A few hours later, having snuck out of the house when Aunt May went to sleep, Spider-Man was wrapping up a cursory tour of the nighttime cityscape - a nasty place, that, when the crooks were out and about, which they (flatteringly) tended not to be so much when they knew there was a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man webbing around.

He usually didn't have to do a lot, which was nice, but those irregular hours of superhero-ing were one of the reasons he clung to a freelance job, and he sort of wanted some late-night justification for putting up with JJ. This particular night was shaping up to be a little boring, even. No crazed mega-villains or bank robbers or jewel thieves or gang scariness; just a few
muggings and one guy near a subway entrance who was waving a knife around and screaming about robots and computers taking over the world. Disappointing for someone who got a huge kick out of saving the day. Or night.

Spidey sighed and resigned himself to a full nights' sleep. Face it, Pete, he told himself, you should just leave the night stuff to Batman.

He changed weblines and angled higher, swooping up into the thick, light-studded New York night with nothing more on his mind than where he was going to anchor the next line.

So, of course, fate picked that precise moment to send something bad his way, in the form of a laser that nearly took his arm off at the elbow. Without the last-second buzz from his spider-sense and the corresponding instinctual jerk backwards, there would've been nothing "nearly" about it.

The first laser was followed up by several more in quick succession, and Spidey abandoned his line altogether, torn between getting the heck out of there and finding out who was trying to kill him now. With a laser, no less.

Running away wasn't very superheroic, he decided, so he swung around and headed towards the source of the shots. Lasers. Geez louise - a guy wearing a goblin mask and chucking pumpkin-shaped bombs wasn't far-out enough, so now fate was sending guys with scientifically impossible weapons at him?

Whoever it was stopped firing as he approached and turned, apparently fleeing. Spidey landed on a bulky AC unit, stuck one hand out and sent a stream of webbing at the moving figure, waited until it had connected, and jerked. Hard.

The gunman flew backwards, smacking into the machine beneath Spidey's feet, and Spidey wasted no time in webbing him good.

"Hello to you too, sunshine," he said, resting in a crouch and peering down at the would-be killer. "Tag, you're it!"

The gunman growled and twisted to look upwards. Spidey took the opportunity to check out his latest adversary. The guy wasn't winning any beauty pageants - the chunky, heavy-jawed face, receding blond hair, and general thuggish appearance would get him disqualified for sure. Overall, he fell rather neatly into the category of "second-rate criminal."

One of his arms, though, looked like it was made of metal - or at least wrapped in it - and along with the little detail of the laser, that kept Spidey wary.

"Great, another joker," the gunman said, narrowing his eyes.

"Joker? Wrong city if you're looking for him." Spidey jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Gotham's a few miles thataway."

The gunman scowled. "You're even less funny than Max."

Spidey straightened at the insult. "Hey, I resent that! Whoever Max is. Your boyfriend, maybe?"

That was met by another growl and a series of popping sounds that Spidey recognized as his webs tearing. His spider-sense told him that now would be a really good time to move. So he did.

And not a second too soon, as the gunman stood up and ripped the webbing apart in one swift, ungraceful movement, then turned around and punched the AC unit hard enough to crumple it. Spidey's foot had barely left the machine at that point, and his balance going into the leap suffered. He made an ungraceful movement himself, but managed to land right-side up on the rooftop.

He jumped back a few yards, putting more distance between them. Anyone that strong was someone to stay away from.

"I hate comedians," the gunman informed him, picking shreds of web from his metal arm. Speaking of gunmen, Spidey wondered, where's that laser? Lasers, even scientifically impossible ones, didn't just get up and walk away.

He didn't see it anywhere on the rooftop, which wasn't necessarily strange; the guy had been running away and could've ditched it somewhere. And Spidey didn't know what a portable laser should look like, since the things didn't exist. "Even Bill Cosby? I thought everyone loved Bill Cosby. He sells Jell-O, for crying out loud!"

The gunman made a quick, jerking movement, as though he was shrugging his shoulders, and the bulk of the metal arm suddenly separated into two halves and flipped down to become a large pincer-claw. The length of his arm was effectively extended by a good two feet. Not to mention that it was one of the most surreal sights Spider-Man had seen in, oh, weeks. At the very least.

"Okay, now you're just freaking me out," Spidey told him. "Mister...?"

The man grinned a predatory grin, showing a nice set of white teeth. "Psycho."

Spidey raised an eyebrow - the effect of which was sadly lost behind his mask. So just to make sure he and the guy were all on the same page, he coughed and said, " 'Psycho.' Right. Paging Norman Bates..."

"You," Psycho said, whipping the claw up with a whir of servos, "talk too freakin' much."

"Or maybe you don't talk enough. Ever think of that?"

"Whatever. All I know is killing you is gonna be fun." And with that he charged, the claw-arm leading.

Spidey waited, then lashed out with both feet at precisely the right moment and nailed Psycho square in the chest; he didn't go flying, but he did stumble backwards, his thuggish face registering surprise before he hit the low brick wall that bordered the roof and tumbled over it.

Spidey jumped after him, coming to rest on the wall and aiming two weblines down blindly in a desperate bid to catch the the falling person. Villain or not, he didn't deserve to die. Not even the Green Goblin had deserved to die.

But the webs zipped down into empty air.

Psycho was gone.

Spider-Man checked the street and, briefly, the buildings, but couldn't see anywhere that Psycho might've vanished to.

"Weird," Spidey muttered, scanned the area one last time, then shrugged and went on his way. He was tempted to say "good riddance to dumb rubbish" and just write off the whole thing - but he had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't really going to be that easy.

He swung on, imagining lasers trained on his back.