claiming to have banged his mother, Peter was guessing Call of Duty.
Then he heard the door open behind him and Leslie entered the room. If she was surprised that he was already here then she didn't show it in favor of throwing something at him. Peter caught it out of reflex and saw that it was a key.
"Rent's a hundred a month. Find a job to pay for it because if you don't, I'll throw you out myself," she said stiffly, keeping her eyes firmly on Peter. "I can't stop you from being an idiot but this is all the help you'll be getting from me," she continued firmly. Yet she didn't enter the room.
"Uh, right. A hundred dollars a month. Don't be late or you'll kick my ass. Roger," he said quickly, hoping to appease her. She glared at him for a long moment but sensing that her point had been made clear, she promptly turned on her heel and walked down the stairs back to the clinic.
Peter looked up at the ceiling in exhaustion. It was barely past midday and he just wanted to crawl into bed and fall asleep forever.
"I want to go home."
(...)
Decades of hard work...ruined. Careful, meticulous planning...for nothing. All the hard work, all of his sacrifices, all of the blood, pain, sweat, and tears...utterly meaningless. It was all for naught. All that he built, all that he crafted, the empire he forged with his hands...collapsed. Gone.
All because of a single madman's whims.
Roman Sonios, otherwise knows as Black Mask, watched the city he all but controlled out of his window. The moon hung overhead, not a cloud in sight, the informally agreed soon signal for the criminals of this city to apply their trade. He could already hear the gunshots as the gangs he once controlled tore into each other like ravenous beasts. All eager for territory that they never had under his thumb, yearning for a few extra dollars in their pocket from an extra street to sell their drugs on.
"Pathetic," he said to himself, sipping from his glass of well-aged scotch. 1943...not exactly a good year, but the best generation sure knew how to make a drink. He took a larger sip, enjoying the burn as it tracked down his throat.
Roman antagonized over the exact moment that his empire was doomed to fall since everything went spiraling down the drain. For hours and hours, he gazed down at the city, out of this window, drinking his drink of choice and wondering where it all went wrong.
Roman sighed, "I should have killed him." There were so many chances, so many opportunities, that it honestly hurt knowing that he didn't take them. At the time, he was blind. Stupid and blind.
He didn't see how it could bite him in the ass by letting that fucking lunatic running about. At the time, Roman didn't see the harm. Hell, he had even broken the Joker out of his reserved room in Arkham because when he was out, Batman focused on the Joker and the pressure was taken off him. Sure, the Joker would kill a couple of his guys but they were stupid and easily replaceable. When the Joker was out and about, profits rose and jobs went without a hitch because the Batman wasn't focusing on street level crime.
Roman thought the reward outweighed the risk. Time and time again, he was proven right and then...
Roman drained the last of his drink and carelessly threw the glass to the side and ignored the sound of it shattering.
What's worse, he had no idea how the hell it happened.
The day his empire fell started like any normal day. He woke up, he ate, he made some calls, then his other phone started ringing. It was a mess and, at first, Roman thought it was a joke. The Russians wanted him to mediate with the Ukrainians. The Spanish drug cartels were calling about the Yakuza and how they were preparing to cut into their territory. Irish were pissed as all hell and wanted to fight everyone because they thought everyone wanted to fight them.
Roman did everything that he could. He tried to mediate, he tried to set up meetings and he tried to talk down the gang lords from doing something stupid. It hadn't worked in the end. If he managed to convince one then he didn't convince the other. If he convinced both then both were attacked by different factions.
In the span of an hour, his empire was torn at the seams and he was left watching as the pieces tore each other apart.
"That freaks plan didn't even work," Roman noted, torn between feeling glad at that fact or fury. His empire was destroyed as collateral for a plan that didn't even work. Whatever the Joker cooked up in that madhouse he calls a brain barely even begun before it was stopped by the new hero in town.
Spider-man...apparently the guy could dodge bullets and stop a car going eighty dead in its tracks with his bare hands. A legitimate superhero. He wasn't working with the bat family but who knows how long that would last. Even when they weren't working together, the heroes of Gotham were busting criminals left and right, ruining any chances that he could restore his rule. He just didn't have the manpower anymore.
Roman sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Batman was an almost insurmountable obstacle on his own but now Gotham had a hero with real powers. Time would tell if he would become a serious threat to the underworld of Gotham, but if what he's done so far was any indication...
His empire was gone. Vanished without a trace...and...he just didn't have it in him to try to rebuild it. Too much work, too much heartache, too much of a pain in his ass. It had taken him over a decade it build his empire and he didn't fancy spending his fifties redoing it all.
"I'm going to retire," Roman decided, pursing his lips in thought. He still had millions of dollars stashed away in case he had to flee. Even bought a little island in the tropics to live his life in luxury. His business would fall apart without him, but he didn't really care. It had always been a front for his real passion projects. Now there wasn't a point anymore.
Tearing his eyes from his view, he walked over to his desk and tapped on his receiver, "Jiliè, I'm activating code Black Six." Instead of the confirmation that he had been expecting, there was only silence.
Roman narrowed his eyes, repeating the order in case she was just stunned into silence but there was still no response.
'Something's wrong,' he realized as his hand dipped down to grab the assault rifle hidden beneath his desk. Jiliè knew better than to leave her desk and in the fifteen years as his secretary, she never to miss a call.
"Don't look so nervous Roman," a voice said just over his shoulder. He whipped around, gun at the ready, but he saw no one was there. He searched the darkness for a figure, knowing all too well that it wasn't his imagination, but he found none. Gulping, he turned around and saw a woman standing behind him, smiling in amusement as she leaned on his desk.
However, when he saw red hair, his eyes went to her concealed breasts. "Whisper," he hissed, fingering the trigger. Cold sweat dropped down his spine at the sight of the woman.
He met Whisper A'Daire only once before, early in his rise to power. She was an agent of Ras A Ghul and she had been sent to kill him, along with her mutt of a bodyguard, but failed. However, thanks to the encounter, he knew her abilities rather well and he wasn't going to fall for them a second time.
"My eyes are up here, Roman," Whisper said with some amusement. She cupped her cheek as she smiled fondly at the masked man. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to look anywere else, her hands dipped down and to the bottle of sctoch and a glass.
Roman snorted, "I prefer to look at your only redeeming feature, you snake." He spat and Whisper chuckled lightly, not insulted in the slightest. She expected more venom from one of the few targets that slipped through her grasp.
"I'm wounded...Kyle?" Whisper said and a moment later, the gun was ripped out of Roman's hands and tossed to the side. He barely had a chance to shout before he felt an iron grip around the back of his neck and lifting him like a doll. Roman cursed and kicked, both at Whisper and Kyle, her bodyguard, behind him. His feet missed the woman by miles and he might as well have kicked a brick wall behind him.
"Hmmm...that's a good look for you, Black Mask. Scared and struggling...but, I didn't come here to tease you. In fact, I'm here on business." Whisper said, walking around his desk. Roman looked up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze at any cost.
"Oh? Who's bitch are you now that Ras-" Roman began but he felt the grip around his neck tighten painfully. He trailed off with a gasp, clawing at his hand that held him but to no avail.
"That's enough," Whisper said sharply and instantly the pressure eased.
"As for who I work for...I'm the manager of Gotham's branch of HSC International Banking," she said with a grin in her voice.
"Intergang," Roman wheezed out, his mind turning over the revelation. HSC was one of Intergang's many fronts as the world's largest, and most dangerous gang. They had high friends in high places and the weaponry the created with the help Apoklipsis, they had the edge in any gun fight.
It was one of the few gangs in the world that went head to head with upper tier heroes and survive. The fact that they were even still around, despite several heroes trying to disband it spoke just how much power the gang held.
"You bitch, I told that fat bastard that Gotham is my city. You can take your-" Roman started but the pressure returned. Slowly it grew as Kyle's fingers dug into his neck until he felt hot blood trickle down his neck. Roman let out a silent scream as he fought against the pain as time seemed to drag its feet.
"M-make him stop," Roman managed to get out and he heard Whisper let out a low hum like she was thinking about it.
"I don't know~! You didn't ask nicely and said such hurtful things," she said in a teasing tone before she paused. "I'll consider it if you tell me what code Black Six is," she questioned, curious. Based on what she overheard earlier, Roman was planning to leave the city. If that was the case, then what was with the six?
Whisper asked purely out of curiosity but she was stunned by what she heard.
"I-I release all the dirt I have on everyone! To the public! That's for Gordon in case he got near to busting me but the rest is for Batman! All the plans I know about that his Rogues are going to use, where they are-" Black Mask answered before he ran out of air, and Whisper was taken back. she nursed her drink to hide it but her mind was racing.
It was ruthlessly brilliant, Whisper had to admit. He would clog the bureaucratic machine by exposing all kinds of corruption; judges, lawyers, civil servants, doctors...who knew just how rotten Gotham was at its core. To cover his own escape, Roman would shove it into the light of day and use the chaos to get the police off his back. After all, Gordon would be a little preoccupied arresting half his police force.
As for Batman, it was a no brainier to answer who he would choose to pursue; the worst of his villains or one criminal overlord?
A slow smile tugged at Whisper's lips as she reached up to caress Roman's face, "look at me, Roman." She commanded and the man just clenched his eyes shut. The pressure around his neck increased and he let out a whimper of pain.
"Look into my eyes," she pushed, "I'll tell him to stop hurting you...all you have to do is look into my eyes."
It was a bad idea. A terrible one. However, it felt like his spine was going to be ripped out at his neck, his heart was trying to leap out his chest and she was speaking to him in such a tone...like a lover trying to coax him back to bed to be swallowed in her embrace.
It was a bad idea. Roman knew it. Yet, he looked into her eye's all the same and fell under her spell.
Yup, just about done with it. Apologies for the wait, work and school have been kicking my ass for a while now.