Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham
Chapter Four: Promise
It didn't take long before I was able to catch up to the pursuing officers, and sped past them. After a while I finally caught up with Spider-Man and Croc in the middle of the Bowery District. They were both standing in the middle of a snow covered road, glaring at each other. A little ways away, a giant web was laid out between two lampposts, and dead center in that web was the stolen Prius, looking little more than a giant, grey fly with four wheels and a mileage of fifty miles per gallon, and this is a terrible metaphor, I know.
The three police cars parked quite a distance from the standoff, while the officers they carried came out one by one, with each of them taking out their sidearms and taking aim. I gestured them to stop.
"Sorry, miss," said one of the officers, "but we don't take orders from vigilantes."
"I'm not ordering you to do anything," I argued. "All I'm asking is that you stay your hand for now, and let us handle this. There's no need for anyone to shoot anyone else, alright?"
The officer hesitated to speak.
"Look, it's not like we don't trust you or anything, and I don't want to sound rude when I say this," he said after a brief pause, uneasily. He then looked at the other cops with him, trying to gauge whether they shared his sentiment. When he figured that they did, he then turned back to me and said, "But you're not exactly Batman, and that other kid out there doesn't look like he can put up a fight against Croc. If we have reason to think you can't handle this on your own, we will do our job and shoot Croc if necessary."
I can distinctly remember a time when the words 'we will do our job' was the last thing you'd hear coming out of a GCPD officer's mouth, unless he was being sarcastic. Times sure have changed, and contrary to popular belief, it's not always 'for the worse' even in Gotham.
"No, see, I understand where you're coming from," I told him, "but I'm not just some random chick who took this hero thing up as a gig. I know what I'm getting into, and my guy out there knows what he's getting into, too. We can do this. Trust us."
"Be that as it may, we're still take action if we see fit," argued the officer with finality. "Wouldn't want a couple of teenagers injured under our watch."
"I'm almost twenty," I said abruptly, "and I'm pretty sure he's older than I am, so you don't have to worry about scraping a couple of teenagers' corpses from the pavement."
"Reassuring," muttered the officer, and I went to where Peter was.
I had parked The Bike with No Name by the sidewalk when Spider-Man called out to me.
"Batgirl, I think this guy stole from the mob, too. Or the mafia. Or whatever underground criminal organization it is that you have here in Gotham," he said, in uncertain terms. "Is there a mob in Gotham?"
Oh man, he's asking if there's a mob in Gotham. That's like asking whether Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or whether the Earth revolves around the sun, or whether Damian Wayne is a little brat who never fails to get on my nerves.
"You might as well ask if they have ice in Iceland," I told him, picking from my slew of carefully selected analogies.
He stared at me with a look that seemed to ask whether I knew what I was talking about.
"What?" I asked him.
"They have green, open fields and pastures in Iceland," he then said, unimpressed. "It's Greenland where there's ice."
"What?" I asked again, dejectedly this time.
"Yeah, I know," he said in a resigned tone. "The Vikings did it to confuse people, or something. At least that's what Thor said. Anyway, there were two briefcases presumably filled with cash in the back of car, besides the duffel bag full of money which I assume is from the bank. I noticed it when I flipped his car onto the web trap I made."
Right. I see now that there's a reason for my getting a C in Geography in high school. And I thought it was just because Mr. Willingham hated my guts. And did Spider-Man just say he flipped a car?
"You flipped his car?" I asked him, disbelievingly.
"Proportional strength of a spider," he said, nonchalantly, as if that made sense to me. Or maybe it was my fault for never realizing that ability to carry a car might also translate to ability to throw it.
On the other side of the road from us stood Killer Croc. A monster of a man, Waylon Jones, as his real name goes, towered over us at probably seven to eight feet tall, maybe even nine. I don't really know. It varies, I guess? Or it's probably because it's really hard to gauge how tall someone is when you're terrified to look at them straight in the face.
He sneered at us, and I did my best not to look intimated by him. This wasn't the first time I've seen Croc, but this was probably the first time I was to face him head on in a fight. Luckily for me, I wasn't going to do it alone.
"You have no idea what you're getting into, kid," he cried suddenly, in a deep voice that growled rather than spoke. "I don't usually do this, but I'm giving you just this one chance at walking away."
"One chance?" asked Spider-Man. "Damn, that's harsh. Alright, I don't wanna blow it if you're just gonna give me one chance. I mean, what if I decide to take this chance and walk away, and I regret doing it, or I don't take this chance to walk away, and end up regretting not taking it. I mean, really, one chance. How am I ever going to decide? Maybe I could sleep on it. Yeah, can you give me at least until tomorrow to think about?"
"You mocking me, boy?" Croc growled. He looked pissed off now more than before. "You've no idea about what's coming. All I'm trying to do is hightail out of this dump of a city before it hits, so what say you and me both walk away from this and go on our separate ways. I wouldn't want to smear my fists with what's left of your face when I'm through with you."
There's something wrong, I thought. I don't really know him too well outside of his file, but I do know that Croc is one of the last people who'd attempt to talk his way out of a fight. He must really want to get out of here as fast as he can.
And what is he talking about? What's coming?
"Right, let me think about it," Spider-Man announced. "Nope, sorry. See, from how I see it, good guys catch bad guys, and bad guys get thrown in jail. You stole money, which is wrong, by the way, making you a bad guy, and it's my job as a good guy to catch you and throw you in jail. That's how the world works from I'm standing."
Croc sneered, and shook his head.
"Kid, you're in Gotham," said Croc in jest. "With a worldview like that, what you're standing on is very shaky ground."
He then charged at us, and it was in that moment that I caught a glimpse of the Killer Croc detailed in Batman's files—animalistic and prone to lashing out in a bestial rage, with the strength, speed and size to back it up. The colossal monster of a man was faster than what his size would suggest, and he closed the gap between us and him in as quickly as half a second. As I readied myself to dodge out of the way, I couldn't help but notice that Spider-Man made no movement.
He simply stood his ground.
And in a heartbeat, he met Croc head on. The behemoth raised his fists and immediately brought them down on Spider-Man's head, but the wallcrawler stopped Croc's arms on their way down, blocking his attack. I heard the pavement beneath him crack audibly from the force of the blow.
What's he doing? I've seen him dodge gunfire. There's no way he couldn't have dodged Croc.
That's what I thought, but I guess that goes to show just how much I didn't know about Spider-Man. He could have dodged Croc, sure, but:
"Can't have you going wild now, pal," he said, and he grabbed Croc by the arms. He then effortlessly lifted Croc overhead and slammed onto the pavement with enough force to break it. "I'm assuming there are people in the apartment behind me, and if you so much as put them or anyone else here in danger, I won't hesitate to break you."
As I looked at the building behind us, and sure enough it was an old apartment building. Everyone inside must be sound asleep, unaware of the fight happening in the cold outside. I don't know how strong Croc is, and I defeinitely don't know if he's strong enough to collapse a building, but Spider-Man wasn't taking any chances.
The behemoth didn't seem to want to listen to him. They wrestled on the pavement as Spider-Man struggled to pin Croc down with an armlock. When he realized he couldn't overpower his attacker, Croc then opened his jaws, and with jagged teeth he began to chomp at Spider-Man's head. The wallcrawler narrowly missed getting his face ripped off.
"Crap, this bites," he cried, in a lame attempt to make a joke.
I didn't know what to do. As I saw it I'd only be getting in the way, which I had told myself before was the last thing I was going to be when I became Batgirl—the last thing I was going to be was someone who's only noteworthy talent was screwing up and getting in a fight way in over her head. I screwed up as Spoiler, and I screwed up as Robin. No way was I going to be some sort of liability again as Batgirl.
I reached into the pouch strapped my right thigh and took out Bab's patented Electric Gauntlets. They were like normal brass knuckles, only more shocking.
Okay, that joke was bad and I feel bad. What do you expect? I was going to punch a man-sized crocodile in the face. One that could very well break my face. There was hardly any time to think of a good quip.
As I began to approach them, charging up my fists, Spider-Man stopped me.
"Batgirl, stay back," he cried. "This guy's too danger—"
Sensing an opportunity, Croc freed his arm once his opponent was distracted. He struck Spider-Man across the chest, sending him flying with powerful backhand swing. The wallcrawler crashed into the webbed Prius hanging in mid-air, with enough force to bring down the two lampposts it was attached to. They all loudly crashed to the pavement.
A dazed Spider-Man lied in a heap in the front seat of the car, holding his head as Croc began to approach him.
"I told you to walk away, but you had to be an ass about it," he said, in a mocking tone. "Did you think you can take me? Freakin' Batman thinks twice about facing me. You're not Batman. No one here is—!"
An electrically-charged haymaker to the back of the knee got him to kneel on the ground, shutting him up. Another jab cuts across his cheek, sending a single, jagged tooth flying out of a mouth filled with sharp, jagged teeth, and his face falls flat on the ground.
When he turned around, I like to imagine that he was expecting Batman himself to have been the one to have made him kneel and kiss the ground. I like to think that he was pissed out of his mind when he saw instead this blonde, blue-eyed, hundred and thirty pound mouse of a girl, barely five feet five inches tall, with her dukes up, telling him to get up and have a go at her.
Croc moves fast. He swipes at me with a clawed hand, but I dodge at the last second, jabbing him twice in the forearm and elbow. He winces, and that made me crack a smile a little. He was hurt, and I was the one hurting him. He lunged at me as quick as an arrow, but I rolled to the left and threw a charged punch that landed on his side, just under his ribs. It throws him off-balance and he slips on the snow.
He was fast, but my teachers were faster, and they had skills to back up that speed. Bruce taught me how to defend myself, sure, but it was Cass who taught me how to fight. And when Lady Shiva's daughter is your teacher, you'd be hard-pressed not to find yourself getting better as a fighter. Cass taught me everything I know, and even though almost all our sparring sessions ended up with me lying on the ground, writhing in my pain and doing everything in my power to keep myself from throwing up, I still learned more from her than I ever would have from anyone else.
Cass was the one who taught me that strength, speed, and size could only get someone so far.
For all his strength and speed, Croc didn't have the skills to make good use of them. It didn't matter how strong he was or how fast he was—without any sort of fighting ability, he was just a rowdy drunk in bar in need of a good asskicking. And it was my job give him as good as he deserves.
When he stood up and resumed his attack, I saw every move he made before he made them, and avoided them all while returning a few potshots in kind. The electric blasts were huge help, too, of course. I can imagine doing zilch to him if I were to just punch him in the face without them, unless the plan was to tickle him.
Unfortunately, I got too carried away. When he threw another punch, I decided to go under it, then attack him head on. Big mistake. The first two body shots made him take a step back, so I launched a couple more assaults to pressure points on his stomach and chest, thinking I could put him down. I underestimated how much punishment he could take, and before I could throw another jab, he grabbed me by the arm and pinned me down to the pavement. I hit the asphalt hard, and blood came seeping from my mouth.
You really are the Amazing Screw-up Steph, I thought to myself, snickering as I did.
Keeping my distance was the only way I was able to put him on the defensive. Once I decided to get in close and personal, he simply powered through my attacks and stopped them in their tracks. Wow, that rhymed.
"What are you laughing at?" he asked, in that menacing growl.
"I j-just…" I stuttered, not out of fear but from how ridiculous this situation sounded, when you think about it. As I tasted the blood in my mouth, I said, "I just never thought I'd be killed by a crocodile in the middle of the street. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. Really funny way to die."
I thought about why the police weren't doing anything. They said they'd pitch in to do their job if they deemed that we weren't able to handle this. I wondered if getting pinned down on the ground by a man-sized crocodile looked like I was still handling the situation pretty well to them. But when I looked at them, with their faces in awe, I thought that maybe they were too frightened to make a move. Understandable, given the circumstances.
Turns out they weren't looking at us.
"What makes you think I want to kill y—" Croc began to ask, but he didn't finish. A webline shot past us, and when we both turned to look at where it came from, I saw something that legitimately scared me.
Spider-Man is one of the nicest, most kind-hearted, laidback people I've ever met. He was fun to be around, and he had a knack for telling lame jokes and making a complete goofball of himself with how he never seemed to run out of things to say. But the man is damn scary when he shuts up.
What I saw launching itself at Croc on that webline and decking him so hard so hard in the face that I could feel it, not to mention send him flying off like ragdoll, didn't seem like Spider-Man at the time—didn't seem like Peter at the time.
What I saw was a man clad in black with a stylized white spider on his chest, wearing a blank, expressionless mask that had two giant bug-eyes that seemed to stare right through you. He looked like someone you wouldn't want crawling down a wall towards you in some dark alley. And the worst part was that throughout that attack, he didn't say a single word. No quips, no jokes—nothing.
Remember when I said that there was another reason why I hated silence? Silence reminded me of Spider-Man whenever he stops playing around. And for all his bad jokes and terrible taste in food—he loves wheatcakes for some reason—when he shuts up, all you're left with is this faceless, man-sized spider that can dodge bullets, lift cars, and punch giant crocodile men into orbit.
Before Croc could get far, however, Spider-Man launched another webline at the monster and stopped him mid-flight. He then swung him overhead and pulled him hard back onto the ground, making him crash into the pavement with enough force to form a small crater. Relentlessly, Spider-Man then pounced on the fallen behemoth and began punching away at his face. Every blow of fist against skull continued to crumble the pavement beneath them.
It was a while before I snapped out of the daze I found myself in.
I shouted at Spider-Man to stop, and when I did, he looked up at me all of a sudden, like he'd been in some sort of trance. He stood up, seemingly unaware of what he had doing been up until that moment.
When the realization seemingly dawned on him, he looked horrified. He stared at his bloody hands, and shook his head.
I walked up to him, and put my hand on his.
"Peter?" I whispered.
"I don't know what came over me," he mumbled, almost inaudibly. "When I saw you on the ground… I thought… I thought he was going to… no, never again. Never again. As long as I'm around… no one dies as long as I'm around. I promised. It's my responsibility."
He then closed his hand around mine, and shook his head.
"Never again," he continued to mumble, but he didn't seem to be talking to me this time. "Never again… what happened to you, I won't let that happen to anyone else as long as I lived… that's my responsibility. I promised you that… right, Gwen? I promised."
Beneath us, Croc began to stir. "Just wanted to get out of the city," he said drunkenly, as if he was only half-conscious. "Just wanted to get out of this hellhole. Get far away from what's coming."
I knelt down beside him. "Start talking. What are you going on about?" I asked. "What's coming? And don't say winter, 'cause it already came."
"You have no idea," he said, hoarsely. "The things happening in the background, just under your noses. Horrible things, nothing you've ever seen before. Things on a scale not even Batman can fathom."
"I'm sure if he weren't out of town he'd tell you otherwise," I told him.
He looked legitimately surprised. "Out of town?"
Crap. Should I have said that?
"Yeah, out of town," I told him anyway. They were bound to figure it out sooner or later. "He's not in Gotham right now, but he… left me in charge of the city while he's gone."
All of a sudden, Killer Croc began laughing. Not in some maniacal, villainous cackle—it was a bitter laugh, the kind you'd hear from someone who had lost all hope. "Then this whole city might as well burn down right this moment."
He shook his head, and spat out a gob of blood and saliva.
"Listen, kid," he said, uncharacteristically calm. "Call Batman back. He's your only chance at stopping what's coming. Without him, Gotham might as well have signed its own death warrant."
"Why should I trust what you're saying?" I questioned him. "You tried to kill us."
"Don't you try and accuse me of something I didn't do!" he snarled. He suddenly attempted to get up, but fell back down in pain just as quickly. "I wasn't… trying to kill you. I just wanted to get out of the city. Get away before it hits."
"Before what hits? What are you trying to say?" cried Spider-Man. "You've been nothing but vague."
"Heh," chuckled Croc. "That's the thing, actually. No words can describe what it is. I don't even know what it is. No one does. But what everyone does know is that it's coming, and when it does there's nothing you can do to—"
One electrically-charged punch to the jaw and he was finally out cold. Spider-Man stared at me in disbelief.
"He was asking for it," I argued, trying to justify what I did. "And it's not like he was going to say anything useful. All he was going to say was 'There's nothing you can do to stop it.' Standard villain dialogue cliché. It's so predictable it hurts."
Spider-Man shrugged his shoulders. He then lifted Croc up and encased him in webbing, before swinging over to where the police were, and wordlessly handing him over to them.
He then swung back to where I was standing and we both walked towards The Bike with No Name, neither of us saying a word.
When we reached my bike, I turned to him and said, "So, is it okay if I asked what that was about?"
"What do you mean?"
"You suddenly went berserk earlier," I told him. "Mind telling what that was about?"
He put his hand on the back of his head. "I thought he was gonna kill you, BG," he said sheepishly. "That's all."
"Bee-gee?" I asked.
"Yeah, I was thinking of a nickname for you," he said. "Since, you know, I can't call you by your real name while in costume, and calling you Batgirl all the time sounds too… 'formal', I guess? Or maybe 'professional' is the word I'm looking for. Anyway, it doesn't sound casual."
With that he successfully dodged my question.
I didn't mind, though. It was clear that something triggered the way he retaliated against Killer Croc. I mean, part of it was the fact that I looked like I was about to get sliced into ribbons, of course, but that was only part of it, I think. Even if he was the kind of guy who'd rush to help someone in need, the way he savaged Croc just to save me couldn't be justified by that.
There was another reason why he acted the way he did. The girl whose name he mentioned, most likely—Gwen, was it? But it wasn't my place to pry. We barely knew each other, after all. There was a whole other side to Spider-Man that I had no idea about, but that was understandable. I'm sure we'll get to know each other more soon enough.
And when we get to know about each other more, maybe I can ask him then. For the rest of tonight, however, I was going to take it easy. We've already done so much, and it was only our first night.
"BG sounds forced," I said, following his lead. Besides, I enjoy this side of him way more.
"How about the 'The Purple Knight' then," he joked. "Too subtle?"
"I think the mouthiness of that one beats the purpose of using a nickname in the first place," I told him. "Besides, this is eggplant."
"What about eggplants?"
"No, I mean my costume is eggplant," I explained. Somehow, I feel like I've had this exact conversation with everyone about my costumes, but mostly with my Spoiler outfit.
"It's made of eggplants?"
"No, you idiot. Its color is 'eggplant'."
"There's a color called 'eggplant'?"
"Yes," I said triumphantly, "there is, my uninformed, arachnid friend."
"I guess you learn something new every day," he mused, as his face lit up like a lightbulb. "And now I know exactly what I'm gonna call you from now on."
"Huh?"
"I think I'll call you 'Eggplant'."
End of Chapter 4