Chapter 36: The True Face of the Bat
Peter Parker's outstretched hand was no longer just a formality. It was an offer. Gwen, her anger spent, now looked at Bruce with eyes that held a different question.
"Aren't we... friends?" Peter B. asked, his smile hopeful but uncertain. He truly wanted to know the man behind the symbol.
But Bruce simply took the hand and gave it a single, firm shake. "Batman. That is all."
He released the grip and turned away, his gaze fixed on the chaotic vista beyond the shattered lab wall. The collider's energy vortex was a raging wound in reality, other worlds bleeding through in jagged, impossible fragments. "What you need to do now is return to the world where you belong." His tone was final, almost dismissive.
The dismissal stung. It left the gathered Spider-People feeling strangely hollow.
"I knew it," Peter B. muttered, shaking his head with a rueful smile. "I should've ripped that cowl off when I had you down. Otherwise, you'd just keep doing this... this mysterious loner bit!"
He walked up to Bruce and punched him lightly on the shoulder—a friendly, frustrated jab. "Seriously, you'll never make friends this way!"
His expression softened. "But... who am I kidding? I'm a softie." He grinned. "Feels like a raw deal, being the first to offer friendship to a guy made of stone. But someone's gotta do it, right? Can't have you going home to an empty cave with no one to talk to."
He took the key from Gwen's hand. She looked like she wanted to say something, but Peter just gave her a reassuring wink. Then he flipped backward, swinging toward the central control panel.
"And don't get too smug about it!!" he yelled over his shoulder as he soared away, the words echoing in the vast chamber.
"He's right, you know," Spider-Man Noir said, stepping up beside Bruce. His tone was matter-of-fact. "We will be friends."
"And me!" Peni chirped from her cockpit, her screen now showing a shy but determined smile. "But next time we meet, you better have candy. Or I'll cause trouble."
"If we ever do," Spider-Ham added, shrugging his cartoon shoulders, "I'd settle for a hot dog. A guy can dream. See ya."
With that, he too swung off. Soon, only Bruce and Gwen remained on the gantry, the light of the dying dimensions casting long, dancing shadows.
"Someone as annoying as you... it's no wonder you have trouble making friends," Gwen said, her voice quieter now as she watched the others begin their journeys home. "Even your whole... aesthetic is designed to push people away."
Bruce stood in silence, a statue carved from shadow and stubbornness, his cloak making him part of the darkness.
"But," Gwen continued, a small, reluctant smile touching her lips. "Maybe I could save a spot for you. As a friend. If you ever decide you want one." She reached up and pulled off her mask, looking at him with clear, earnest eyes. "And... thank you. For not making me lose someone again."
She didn't wait for a reply. Before he could move or speak, she was already gone, swinging out to join Peter B. at the console.
Now, only the two visitors remained in this universe that wasn't theirs.
"You ready?" Peter B. asked Gwen, his finger hovering over the final command.
"Yeah," she said, taking one last look around. She breathed deep. "Goodbye, Spider-Man." She let go of the wall, beginning her fall back into the shimmering tear.
Just as she released her grip, Peter B.'s shocked shout rang out.
"GWEN! LOOK! THE BAT!!!"
She twisted in mid-air. There, framed in the violent, multicolored light of the collapsing dimensions, stood Batman. And he had removed his cowl.
The harsh light illuminated a face that was starkly human—sharp, lined with pain and resolve, with eyes that held an ocean of unspoken history. It was a face both younger and older than she'd imagined.
Nice face, was Gwen's last, fleeting thought as she was swallowed by the light of her own universe.
"It seems... we are friends after all," Peter B. Parker said, nodding at the distant, unmasked figure. A genuine smile broke across his face. Then he, too, let go, surrendering to the pull of home.
Bruce watched them go. He raised his hand, and with a flick of his wrist, a batarang flew from his grip. It spiraled through the air and struck with perfect precision—thunk—embedding itself in the big, green "SHUTDOWN" button on the master console.
The collider didn't just stop. It began to die, its energy turning inwards with a catastrophic whine.
Bruce didn't watch. He was already moving. Cowl back in place, he fired his grapple gun, not to escape upwards, but to descend into the wreckage-strewn pit below—the one created by Kingpin and Tombstone's fall.
They were still there, unconscious in a crater of twisted metal. Bruce needed them alive. Kingpin needed to face justice, visible to all, even if only for a day. And he couldn't let them be consumed by a dying machine or spat out into a universe that would kill them.
He hauled the two massive bodies up, one under each arm, his muscles screaming in protest. There was no time to retrieve his grapple. He ran, dragging over half a ton of dead weight, as the collider behind him began to implode.
A monstrous gravitational pull started to suck everything toward the epicenter. Chairs, debris, shattered glass—all flew past him into the maw. Only his preternatural will and straining legs kept them ahead of the tide of destruction.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—CRASH!!!
A chain reaction of explosions lit up the Brooklyn night, a series of flashes so bright they were visible from Manhattan. The sound rolled across the city like thunder, waking thousands, summoning sirens.
Officer Jefferson Davis was one of the first on the scene, his patrol car screeching to a halt. He'd been driving through Brooklyn in a frantic, unofficial search for his son. Now he stared, mouth agape.
Tied securely to a heavy-duty fire hydrant with what looked like advanced polymer cables were two men: Wilson Fisk, the "great philanthropist," and his known associate, Lonnie Lincoln, aka Tombstone. Both were unconscious. And planted in the ground between them, like a dark calling card, was a bat-shaped throwing weapon.
It was surreal.
On a rooftop overlooking the chaotic scene, Miles Morales finally arrived, breathless. He'd seen the explosions, felt the tremors.
"You're late."
The voice came from directly behind him. Deep. Terrifying.
"YAAAH!" Miles yelped, jumping a foot in the air. He lost his balance, toppling backward off the roof's edge. Instinct took over—a web shot from his wrist, snagging a gutter and swinging him back up to safety, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Hey! You can't just do that! You scared me half to death!" Miles yelled, glaring at the dark shape now standing calmly where he had been.
Batman didn't acknowledge the complaint. "The Prowler survived. I haven't located him yet. Stay alert."
And just like that, he was gone—melting back into the shadows from which he came, leaving Miles alone on the roof with a warning, a city in chaos, and the first real, terrifying proof that his new life had only just begun.
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