The Laughing Spider #30.
Jake's wrists rose, trembling. Every cell in his body screamed for rest. For death. For anything except this.
But Harley was here. And the pheromones wouldn't let him stop trying to save her.
"Wanna see..." His voice cracked, blood bubbling at his lips. "Wanna see a magic trick?"
Green webbing erupted from both wrists simultaneously. Not the controlled shots from before. This was desperation made manifest. Toxic strands spraying in every direction like a dying spider's final defense.
The webs caught Deathstroke's chest. Stuck. Jake pulled with everything he had left.
Nothing happened.
Deathstroke looked down at the webbing dissolving against his armor. The material was designed to resist chemical attacks. The green strands hissed and died, leaving barely a mark.
"Admirable effort," Deathstroke said flatly.
More webs. Jake aimed at the assassins. One strand caught a ninja's arm. The man simply cut through it with his blade. Another strand fell short, splattered uselessly on the grating.
"Good Night!" Harley's voice cracked. "Baby, stop--"
He couldn't stop. His body was moving on autopilot, the chemicals driving him past the point where a human being would have collapsed. Web after web, each weaker than the last. His wrists bled where the glands tore themselves apart trying to produce more.
Bronze Tiger caught a strand mid-air, yanked Jake forward. The Spider collapsed, caught himself on broken hands. Bone fragments ground. He laughed through the agony.
"There were eight," Jake giggled, head lolling toward Deathstroke. "Eight-eight-eight. I counted. You-you-you and seven ninja-men. But now I see five. Where'd the others go? Did they disappear? Did I make them poof?"
Deathstroke's visible eye narrowed slightly. The closest thing to surprise he'd shown.
"Five," he said quietly. "I brought four men. You counted me four times." His head tilted, studying Jake with new interest. "During position changes. You sensed me moving through the shadows."
Jake's grin was chemical-bright, unhinged. "The shadows taste like you! Orange-and-black flavored darkness! It's DELICIOUS!"
"Impressive," Deathstroke said, and meant it. "Even dying, poisoned, your awareness is exceptional." He took one measured step forward. "Wasted potential. You could have been useful."
Jake tried to web him again. The strand dissolved before it could form, blood dripping from his wrists instead. His body had nothing left. The glands were destroyed. The chemicals were eating him from the inside out.
He looked at Harley. At the way she gripped her bat. At the fear bleeding through her manic facade.
Then at the vat. The Chemical Pool. Still bubbling. Still steaming. Still waiting.
His mind -- what remained of it -- made connections through the fog.
It turned him into this before. Made him stronger. Made him survive the impossible.
Maybe it would do the same again. Give him what he needed to save her. Give him the strength to tear through Deathstroke and his men and everyone who wanted to hurt his Harley.
Or maybe he'd drown.
Maybe this would end.
The thought hit him like cold water. End. The laughter stopping. The pain stopping. The chemicals finally releasing their grip. Death not as horror but as mercy. As relief.
Either way, whatever happened when he went in again -- this would matter. This would land. One way or another, the nightmare would resolve.
His final webs caught the catwalks above. He threw himself up, body jerking toward the vat.
"What's he--" Onyx started.
Jake body fell at the edge. Looked down into that nightmare green. The surface reflected his demolished face.
"Good Night?" Harley's voice was small. Uncertain. "Baby, what are you--"
He looked back at her one last time. Tried to smile. Tried to say something that would make sense.
But the chemicals had stolen his words. All that came out was laughter.
Jake pushed himself over the edge.
Gravity took him.
Time stretched. His body rotated as he fell, watching the faces above shrink. Harley's mouth opening in a scream. Penguin's shock. Riddler's horror. Deathstroke's calculating stare.
The green surface rushed up to meet him.
Impact.
The chemicals swallowed him whole. Burning. Invading. More concentrated this time. More potent. The vat's contents had been sitting, fermenting, becoming more toxic with each passing day.
Jake tried to swim. His broken arms flailed uselessly. His legs kicked but had no strength. The weight of the rose on his back pulled him down. Down. Down.
His lungs screamed for air. Found only poison.
"GOOD NIGHT!" Harley's shriek cut through the liquid's muffling. "NO! MY MALLET! MY PERFECT GOOD NIGHT!"
She was at the edge, reaching down. Her fingers grasping at nothing. Tears streaking her makeup.
"Not like this," she sobbed. "You can't-- you can't leave me-- I just got you back-- I just made you PERFECT--"
Riddler stumbled forward, face gone white. "The cane," he whispered. "It's inside him. If he drowns--" His voice cracked into something raw. "Everything I am. Everything I was. Gone. Dissolved in that fucking soup."
Penguin's blade clattered from his hands. "My umbrella. Three generations. The family legacy. NO!" He grabbed the vat's edge, staring down into the green. "You can't die yet, you bastard! Not before I cut it out of you! NOT BEFORE I GET IT BACK!"
Below the surface, Jake's consciousness flickered. Fragmenting. The chemicals were rewriting him again but this time there was nothing left to rewrite. Just meat and bone and the last sparks of a mind already shattered.
His mouth opened in a scream. Chemicals rushed in. Filled his lungs. Burned from the inside out.
His hands clawed at nothing. Searching. Grasping. Finding only liquid darkness.
The rose's pot shattered against his spine. Petals scattered through the chemicals, thorns breaking off in his flesh. The pheromone concentration spiked -- pure, undiluted, lethal.
His body convulsed. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then stopped.
Sank.
The green swallowed him completely. No bubbles rising. No movement. Just a shape descending into the depths. Getting smaller. Disappearing.
Gone.
Silence crashed over the factory like a wave.
Harley collapsed to her knees at the vat's edge, hands pressed against the metal. "No," she whispered. "No-no-no. Come back. Please come back. Be my Good Night. Be my perfect weapon. Don't leave me alone. Don't--"
Her voice broke into sobs.
Deathstroke watched the chemicals settle. Watched the surface calm. His expression hadn't changed -- still that clinical detachment -- but something flickered in his visible eye.
"And here I thought him taking the ring from the cat burglar was the most stupid thing he could do," he said quietly. Almost to himself.
Penguin's head snapped toward him. His eyes were wide. Manic. "Wait. Wait." He grabbed Deathstroke's armor. "What did you say? The ring? The Roman Ring? You're the one--" His voice climbed higher. "You sent the cat burglar to steal it from Falcone?"
"Where is it?"
Deathstroke's hand closed around Penguin's wrist. Squeezed until bones creaked. Penguin released him, stumbling back.
"She was smart," Deathstroke said, voice cold as winter. "Clever. Saw through the lies. My assassin couldn't convince her well enough to hand it over." His eye narrowed. "Of course I had to discard him for failing twice. First during the exchange. Then for retreating, afraid of Batman, when the Spider took it from her."
The words landed like grenades.
Penguin's face went from white to gray. "No. No. The Spider. Not that object-munching creep. No he didn't." His hands flew to his head, fingers clawing at his scalp. "Not the Roman Ring. Do you know what that could--"
"Precisely." Deathstroke's tone didn't change. "Its significance is why I was after it. But the Roman is now drowning and decaying in the pit that makes monsters."
Riddler had been processing. His face cycled through shock, horror, then something calculating crept into his expression. "This has to be a mistake. You're not talking about the actual Roman Ring. The most powerful symbol in Gotham's underground. The reason--" His voice quickened. "The reason Falcone has held power for decades. The reason the families haven't torn each other apart. The reason--"
His eyes gleamed behind his mask. The opportunist surfacing even through horror.
"The reason everything has been stable," he finished softly.
Penguin recognized it immediately. Saw where Riddler's mind was going. "You can't be serious, Nigma. You of all people understand what this could do to Gotham. The chaos. The power vacuum. The--"
"But it's the reason Falcone has had everyone under control for so long," Riddler interrupted, voice rising with manic energy. "Held back even the Assassins. Kept the families in line. The Roman Ring was ORDER. And now it's--"
"And that's why no one should know!" Penguin's voice cracked. He spun toward Deathstroke. "There's no evidence it's gone. And their word means nothing. Without proof of the ring, you can do nothing. Nothing can happen to Gotham if we keep this quiet." His eyes found Riddler. "I know you're reasonable, Edward. We can--"
"Reasonable?" Riddler's laugh was broken glass. "That was the man with the cane. But my cane, your umbrella -- what's left of us without those? We're nothing but broken men. Even Falcone will be nothing without his ring." His voice dropped to something dangerous. "We're in pain. And Gotham needs to feel it."
"Yes," Riddler whispered, eyes distant. "I can see it now. The other families reacting. Maroni making his move. The territories fracturing. The streets running red." His grin stretched impossibly wide. "Gotham needs to burn."
Penguin's face went hard. "I knew I should've ended you when I had the chance."
His men moved forward, weapons rising. Aimed at Riddler.
Deathstroke's assassins shifted, positioning themselves between Penguin's men and Riddler. Crossbows raised. Blades drawn.
Deathstroke's hand rose -- a stop gesture.
Then lowered.
"No," he said quietly. "Let them."
His men stepped aside.
Penguin's face showed genuine surprise. Then savage satisfaction. "Finally. Some sense--"
The vat exploded.
Not from below. From within. A geyser of chemicals erupting upward, showering the factory floor in toxic rain. The liquid steamed where it hit metal, hissed where it touched flesh.
The Spider?
"Can't be!" Penguin rejected the possibility.
Deathstroke's eyes narrowed, scanning the vat. Trying to find the bottom.
The factory shook -- shockwaves erupting from a laugh so primal, so inhuman. Like the sound of sanity not just broken but obliterated. Turned inside out. Made into something that existed only to express agony through joy.
"AHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
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