A/N: So, contrary to the message I left in the last chapter, I managed to prepare one more chapter for you guys before my trip. Hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 8
Miles POV
The dim lights of his mask brightened the space ahead of himself just barely enough to see, which was fortunate as while the Prowler crawled through the ventilation system, his mask's scanners would prove mostly useless among all this textureless material. Still, he imagined that he would've felt more comfortable if he could use his scanners, as it could be extremely nerve-racking to sneak into potentially hostile territory without his full range of technological abilities accessible to him.
Yet the temporary inconvenience would surely prove worthwhile, as he didn't want to find out what would happen if he were to be caught here. He eventually crawled to a fitted grate in the wall and shoved it open to find himself inside of an elevator shaft, going both up and down so far that he could not see either end.
Finally able to activate his scanners, Miles looked around the shaft for any sort of security measures, but surprisingly found nothing in his path. Now the trick would simply be getting up to the top floor.
Climbing out of the vent, one of his hands with its clawed fingers impaled in the wall to hold himself in place, Miles positioned himself against the wall and looked upwards before leaping out towards the ceiling. As he jumped, his shoes emitted a blast of light that launched him much higher, allowing him to scale about a dozen floors with a single jump before he landed on the other side of the elevator shaft with his feet against the wall, then immediately did another jump back to the other side.
He repeated these actions again and again until he eventually had the ceiling of the shaft in sight, at which point he did one final jump but spun around halfway so that he was upside-down before he activated his shoes once again to stick his feet to the ceiling, the anti-grav emitters in his shoes firing a continuous stream to keep him there.
Looking around from his place on the ceiling, Miles could see at least four different access vents going in different directions. With a thought from its wearer, the lenses in his mask extended the range of their scanners and allowed Miles to see that only one of the vents, the one to his right, would take him in the direction he wanted to go.
He then shifted to his infrared scanners for a moment and located three heat signatures at the other end of the ventilation shaft, two standing near each other with a third shape separate from the others, a bit further back.
Miles swung forward while deactivating his shoes to impale his claws into the ceiling before doing another full flip before launching himself into the vent. He crawled forward through the vent until he reached another grate cover in the bottom of the shaft, where he swiftly swung forward and kicked the grate open from under himself to fall into an open hallway.
Miles landed on the floor soundlessly in a crouched position, his legs spread out behind him with one hand touching the floor with his fingers and the other held up high with his claws extended threateningly, then winced to himself. This was a new type of landing for him, but he recognized where he'd seen it before immediately after doing it. I guess one night with Spider-Woman is one too many, Miles thought to himself, then quickly added, One night working with her, of course.
Anyway, annoying as it was that he had accidentally copied one of Spider-Woman's landings, he had to admit that it was understandable why she did it like that. The landing felt natural and simple, and could easily become a habit if he wasn't careful.
It also placed him low to the ground, out of danger of immediate response from enemy gunfire, though that didn't seem to be a problem on this particular mission as the two men in the room with him, wearing identical gray-and-purple uniforms including bulletproof vests and carrying automatic rifles across their chests as they stood defensively in front of a large set of beautifully carved wooden double doors, seemed too surprised by his sudden appearance to react to his presence at first, though it didn't last long.
Both guards began to raise their rifles to aim at Miles, but before they could even get their weapons up, Miles flew towards the one on the left and bent his legs in midair to hit him with both knees right in the face, instantly knocking him unconscious. He then landed on his feet and spun around to smack the gun out of the other guard's hands, accidentally ripping the gun open with his claws and causing dozens of bullets to fall to the ground as he did so.
The guard reacted quickly to being disarmed and instead pulled a small stick from his belt before swinging it outwards and causing it to extend into a metal baton with arcs of electricity flowing down the sides. He then swung it at Miles, who simply caught the baton before it could hit him, and his gauntlet whirred before the guard quietly gasped involuntarily shuddered in place as the electricity of his weapon was redirected back at its wielder.
With the man stunned for a moment, Miles dropped to the ground and swept his leg out from under him, then grabbed him midair before he could fall to the ground and tossed him bodily at the set of doors. The doors burst open under the weight of the guard's body, and Miles leapt through them and glided back to his feet at the other side of the room beyond, where his third heat signature was waiting at his desk, looking calmly at the fallen form of his guard upon the ground.
"You know, there are easier ways to make an appointment with me, Mr. Morales," Wilson Fisk told the Prowler with mild annoyance evident in his voice, yet not the slightest hint of concern for his wellbeing or that of his unconscious employees.
"I'm not here for you, Fisk," Miles said with a glare, all of the respect he'd shown during their first meeting now absent. "I want to talk to Mr.-"
"We DON'T say his name!" Fisk yelled, aggressively getting up from his chair and pounding one of his oversized hands on the surface of his desk with an echoing BOOM while his other hand pointed a firm finger at the teenager in front of himself. "And you were given a means of contacting us. You are expected to use it."
Miles stepped forward menacingly to meet Fisk's unspoken challenge and insisted, "I don't want to talk to Mr. Nelson either. I want to see the Kingpin. I want to talk to him face-to-face, and you're going to make it happen. Now."
Fisk didn't respond, only deepened the intensity of his own glare. However, even under the threat of this goliath of a man trying to attack him, Miles refused to back down. He had expected this sort of reaction if he barged in here and started making demands, but he was adamant about talking to Matt. If that meant that he had to go through Fisk to get what he wanted, then so be it.
Miles clenched one of his hands into a fist, his gauntlet beginning to whir with building energy, and Fisk made a sort of growling sound in the back of his throat as Moles noticed one of his hands slip under his desk, probably thinking that he could sneakily grab a gun with which to defend himself. Not that it'd help him much, Miles thought to himself confidently, by now resigned to having to fight his way to the Kingpin.
However, at the last moment before Miles would've made his first move, the glass wall behind Fisk suddenly began to retracted into the ceiling, and with a familiar tapping sound, Matt Murdock walked into the room, his cane going back and forth in front of himself as he walked into the open space and said, "Foggy said Prowler wanted to speak to me?"
"Matthew," Fisk said before Miles could respond, looking at Matt in shock, "What are you doing out here? Someone could see you!"
"Only if they had a drone illegally flying in our airspace, Father, we're over sixty stories up," Matt responded smoothly with a slight inclination of his head in the general direction of his adopted father's voice. "Besides, if they did, all they'd see is Wilson Fisk meeting with his lawyer, who also happens to be his son."
"With a supervillain in the room!" Fisk added, gesturing at Miles.
Matt gave Fisk an unimpressed look and said, "If you were really worried about that, you wouldn't allow yourself to be in here either, would you? If Miles wants to talk to me, he can. Actually, I've been expecting him. I gave your receptionist a picture of him and told her to give him a key to come up here if he showed up. I didn't really plan on him sneaking his way in, of course, but this still works."
Before Fisk could try to argue further, Miles retracted his mask from his face and said, "Mr. Murdock, I really need to talk to you about something."
"Is it about how you finally managed to get the Spider-Woman to give you a chance?" Matt asked, clearly having already been briefed by Mr. Nelson on what Miles had reported last night.
"Not exactly," Miles responded. "I just want to know what happened yesterday. You said you know everything about this city. This is your chance to prove it. A supervillain escaped from the Raft for the first time ever yesterday. How did it happen?"
Matt walked forward until his cane tapped Miles' shoe, then he stopped and held his cane in front of himself as he looked at the ground and answered, "The Kingpin has ways of getting whatever he wants. Arranging Mr. Sytsevich's escape took less than an hour."
At first, Miles didn't understand what Matt meant by that. When he finally figured it out, he reared back and asked disbelievingly, "It was you? You let Rhino out?"
"More accurately, we simply created the necessary conditions for Mr. Sytsevich to let himself out," Matt corrected. "When we received your message about how Spider-Woman had denied you, we knew that we had to take more drastic measures. Some of the strongest bonds are forged in the heat of battle."
"But people got hurt!" Miles protested, gesturing with one hand out the window at the city below. "Over a hundred people died! My mom's working overtime at the hospital trying to save some of the thousands more that got injured! People lost their homes, their families, and all so that I could get closer to Spider-Woman?"
"Before he escaped, one of the guards at the Raft gave Mr. Sytsevich the message that he was supposed to minimize collateral damage," Matt explained calmly. "Clearly, he didn't follow orders, and he will suffer consequences for his actions. But his overall mission was a success; he managed to create the perfect scenario for you to team up with the Spider-Woman."
"That fact isn't worth much if innocent people got hurt in the process," Miles argued in a low, dangerous voice.
"Fisk Industries will head the relief effort in the wake of Rhino's attack and ensure that the city is back on its feet in no time," Mr. Fisk told him.
Matt nodded his agreement and said, "When you work for the Kingpin, Miles, you don't just get paid well for it. You also have access to all of his resources. We will handle the damage control aspect of this, and all you need to do is focus on your mission. Speaking of, now that you've made the first big leap in reaching your objective, expect a pretty big bonus coming your way soon."
"I still haven't spent any of the money you already gave me," Miles muttered somewhat embarrassedly. And true enough, he still had yet to spend any of the "down payment" that Mr. Murdock had given him just a couple days ago when Miles had first offered his services, which by itself had been a pretty hefty sum of several thousand dollars.
Matt just waved him off and said, "The Kingpin rewards those who do him a service, and you've accomplished what no one else could've done. And next time, Miles, just use the door. Now, Mr. Nelson will call you later today with information on your first target, and I want you and Spider-Woman to hit it tonight, understood?"
"Yes, Mr. Murdock," Miles responded with his head down, somewhat embarrassed now about the way that he had barged in here. At the time, he had thought that it would be a good idea to make a show of force when showing up with the intention of interrogating the Kingpin, but now Mr. Murdock had reminded him forcefully that he was still Miles' boss and deserved more respect than this. He had managed to refrain from acting at all angry over Miles' actions, but there was a look of disappointment on his face that almost actually seemed worse.
What had he been thinking? Had he seriously planned on threatening a blind man for answers? Then again, apparently Matt had been the one to permit Rhino's escape… But he had been trying to mend Miles' failure to acquire Spider-Woman's services, so it was really Miles' own fault that people had gotten hurt. There was no one to blame but himself.
He would just have to get better at the job, make sure that he didn't slip up anymore. There could be no room for error. Mr. Murdock was counting on him, and he had to prove to him, to himself, to Uncle Aaron, to everyone, that he was truly the Prowler, the very best at what he did.
Line Break
Later that night, Miles crouched on the edge of a building's rooftop across from his latest target, a well-kept warehouse belonging to a famous philanthropist, his claws clinging onto the ledge tightly. Suddenly, upon sensing a presence behind himself, he spun around and raised one of his fists to arm his Constrictor launcher, but only found Spider-Woman standing there, her arms crossed over her chest with no signs of fear showing in her face.
Of course, his view of her expression was limited only to what he could interpret from her body language and the shape of her eye lenses, but it was still pretty impressive that she didn't even flinch, especially when one realized that she'd had a taste of this particular weapon in the past. However, the sight of her like this somewhat threw off his concentration as it made him subconsciously think of the image he'd drawn in his sketchbook, the one that had been supposed to look just as Spider-Woman did now, but had instead turned into a picture of Gwen in this position.
After he remained silent for a moment, however, Spider-Woman waved a hand in front of his face and asked, "Hello? Prowler, you still in there? Did you bring me out here just to trap me in one of your evil nets again?"
"It's tempting," Miles responded, then lowered his fist, the hard-light arrowheads floating back down to his wrist as he stood up, "But we have a job to do, unless you've changed your mind."
Spider-Woman walked forward to stand next to him by the edge of the building and looked down at the gleaming warehouse on the opposite side of the street. Then she asked, "That's the target? I kinda thought it would look a bit more… villain-ey, you know? Unless, of course, we're not actually here to attack bad guys…"
"First of all, we're not here to attack anyone," Miles said impatiently, folding his arms across his chest as he watched Spider-Woman examine the warehouse. This would be the hard part of the job, he felt, trying to make Spider-Woman follow orders without letting her know that he was getting orders from someone. But Mr. Nelson had specifically told him that they were just to get in, get what they were after, and get out without starting a fight. "We're here to steal intel that can put these guys out of business. This warehouse receives shipments from the rivers, then moves them all throughout the city."
"And you just assume that they've got to be moving drugs or guns or something like that in those trucks, huh?" Spider-Woman asked with obvious disbelief.
By now getting tired of her constant doubt in him, Miles said, "No. I know for a fact that they're using their supply of trucks for human trafficking, dealing mostly in kids."
At that, Spider-Woman fell silent, and Miles tried not to feel too proud of how he'd done the impossible and gotten this quick-witted heroine to finally shut up.
Of course, it only lasted a moment, and Spider-Woman cleared her throat before asking, "How do you know?"
Glaring down towards the warehouse hatefully, Miles answered, "I've been following them all day-"
"And you didn't invite me?" Spider-Woman asked in mock hurt.
Miles temporarily shifted his glare onto her and responded, "I had a feeling that if I did, you'd just watch to talk and talk and I would want to strangle you within a few minutes. Turns out, I was right."
"Understandable," Spider-Woman said with a nod, then gestured for him to go on.
Miles sighed deeply and began again, "I've been following them all day. They just received a new shipment this afternoon, three trucks full of heat signatures. Twenty total captives, three adults and seventeen kids, all of them with weak heartbeats and low body temperatures, indicating mild starvation. They were supplied by Martin Li's secret connections in the Triad, the Chinese Mafia. Li's a philanthropist by day, but the criminal underworld calls him 'Mister Negative' because he always manages to pay less than the asking price."
Spider-Woman remained quiet for another moment, then asked, "Were they already taken somewhere else?"
Miles shook his head and responded, "I can still see them from here. They're being held in a secret chamber ten feet below the ground floor. They won't attempt escape. It's so cold down there that they're all huddled in a big group just to survive. And if we want to stop it from continuing, we need to get in there and quietly steal their shipping records. Li's too smart not to have records while dealing with the Triad. I managed to locate a safe in the back of the main office. That's probably where they'll be."
Spider-Woman stared silently down at the building for a while. Miles knew that she was probably trying to come up with some sort of plan, so he gave her a few moments of uninterrupted silence. When she finally did speak, she said, "Alright, I'm in. And I have a plan. Hold out your arm to your side."
Beneath his mask, Miles raised an eyebrow, though his surprise to Spider-Woman's perspective would only show as a slight widening of his eye slits along with the tilt of his head. However, he wordlessly did as she ordered and raised his right arm, holding it straight with his fist directed sideways.
If he'd thought that what she did next would explain why she'd wanted him to raise his arm, he was wrong. Instead, she just stepped up behind him before jumping up and landing on both feet balancing on his gauntlet, making him look like he had some kind of bird perched on the back of his hand, albeit one that was sized and shaped like a human. He just barely had time to process how surprisingly light she was before she suddenly leapt off of his arm and off the edge of the building, doing a flip in midair as she fell before shooting out one of her web lines and swinging across the street to land on her feet on the roof of the warehouse.
More confused than ever, Miles took a few steps back, then ran forward and leapt off the building. Immediately when he jumped, his shoes activated and launched him across the street to land in the same spot that Spider-Woman had. Of course, by the time he caught up to her, she had already walked over to a ventilation grate and begun to pull the cover off.
One of these days I'm gonna sneak into a building some other way than the vents, Miles thought to himself, but right now he had bigger concerns. Walking up to Spider-Woman, Miles asked, "Uh, quick question. Why did you need to jump off my arm?"
Spider-Woman didn't respond at first, as the grate she was trying to pry open had been bolted closed, and she was currently only succeeding in slowly bending the metal into a hole big enough for them to get through. Reaching out, Miles quickly extended the claws on one finger and instantly sliced through one of the bolts, allowing her efforts to easily bend the grate open.
Once that was done, Spider-Woman let out a sigh and nodded to him gratefully, then answered, "Well, I didn't need to, technically. It was really just for fun."
"Fun," Miles repeated in disbelief.
She just winked shamelessly at him and whacked him lightly on the shoulder as she said, "Hey, at least now you know that your arm makes a good springboard."
"My arm… is a good springboard?" Miles repeated in confusion once again. He then slapped a hand to his face and muttered, "Esta chica araña loca…"
"...You know I speak Spanish, right?" Spider-Woman asked in an offended sort of way.
However, far from being embarrassed, Miles just groaned in annoyance and said, "Of course you do. Who doesn't in this city anymore?"
Spider-Woman shrugged as she turned to climb into the vent and responded, "All my friends do."
Well, technically that was true for Miles as well, though he supposed it would be cheap to say so about the single friend he had. Besides, it probably wouldn't be wise for him to say anything about his personal life…
That thought helped Miles to suddenly realize that Spider-Woman had just voluntarily offered a sneak peak at her alter ego's life. That was progress in his mission! If he could just get her to open up a bit more…
After giving Spider-Woman a few seconds to crawl ahead, Miles climbed into the vent himself and began to creep after her. When they eventually found themselves facing a long, vertical drop in the shaft, below which they could hear men yelling in the other room, Miles stayed back while Spider-Woman shimmied her way down it, crawling along the wall downwards impressively just like a spider would.
However, after she'd gotten out of the way and Miles simply dropped down the shaft after her and landed on his silencing shoes, he quietly asked, "Hey, while we're on the subject, what exactly are your friends like?"
Turning abruptly to face him, Spider-Woman hissed rather loudly, "What did you say?!"
Miles didn't answer right away, however, as both he and Spider-Woman froze upon hearing a voice just below them stop in the middle of his sentence. It was obvious that he had heard Spider-Woman's outburst, but perhaps if they stayed quiet they would be able to make him think it was just his imagination.
They stayed completely still for around a minute before another man's voice rebuked as though nothing had happened, and Miles and Spider-Woman both let out deep breaths of relief that no alarms had been sounded.
They crawled a bit further ahead, and once they could no longer hear anyone near them, Spider-Woman turned her head back to him and said, "What do you care what my friends are like? You're not going anywhere near them!"
"I know, I know!" Miles hurriedly defended himself, "I just… wondered how you do the whole 'secret ID' thing. I mean, I just know that it can be tough sometimes."
Spider-Woman's expression seemed to soften slightly as she realized that he wasn't planning on harming any of her friends, and then she slowly managed to answer while still moving forward. "Well, I mean… You know, it's not so bad. The lying's kind of hard sometimes, but it's nothing I can't handle. You?"
Quickly thinking up a lie, Miles answered, "Oh, well, I'm alright. I've got tons of friends."
"Yeah, me too," Spider-Woman agreed.
Miles thought her voice sounded a bit weak when she said it, but then again, they were trying to be quiet. Trying to validate his lie and also give Spider-Woman an incentive to go on, Miles added, "Yeah, there's… Jim. And Derek. And… a bunch of others. And you? Are you sure you have other friends than me?"
Spider-Woman scoffed and said, "I don't know that we're exactly friends, Prowler. Not yet, at least. More like… business acquaintances."
"But?" Miles pressured her, desperate to get something out of her that he could work with.
She looked away and lowered her voice as she admitted, "Well, yeah. I've got tons of friends, like… Well, it doesn't matter."
"I'm starting to think you're not being truthful," Miles teased. "You can't think of a single close friend?"
Finally, Spider-Woman seemed to give in and said, "Well, I have a… boyfriend. I mean, not so much a boyfriend, more like-!"
"A boyfriend!" Miles exclaimed with mixed emotions as he commented on her slip-up. Some part of him was excited that he had uncovered this potentially useful information. The other part of him felt… something else that he didn't really want to name. Forcing himself to stay focused, Miles continued, "Well, good for you! What's his name? Does he know about your secret double life? Is he-"
"I don't really want to talk about him!" Spider-Woman cut him off, seeming extremely flustered. "I already said too much!"
Nodding but still trying to pursue the topic, Miles said, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize your boyfriend was such a sensitive topic. Whoever he is, I just hope he doesn't find out that you're ashamed to talk about him-"
"I'm not ashamed of him!" Spider-Woman argued, struggling to remain quiet and still be threatening at the same time. "In fact, I'll tell you that he's the best guy I know! And he's smart, and creative, and handsome, and- ugh!"
That last adjective seemed to throw her off, and Miles fought hard to contain a laugh as he watched her shake her head and angrily crawl away from him. Unfortunately, none of what she'd said would be all that helpful in finding whoever her boyfriend was, but Miles had done his best (and better yet, he'd gotten a moment of immense amusement from watching Spider-Woman stew in her embarrassment).
They crawled a bit further forward, and then Spider-Woman stopped suddenly, looking down at something beneath her. She then looked back and told Miles, "I think this is the main office."
Anxious, Miles immediately took her at her word and tried to crawl up by her side, saying, "Let me see!"
Unfortunately, the vent was a rather tight chamber for them both to be side-by-side, and so, Spider-Woman tried to fight him and push him back, saying, "No, there's no room up here! Just go back and-"
Miles just ignored her, of course, and elbowed her aside to make room for himself. The two of them squashed together by the walls of the vent shaft with their arms pressed tightly together and their heads mere inches apart, Spider-Woman angrily said, "Okay, so you couldn't wait two seconds for me to move? You're stepping on my foot!"
Miles continued to practice his developing habit of tuning out most of what Spider-Woman said and looked down through the grate below them. Spider-Woman had been right, this room was definitely the main office, positioned on the second floor and currently empty, but there was a wide window panel along the front wall, allowing one to look down on the warehouse workroom below, though anyone that happened to look up at the office would be able to see through the glass just the same. Simple enough. All they had to do was be quick and quiet.
Turning to Spider-Woman, Miles said, "This is it. Back up, and I'll get us in there."
Though she was doubtless still angry at him, Spider-Woman obeyed without question. Meanwhile, Miles placed both hands on the bars of the grate beneath him, then threw his full body weight onto the metal bars and dropped into the room below, still holding the grate in his hands. He soundlessly landed on the ground and looked around warily before directing his gaze upwards and nodding to Spider-Woman, who was now peering down after him, ready to jump into a fight if necessary.
A second after Miles gave the signal that the room was clear, Spider-Woman jumped down into the room with him and rolled into a crouch upon landing.
"Check the desk while I open the safe, just in case," Miles ordered.
Spider-Woman nodded her acceptance, and while she sneakily moved over to the desk and began to go through the drawers, Miles walked casually over to the safe in the back of the room, not needing to worry about making noise, and extended a claw from one of his fingers. He then inserted it into the slit running down the side of the safe and slid it downwards, easily cutting through the metal bolts holding the safe closed.
Of course, his claws were just barely too large to fit in the slit properly, so he ended up also tearing through the entire side of the safe as well, leaving jagged metal in the wake of his finger, but he was satisfied just to have gotten inside. He then pulled the safe door open to reveal large stacks of green American dollars along with a clipboard with several yellow sheets of paper pinned to the surface.
Picking up the clipboard and ignoring the money entirely, Miles began to flip through the pages and reported, "Spider-Woman, I found it. It's definitely the list. Listen to this. Male, 26, $90. Female, 22, $95. Female, 19, $95. Female, 16, $100. Male, 16, $100. Female, 11, $110… It keeps going. This is repulsive. I'd guess the numbers are the age and selling price, but it's written just vaguely enough that there's no real proof. Well, at least we got what we came for. Now we need to get out of-"
Unfortunately, Miles was broken off there by the sudden sound of a window shattering and looked towards the front of the room just in time to see Spider-Woman jump out of the office window and dive down into the workroom. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Miles yelled after her, newly panicked.
Gwen POV
After jumping out of the office window into the workroom below, shocking all of the workers below into frozen silence as she landed in a crouch on the table at the top of the room, Gwen said pleasantly, "Hi. I'm part of the Committee trying to get people to stop living in their parents' basements, and I heard that there are some people downstairs." Her voice then dropped to a dangerous tone and continued, "So which one of you is going to show me the way down there?"
Finally recovering from their shock, one of the workers suddenly reached for his gun holster and responded, "I'll help you into the ground! I'll get you down six feet under!"
However, before he could even draw his weapon, Gwen shot a web line onto his chest and pulled herself to him, kicking him in the chest so that he fell unconscious onto a table, where she perched once again on top of him, and said, "Appreciate it, but I heard it's actually ten feet, so I need someone who can get me a little bit further."
At that, everyone else in the room scrambled to grab their weapons. Some, like the first guy, had been wearing holsters. Most were disguised as actual workers and carried no visible weapons, though when they sensed a fight coming, they all reached underneath tables or under tarmacs and withdrew all manner of weapons, including pistols, automatic rifles, and swords.
Gwen crouched low in preparation, unwilling to try to run away even when she was outnumbered like this while the people beneath this room needed her help, then sprang up into the air as the workers with the automatic rifles attacked first.
Spinning in the air, Gwen narrowly dodged the first few dozen bullets to come her way, then shot a web line from each wrist to grab onto the chests of two of the people shooting at her. She then swiftly pulled her wrists inward, pulling the two enemies together so that they involuntarily slammed face-first into each other and were instantly knocked unconscious.
However, upon landing on yet another table, all weapons in the room were quick to resume aiming at her, and as Gwen dodged away once more she asked, "So this is what it means to be a 'hostile workplace', huh? Did you guys seriously hide all those weapons around the room? How do you know who owns which one? No, wait, don't tell me. You guys are Communists."
As usual, Gwen's jokes only seemed to make her enemies more determined to kill her, if only to shut her up. Also as usual, this caused them to make foolish mistakes that were going to cost them, like when they angrily shoved each other aside in an attempt to give themselves a shot at hitting her, or when the people using ranged weapons came closer to her in hopes of diminishing their chances of missing. Of course, these mistakes that they made would only make Gwen's job easier.
When she'd started, there had been over 40 people in the room for her to fight. Now, it would be impossible to count amidst all the chaos, but they began to drop quickly, whether it be caused by Gwen bouncing over to them to knock them across the room or when they were simply trampled by their own numbers.
One well-dressed guard ran over behind Gwen and swung a sword towards her neck, but Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled just in time and she leapt upwards, turning around in the air, and knocked the man off his feet with a knee to the chin. As he fell, he also dropped his sword, which Gwen caught and examined closely before asking, "Is this a real antique? Where'd you guys get these? Do you have any idea what a sword like this would sell for?"
Rather than answering, the entire crowd of bad guys all let out a collective challenging yell and began to close in around Gwen, blocking off all directions for escape. "You just can't find a gentleman anymore," Gwen complained quietly as she quickly improvised, impaling the tip of the sword into the ground before jumping up on the pommel and springing off of it to fly over the heads of the large group surrounding her.
As though in response to her claim, however, Prowler chose that moment to jump out of the office window above and land right in the middle of the circle that Gwen had just escaped, slamming a fist into the floor upon landing and causing the entire building to rock, knocking many of Martin Li's men to the ground as they were shaken by the shockwave.
Not bad, Gwen thought to herself, admiring his capabilities, but I personally still prefer Miles.
At that thought, Gwen mentally groaned and fought down the instinct to embarrassedly cover her face as she was forced to recall what she'd said about Miles while in the vent with Prowler. Obviously Prowler had pressured her into simply telling a lie about her "friends", yet she had so clearly pictured Miles in her mind when she'd lied about having a boyfriend. Why had she even let him talk to her about her personal life? She should've known it couldn't end well. Whatever. It was fine. As long as Miles never heard what she'd said, it wouldn't matter that she'd made a fool of herself like that.
In any case, Gwen was starting to think that maybe Prowler wasn't exactly here to save her, as right after knocking all of the slave traders to the ground, he began to approach her with slow, deliberate footfalls and a steady glare on his face. "¡Estar al garete!" he yelled at her. "What were you thinking coming down here? This isn't the plan!"
Pointing down to the floor beneath them, Gwen argued, "Hey, there are people down there, and they need help!"
Suddenly, Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled to warn her of a small group of the criminals that were helping each other get back to their feet behind her. However, before she could react, Prowler raised a fist and launched one of his hard-light nets at them with barely a glance, instantly pinning them all to the far wall while ignoring their panicked yells.
Holding up the clipboard in his opposite hand and shaking it in her face, Prowler said, "We are helping them. This list can shut this place down, but we need to get it out of here first!"
Over Prowler's shoulder, Gwen saw another criminal climb shakily to his feet and try to reach for his pistol, but she stopped him by quickly shooting a web line onto his legs, then tethering the other end onto the rooftop, where he began to dangle helplessly upside-down. Then, returning her attention to her argument with Prowler, Gwen insisted, "Well, the people in the basement right now could be gone before the police come to shut this place down. They need help now, and we should do it while we're here!"
Prowler made an annoyed growling noise from behind his mask, then turned and kicked a table over, knocking it off the ground. While it was in the air, he punched its surface and blasted it across the room, where it collided with two other slave traders trying to recover and knocked them into the wall.
Prowler then held up a clawed finger in Gwen's face and said, "Fine. Now that we've started, I guess we'd better finish this. But we will finish this discussion later."
"Good with me," Gwen responded with a grin.
By now, the rest of Li's men were getting to their feet, at least two dozen of them remaining, but if their chances against Spider-Woman alone had looked bad, the odds of their loss had only doubled with Prowler by her side.
Prowler looked over his shoulder at the criminals getting to their feet, then looked back at Gwen just long enough to tell her, "Close your eyes for a second." He then turned around to face their enemies and Gwen saw the lights on his mask begin to shine brighter, the intensity of the magenta glow growing by the second.
Then, remembering the warning he'd given her, Gwen shut her eyes tight a split second before there was a bright blast of light that she could even faintly see from beneath her eyelids, followed immediately by several yells of pain. It lasted only a second, after which the glow died away, and Gwen hesitantly opened her eyes again to see everyone except for her and Prowler stumbling around the room, clutching their hands over their eyes and groping blindly at the tables for something to hold onto.
"What was that?" Gwen asked Prowler in shock.
"Essentially a rechargeable flashbang," Prowler answered calmly. "It doesn't affect me through my mask unless I had my infrared turned on, in which case it'd probably blind me permanently, but it's bright enough that even standing behind me, your retinas would've been burned pretty bad without your eyes closed."
Worriedly watching one of Li's workers slump over a table and let out a scream as he fiercely rubbed at his eyes, Gwen asked, "Will they be alright?"
"If I did it in a darkened room, they wouldn't be, but this dose should wear off in a few minutes," Prowler answered.
Gwen nodded her acceptance and said, "Well, we could always make the transition easier by letting them sleep while their eyes recover."
"My thoughts exactly," Prowler responded as he held up an outstretched hand and waved it through the air as it suddenly emitted a soft hissing sound. It continued to hiss for a few seconds, during which Gwen noticed a fluctuation in the air around his palm and determined that he was spraying some sort of gas into the air.
When he finally stopped spraying the gas, Prowler reached down into one of his pockets and withdrew a small, chin-cupping respirator, which he offered to her without looking. "I just sprayed a low concentration of halothane into the air," Prowler told her as he held out the filtering half-mask. "Unless you want to be asleep in a few seconds, I'd recommend putting this on."
Somewhat wary, Gwen nevertheless noticed that several of Li's men were now beginning to become slow and woozy, some of them already falling over unconscious, and thankfully took the mask from Prowler. She had to lift her own mask up a bit to put the respirator on over her mouth and nose, but she noted that Prowler respectfully continued looking away as she put it on. Of course, he would've only seen half of her face if he had chosen to watch, not enough for him to determine her identity, but she appreciated the gesture all the same.
One of her greater concerns with this… essentially a partnership, if perhaps only a temporary one, was how she and Prowler were supposed to work together without revealing their secret identities to one another. It would certainly create a minor trust issue between them if they could not share their true names, but being former enemies, Gwen supposed that they already had that anyway. And of course, while she didn't care whoever was under Prowler's mask, Gwen would be lying if she said that she wasn't curious to see his real face.
However, luckily for Prowler, it seemed that he couldn't care less who she was under the mask. She supposed that that fact should make her feel some sense of relief, yet for some reason she felt that it instead made her almost… angry? Ever since Prowler had defeated Gwen during their first meeting, which also happened to be the first time that she'd actually ever lost a fight in this job, he'd been able to make Gwen feel rather insecure about herself without even trying.
She knew that she was being irrational, that Prowler didn't seem to have any intentions of deliberately making her feel less capable than she was, and that his ability to match her skills didn't actually make her any less proficient at what she did, but he still seemed to undermine her at every turn. He swatted her webs away like they were nothing. He defeated her at Oscorp and on the Chrysler Building, leaving her beaten yet spared both times. He may well have saved her life when she was fighting Rhino. And now he was the first person in the city who didn't care who she was under her mask? Gwen couldn't help but wonder if that was because he thought that she was somehow… beneath him. Again, she was probably just overreacting, but it still filled her with the odd desire to prove herself to Prowler and earn his respect.
Oh, and one more thing he'd outdone her at, he'd just blinded a room full of Martin Li's evil goons without lifting a finger, then knocked them out with a wave of his hand while protecting her from the same fate. Once the respirator was secured over Gwen's lower face, she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she told Prowler, "Thanks." Her voice was slightly muffled by the mask, though not electronically distorted like Prowler's was.
"Don't mention it," he responded easily as he calmly watched Li's men begin to fall down one by one.
Turning her head to view the same thing, Gwen complimented Prowler, "Nice trick. Normally I just punch everyone in the room until they're unconscious."
Prowler shrugged and said, "I don't have much of this gas, so normally I would too. But I draw a line at beating up blind people."
"Touché," Gwen admitted as she watched one criminal walk straight into a wall, knocking himself out without the need for the halothane.
After a few seconds, Prowler seemed to get bored and turned towards the exit, Gwen quickly falling in line behind him. However, instead of just leaving, Prowler's eyes roamed around on the floor for a few seconds before they landed on something specific on the ground right in front of them. He took a few more steps forward before getting down on one knee and extending his claws before sliding the thin blades underneath a grout line in the floor.
He pushed his fingers further in, Gwen watching curiously, and lifted as soon as he found a grip. Gwen realized what he was doing, remembering what she'd originally come down here for at the same time, just as Prowler managed to lift up the entire disguised section of the floor, his gauntlets humming quietly as they managed to break through multiple metal locks with sheer strength.
Just as Gwen had been promised, there were nearly two dozen people huddled together in a group approximately ten feet below the ground level, mostly young children, all clutching each other tightly and shivering with fear and cold.
One of the three older people in the hole, the only adult male present, was badly bruised and sported two black eyes, but it seemed that he had successfully taken all of the beatings himself in preference of any of his fellow prisoners, who all seemed relatively unharmed save for their clearly-underfed bodies and the terror evident on their faces, including the faded tear streaks running down each of their cheeks.
At the sight of Prowler looming over them, single-handedly lifting a weight that could normally only be lifted by at least two full-grown men, they only became more frightened, several of the kids letting out loud screams.
Quickly rushing forward, Gwen knelt down by the edge and held up her hands to calm them, gingerly telling them, "Hey, no, no! It's okay! We're here to help!"
With that, the screams stopped, but the trafficked innocents still seemed hesitant to trust them. The two adult women had the adult man's arms wrapped around their shoulders, and though he wasn't in any shape to speak or even look at Gwen and Prowler in any manner, the two women looked up at them warily.
Then, Gwen realized that part of the reason they were afraid of her was due to the gas mask she was still wearing and the way it made her voice deeper and more disguised.
She looked up at Prowler to ask if she could take it off yet, but he seemed to read her mind as he immediately told her, "The gas should've dissipated enough by now."
Gwen immediately took off her respirator and handed it back to Prowler, then pulled her own mask back down over the bottom half of her face, leaned back down into the hole, then held out a hand towards the civilians and said gently, "Here, let's get you out of there. Then we can get you back to your families."
The children all collectively backed away from Gwen's hand, making her heart fall as she hoped that she wouldn't have to pull them out of there by force, but then she noticed one of the kids, a girl of about six or seven, who had stayed frozen in place rather than backing away, looking at Gwen's hand with hopeful longing, as though desperate to believe that she was really being offered a way out of this.
Gwen immediately singled her out and said, "Hey. What's your name?"
Looking nervously away from Gwen, the girl quietly responded, "Mina."
"That's a nice name," Gwen complimented softly. "We want to help you out of here, Mina. Will you let us do that?"
The girl looked cautiously back at her fellow captives as though silently asking for their opinion, but when they neither encouraged nor forbade her, Mina turned back to Gwen and gulped before nodding in response.
Mina stepped forward and reached up towards Gwen, but she couldn't reach nearly high enough, so Gwen shot a web onto the floor next to herself and jumped down into the hole before grabbing Mina around the waist and bouncing back up to the ground level, Mina letting out a nervous squeal as she was lifted away.
However, not wanting to worry any of them, Gwen set Mina down on her feet as soon as they reached the ground, then placed her hands on the girl's shoulders and asked, "Are you alright? That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Mina shook her head with wide eyes, still too shy to speak.
"You're very brave to volunteer first, Mina," Gwen told her encouragingly.
Mina nodded shyly and slowly looked over her shoulder at Prowler, who still stood tall above them, but when he looked down to meet her eyes, Mina quickly looked away so she wouldn't have to look at the intimidating white slits of his mask.
Shaking her head amusedly, Gwen told her, "Don't worry, Mina. He's my friend. He's not dangerous." Apparently doubtful, Mina looked around the room at the piles of unconscious guards and workers filling the room, and Gwen quickly corrected herself, "Well, he won't hurt you. Trust me."
Just then, Prowler jumped down into the hole with the remaining captives, startling them into trying to back away from him and causing the kids to let out another short scream.
Not sure what he was up to, Gwen worriedly called out, "Prowler!"
Turning back to face her and holding up his hands innocently, Prowler told her, "I thought you trusted me not to hurt them."
Gwen still had some concerns, but hesitantly nodded to him. As soon as he received her approval, Prowler stepped towards the group of three adults, ignoring the way that the kids scrambled to the opposite side of the chamber as he approached, and looked the man over before saying, "This man has internal bruising and three cracked ribs." He then held up a finger, from which a small needle extended just underneath his claw, and added, "He needs immediate medical attention. If you'll let me, I can give him anesthetic to make the journey easier."
The two women exchanged cautious glances with one another, looked back and forth between Prowler and Gwen, then ultimately told Prowler in broken English, "Do it."
Without hesitation, Prowler stepped right up next to the man and jabbed the needle into his arm. A second later, the needle retracted back into the gauntlet and the man quickly fell limp.
Prowler then ordered the two women, "Lay him down on the ground, gently, or you'll aggravate his injuries. Spider-Woman, come down here and use your webs to make him a tight full-body wrap, especially around his ribs. Make him a cocoon and I'll get him out of here. Then you get everyone else here out and take them to the nearest hospital."
Gwen nodded in acceptance of this sound plan and jumped down into the hole to carefully wrap up the wounded man with her webs. As soon as she was done, Prowler leaned down to pick him up, carrying him conscientiously so as not to damage him further.
However, before he left, he turned to Gwen and told her, "After I drop him off, I'll make sure all of them reach treatment safely, but this will be the last time you see me tonight. I'll stay in touch. If you want to join me again or… come after me, that's up to you. But good job tonight. I hope we can do this again."
With that, Prowler leapt up out of the hole and disappeared in a blur of magenta light. Watching him go, Gwen had to admit to herself that tonight had been more than worthwhile. At first, she'd been worried about the prospect of working with one of her enemies, but maybe she and Prowler really weren't so different after all. Whatever the case, she could honestly say that she was looking forward to her next mission with the Prowler.
A/N: I don't know how much this really matters, but let it be known that any mention of a name or names mentioned in this story as original characters that are the same or similar to anyone or anything's real name is completely coincidental. Legal, legal, blah, blah, blah. Now, I'm not going to put this note on other chapters that have the same sort of stuff with random names I pulled out of a hat, so just keep it in mind that this goes for the whole story. Anyway, please leave a comment with thoughts or concerns and thanks for reading!