Part 1 - Chapter 6: The Long Chase
Where a spider's actions have more consequences than it could have ever predicted.
"The reason that I have called all of you today, is because of the recent rogue element that calls himself 'Spider-Man'."
This gathering of the family was certainly an event, it had been a long time since all of the clan had to be called in, in one way or another. Dick Grayson and Tim Drake dressed up and ready for their patrol, and Stephanie Brown, still in uniform, had just returned from hers as Batgirl.
Cassandra Cain-Wayne had arrived not ten minutes before from her weekly drama theater tour (as in, once a week, she would go see a different play in Gotham, a nice outing that she experienced with their newest rehabilitation case, Basil Karlo).
Damian was in his training fatigues, as today was his obligatory day-off, which meant he had been sparring with Luke Fox. Damian's 4'6" height and low ground League of Assassins' style mixed with Grayson's acrobatics against Luke's 6'1" and Karate-focused Mixed-Martial Arts always made for a great spectacle.
Duke Thomas had arrived much earlier, regretting that he was missing his Linear Algebra class - though he wasn't particularly excited about it, every missed class would count against his vigilantism hours. Kate Kane, Bruce's cousin on his mother's side and the infamous Batwoman, was also there, back from a long mission with the Birds of Prey in Europe, making some small talk with Barbara Gordon and the retired ('only currently', some added) Harper Row, her usually purple hair now a little longer and with a blue tint.
It had been a long time since many had seen Harper, ever since she left the position of Bluebird behind to focus on her college education in electrical engineering - with Batman's blessing and a Thomas Wayne Scholarship earned on her own.
Even Jason Todd was attending, and Bruce had been, if not warm, at least cordial enough with his son, a former Robin, former rogue and now ally.
So many of them together could only mean that something big was about to happen. Batman, for Bruce was in whole apparel, except for the cowl, turned on the large holo-projection on a darker part of the cave, so that everyone could see it.
As expected, the projected image of Gotham's newest vigilante came up, red, blue, web patterns all over and the white lenses in his full mask. If some of the present heroes were annoyed by this, they kept it to themselves. The majority's opinion was that Batman was taking too long to deal with the rookie, but nobody could get the reason.
Apparently, today this issue was finally going to be addressed.
"Over two weeks, I've been keeping all manners of tabs on the meta-human who identifies himself as Spider-Man. His abilities, his technology, his training, any and all sorts of evidence and what they could lead me to. Originally, I thought that he might be an associate of Eric Needham, aKa the 'Black Spider'."
There was a second image by the side, of the referred mercenary and assassin, his suit a purple spandex costume, small golden pieces for lenses on his mask, a spider emblem taking most of his forehead and two large visible gray bracelets connected with small hoses to a purple backpack.
"My suspicions arose not only from the animal theme but also the use of artificial web, the ability to stick and crawl on surfaces and the use of quips and banters during fight. However, it was deemed inconclusive. Though similarities occurred, there were just as many differences as well: Spider-Man's web being grayish white and Needham's red, also being highly degradable and not even close to the chemical trace from the Black Spider's. Even the equipment Spider-Man sports appears to be much more compact and far more efficient than Black Spider's. The vigilante also appears to be physically much stronger and agile than Needham, his abilities being natural instead of derived from his suit."
Black Spider's image disappeared, replaced by a collection of photos of criminals.
"Red Robin also helped by sharing his experience dealing with The Council of Spiders. For those unaware, they were a team of expert assassins and meta-humans that acted mainly in Europe and Africa."
There were all sorts of unique individuals in the photos, of various genders, ages and weaponry, including a monstrous four arms furry man-spider hybrid.
"As far as we could attest, Spider-Man most likely is not part of the group. Though his origins are still a mystery, the vigilante does not have any indication of any European or African country accent, typical of all members of the Council, nor display any of their usual attitudes or techniques."
Red Robin chose that moment to add, "Also, the group has been disbanded and all members have been presumably eliminated after a confrontation with the League of Assassins three years ago, so it is very unlikely that our subject is a rogue element who survived and decided to move to Gotham years later."
Batman nodded. "Earlier today, there was a breakthrough in the investigation."
A three-dimensional map projection of Gotham's main island appeared, with several red dots spread through a large area on all districts, the most noticeable exception being at the Narrows. "Signal, Batgirl, Robin and myself set up several surveillance devices - microcameras and sensors included, to help us determine Spider-Man's presence and what routes he would be using to go around Gotham. Yesterday, at thirteen hundred, the vigilante was spotted."
There was now the feed of Spider-Man's back, as he stood at the edge of a building. He was noticeably athletic, that was clear for them, but also too relaxed - a kind of stance that many would have linked to Nightwing's more jovial moments.
"However…", and there it came, the moment where Spider-Man turned towards them and webbed up the small device, which had been, as far as Batman could attest, very cleverly hidden, which only made the fact that the vigilante could notice its location with such accuracy the more alarming. "Somehow, Spider-Man detected the equipment and pulled it towards himself."
There was the moment where Spider-Man apparently gushed about the technology, and the sudden realization of him actually being recorded and seen by the Dark Knight. Batman paused the footage, but a hand shot up.
"Hey, B, what happened after that?", Batgirl's question was obvious and reasonable.
"He left the equipment behind and left the scene", was Batman's uncharacteristically dismissive reply.
He should have known better not to lie, as many of his pupils and colleagues were now eyeing him with doubt.
"… he did leave the equipment behind, after some time."
"How long?", asked Batwoman, interested.
"... about three hours later.", Batman admitted.
"Well, then there could be material there that could help with the investigation, right, Bruce? Abilities, locales, habits, anything that could help narrow his identity down", asked Tim. Batman almost winced at the sound and logical argument.
The older hero looked towards his first son, and saw how Nightwing, with Alfred by his side, were both smiling. Batman almost sighed - his self-control was better than that - and resumed the footage.
Around the moment where he apprehended the first criminal, the purse-snatcher, the tense meeting had melted away into much better spirits.
The footage showed Spider-Man stopping and capturing his third criminal in a row, never shutting up about the weather, how Gotham needed a fresh coat of painting and maybe just a wash in general. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the vigilante propelled himself into the ground, quickly webbing a rolling ball that was about to go into the street, a small girl, around eight years old, running after it, unaware of the danger she was getting into.
"Careful, kid, Uncle Spider-Man can't always be there to save you from problems!", he declared, and the little girl was in awe at the surprise appearance.
Several of the people in the Cave were reevaluating their opinions on the newest hero in Gotham, as the footage showed the little girl trying to pick up the ball back.
"Hey!", she yelled, "You glued my ball! You suck, Mr. Spider!"
"Well, bite me, kid.", the vigilante grumbled and left the place, mumbling "Gotham, am I right?".
And, as their leader had expected, the ensuing laughter filled the Bat-Cave, not a typical neither unwelcome sound from his family.
"B-man, you were going to keep that from us?", asked Jason with much more mirth, Batman's most problematic son sipping some drink which had been offered by Alfred, along with several other refreshments and snacks for the rest of the group. "This moron is hilarious - I was totally gonna shoot him, but now I want to shake his hand. And maybe shoot him, but just warning shots."
By the twenty minute mark, Spider-Man had already prevented two store robberies, a break-in into an apartment (the perp was using the fire escape, and was so caught up in surprise by the web-slinging hero he actually fell from the steps and got caught, becoming a human yo-yo in Spider-Man's web), helped out an older man to find his dog and gave directions to a group of tourists.
"Wrong directions", Dick pointed out, as Spider-Man actually got the museum's address confused with what had probably been the stadium's.
Around forty minutes in, Spider-Man had just prevented a kid from hurting himself skating inside a half-pipe at the skate park near Burnquist Plaza.
Then, to the astonishment of everyone else not in the known, actually showed the young teen how to do the maneuver himself, keeping his body low while riding off the top of the ramp and spinning twice, landing backwards.
"That's nothing", he waved off the attention of some teens who were watching his demonstration. "You should have seen what my friend Tony from San Diego could do. Now be safe and keep grinding those decks, kids!", and the vigilante jumped off, already using a passing bus as a ride onward.
"Cringe", Stephanie remarked. "But the good kind of."
"Bruce, I think the guy has proven himself not to be a criminal mastermind.", Luke Fox advised.
"I'm not sure myself.", said Tim, in support of his father. "He knows he is being seen, he is carrying the camera with him, therefore, it could all be an act. Show himself in the best light to trick his way into the group."
"Yo, Timbo", Nightwing said, offering a popcorn bucket. "Just sit back and watch."
And watch they did, as after several other activities and acrobatics, Spider-Man suddenly changed attitude, his swinging no longer aimless but now calm, with very deliberate movements.
"Car", Cassandra was the first to point it out, literally at the traffic shown - a semi-truck with the logo 'Danny's Delivery'.
"Maybe it's a target?", wondered Harper.
"He saw something, but it's hard to know what it is from the camera's angle.", Duke added
Almost on cue, the camera fell from Spider-Man's chest, spinning out of control, almost crashing to the floor, if not for the vigilante quickly snagging it back up with his web. "Whoops!", he said it outloud.
"Time?", asked Tim Drake, focused. Batman approved.
"One hour and eleven minutes, that is a reasonable guess on the duration of his 'web' before it starts to disintegrate itself."
"Clever, leaves barely any evidence behind for the police. Or us.", was Red Robin's conclusion.
It took Spider-Man another fifteen minutes of following, but the truck had finally reached its destination, a rundown auto-workshop still in operation, near Ward Bridge. The vigilante crawled on the roof, the camera only getting the floor under him, but it was clear he was looking for a way in - which he found as a locked sky window.
The vigilante wasn't deterred by that, as he sprayed two strands of web onto the window and, with a quick pull, took the entire thing out of its frame.
"Not too quiet, but not too bad.", Jason judged Spider-Man's performance, as he caught the flying object and laid it down on the side, then quickly jumped into the garage, where some guys worked on a van, while the semi-truck was parked on its side. Spider-Man's quiet crawl left everyone on edge, expectation on what he was doing.
The answer presented itself from men coming out of the inside of the semi-truck, sporting tattoos that singled them out as 'Lo Boyz', one of the gangs under the heels of the notorious crime boss Oswald Cobblepot.
The camera's sensor gave silent warnings on the small traces of chemical elements in the air, including a familiar compound.
"Syntopenthrite", Luke Fox was the one who recognized it first. "That's military-grade explosives."
"It's also a more unstable and more powerful version of what is used in our Explosive Gel Dispensers", warned Batman, serious tone. "Not something you can easily fabricate or acquire." The men in the footage were unloading an unmarked crate from the semi, the source of the chemical trail. "And by that volume, disastrous to have roaming around."
Spider-Man kept crawling over the scene, snaking around the many support beams, without making a sound.
"Thirteen men", said Damian.
"Not heavily armed.", added Stephanie Brown.
"That could change in a second, there must be some heavy firepower stashed around.", Jason reminded the younger… siblings? Colleagues?
Two men returned to the back of the semi-truck, the large portion of the gang carrying away the explosives or taking care of the front and back entrances. That was the moment Spider-Man decided to drop down to the floor, quietly, too quiet for a man of his size.
Swiftly moving to stand behind those two criminals, he hit their heads together, one against the other in a quick motion, knocking both down and leaving them between the semi and the wall, away from sight.
From there, Spider-Man started moving between tables and tool crates, knocking down gang members with the recognizable ease of habit, sometimes tossing them to the roof and webbing them before they could give any warning to their accomplices.
"He's got experience", Duke admitted.
"Hunter. Preys", Cassandra spoke out loud, and no one could have mistaken her meaning.
Batman respected the vigilante's skill. He could also see how, despite the effectiveness, Spider-Man was wasting too much time between each takedown. It was risky, every second wasted could give his targets the chance - "Hey!" - to spot him.
Spider-Man had taken care of nine of the thirteen men, a respectful number, but someone had finally spotted him and, though his movements were nothing short of amazing (taking down the thug with a flying kick that revealed his actual speed was far more than he had been previously showing), the shout had evidently been heard by everyone.
"Hi, is this shop Triple-A affiliated?", he asked the nearest gang member, who tried to hit him with a tire iron ("Missed me, guess you don't have the motor skills!") and was swiftly knocked aside by an amateurish though effective round kick.
The second one was moving to the side, reaching for his gun, but got knocked down by the same tire iron that had been webbed up and tossed into his face in a whip like manner.
The previous guy, from whom he took the tool, tried standing up, but Spider-Man was quicker ("Thanks for the loan, you deserve a brake!"), and knocked him out with a backflip kick.
The last two were in opposite directions, Spider-Man choosing to tackle the one at the back of the shop first.
"Dude, don't go shooting around!", he said, dodging a shot by sliding under the thugs' legs, grabbing one of them as he passed and, with a swipe of his arm, made the thug hit the floor head first with a thud, knocking him out. "You auto know better!"
The last guy also tried shooting at him, expecting the distance to work in his favor. Spider-Man just hopped out of the way, jumped to the side with a twist, stopping his own landing with a short swing and dropping open legged onto the guy's face, a yell of "Crotch attack!" surprising the thug, allowing Spider-Man to capitulate on it and drop the criminal on the ground with his own weight, a quick punch to the face knocking out the man.
"Service like this gets clients to drive away.", he said, already starting to gather the criminals together into a pile, the last one being one that he had stuck to the ceiling.
A slap on the thug's face woke him up.
"I have questions, 'Jack', and you better start telling me what I want to know: what the hell is this stuff you guys were carrying around, why and for whom?"
The member was agitated, but tied as he was, there was nothing he could do to get released.
"You have any idea what you are doing, you want to rob The Penguin?"
Spider-Man gave an audible and annoyed sigh.
"Not a thief. Do I look like a thief? Why do people think I'm a thief? Is it the mask? Is it because I wear gloves? Or that I am very good at climbing walls and breaking in? Also, who the hell calls themselves 'The Penguin', are they some sort of criminal tap-dancer or aspiring surfer?"
"Who-who the hell are you, talking crazy like that?"
"What, are you dense? Are you dumb or something? Who the heck do you think I am?"
The vigilante brought the criminal closer to his mask, and in a serious tone, he declared: "I'm the Gosh-darn Spider-Man!"
And, as the vigilante started cracking up and suddenly guffawed, the rest of the Batcave's crowd did not fair any better and soon followed.
"Ahh, sorry man, it's this whole city, it kinda makes you want to be dark and broody. Imagine being like this all the time… phew, but anyway, yeah, start singing, Tweety, or I'll have to slap you harder."
"What kind of threat is th-"
Spider-Man cut the thug off, as, with a swift kick to the side, the van that was previously being repaired was turned to its side.
"His name is Cobblepot, Oswald Cobblepot, and he is moving this crap into Gotham for some scary guy, the boss told us it's some kind of explosive and to keep it away from fire and electricity, and that it's worth a lot and that if we botched this, he would kill us because he at least is not as cruel as the guy who is paying to deliver this!"
Spider-Man's voice came out satisfied. "See, I knew you had it in you! Now, I'm going to do you a favor and knock you out just like the others, so people don't know you gave things away, deal?"
The thug barely nodded and Spider-Man had already hit him on the side of the head.
"Lights out, birdie."
At that moment, Batman once again stopped the recording.
"I reckon you all understand now why I called this meeting."
"To talk about your rising paranoia over a goofball?", Jason came in with the sarcasm.
"Because you think Spider-Man is too dangerous to be left roaming around?", Tim pondered, but his eyes didn't show agreement, this time.
"To hide from us the fact that Penguin is bringing explosives into Gotham for someone he is afraid to disappoint?", Kate interjected with annoyance.
"Better yet, were you going to warn us about this, but completely neglect that Spider-Man did us a solid and actually stumbled into this before any of us?", Duke pressured on.
Batman looked to the side, but only got from his oldest friend a snarky "Tough crowd, Master Bruce?"
"I… understand that most of you are starting to enjoy Spider-Man's… presence in Gotham. I am not blind, his presence has helped in the capture of many criminals, not even including the effect of crime prevention, since many perpetrators are now starting to fear acting out during the day as much as they do at night."
Bruce checked something in a small pad he produced from a nearby table, picking a file and switching the earlier recording with a new image, a photo at the Gotham Docks.
"In the last couple weeks, we have had more weapon contrabands than the whole previous month. An increase of a hundred and fifteen percent. Our sources inside the Police Department-"
"Dad", Barbara explained.
"- warned me on more apprehended guns suddenly vanishing from evidence lockers than ever before."
Another press, new image.
"Facial recognition identified Marcello Gazzio arriving at Archie-Goodwin yesterday."
It was a zoom-in of a black haired young man wearing a white Fellini suit and escorted by two large bodyguards, just coming down from a private jet.
"He is one of the last two remaining heirs of Don Gazzo, Falcone's former consigliere. The older sister, Aurelia, is still back in Metropolis, commanding the Family."
"And finally", last press, last image, showing the most infamous institute in all of Gotham.
"Arkham Asylum's latest reports show an all time low number of incidents from the patients, especially the criminally insane ones."
There was a quiet atmosphere now, every previous laugh, snide comment or critique silenced.
"Apart, all bad signs. Combine them and one terrible conclusion can be drawn: the calm before the storm."
"And you think Spider-Man is the cause of all of this", Dick stated, no question.
"In part.", Batman admitted. "Not directly, but as a new element on the board, Spider-Man's actions, though minor, may have contributed to the movement of these players. Plans are being drawn and redrawn right now. And Spider-Man intervening with Cobblepot's business - and his mysterious client - might have finally put unprecedented things in motion."
The Holo-projector light was turned off, darkness engulfing the Cave for a second before the ambient lights flickered back on.
To be Continued!
Author's notes:
Out of schedule post! Well, since this story just got 2000 views (THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU ALL!) an early extra chapter as a reward! Enjoy!
Ok, before anything, thanks for reading this longer chapter, your patience will be rewarded with even larger chapters soon!
Now, things are nice and easy for our Spidey... let's bring up the heat and the hurt, shall we?
Next chapter: "Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mother hugger!"