Should Good People Be Held at Gunpoint?

Aaaahhh!!!

The agonized screams echoed through the bank lobby.

Shocker was just an ordinary man. Faced with the excruciating pain of having every finger forcibly snapped, he lost all ability to fight on the spot.

"Hey, quiet down, buddy."

The noise made Peter's head throb, so he casually drove a fist into the marble floor beside Shocker:

"Unless you want to end up like this!"

Bang!

With a deafening crash, the hard marble floor instantly fractured into spiderweb-like cracks, leaving a crystal-clear fistprint deeply embedded in it.

Shocker's screams came to an abrupt halt. Though his body still trembled violently from the pain, he did not dare make another sound.

If that punch had landed on his head, he was afraid he would have died on the spot!

"I... I surrender!"

At last, after catching his breath, Shocker spoke in a trembling voice:

"I surrender! As long as you don't kill me and don't hand me over to the police, I'll do anything!"

Anything?

Peter's eyes lit up.

That was quite an enticing offer.

Compared to Spider-Man's other archenemies, Peter actually thought rather highly of Shocker.

The guy had not even finished high school, yet he had taught himself lockpicking and burglary skills, then studied physics on his own and built this entire set of equipment by hand.

He was a rare technical talent!

Besides, compared to other villains, this guy had principles.

Though he was always dreaming of getting something for nothing, he had never considered using his equipment to murder or commit arson. In the comics, Shocker had not killed a single person from beginning to end.

A technically skilled man whose conscience had not completely died! Handing him over to the NYPD would be such a waste.

Perhaps he could be given a chance to work for Peter and turn over a new leaf.

With that thought, Peter did not hesitate. He immediately slung the half-dead Shocker over his shoulder and prepared to leave.

He needed to find somewhere private and have a proper talk with him...

"Hey, wait!"

Seeing Peter about to swagger away with Shocker over his shoulder, Gwen Stacy finally snapped out of her shock and could not help calling after him.

Peter stopped and looked back at her. Beneath his blurred red-and-white mask, no shift in expression could be seen.

Gwen gathered her courage, stepped forward, and asked in what she thought was a very stern tone:

"Don't you think we should hand him over to the police?"

In her simple sense of justice, catching a bad guy and handing him to the police was simply the natural thing to do.

Yet Peter did not even turn around as he countered:

"Why do you think they call me the Arbiter?"

After leaving her with that question, he turned and walked away, offering only one friendly warning:

"I suggest you leave too, rookie."

"Otherwise, be careful they don't mistake you for an accomplice to the bank robbers."

That callback struck precisely at Gwen's sore spot and successfully rooted her to the spot:

"That won't happen! I'll prove to you just how ridiculously wrong you are!"

The NYPD would never indiscriminately accuse people the way this guy claimed!

Her father was a police officer, and the most upright police officer in all of New York!

To prove she was right, Gwen gave up on chasing after the Arbiter. Instead, she stood in the bank lobby with her arms folded, silently waiting for the police to arrive.

She would explain everything to them herself and tell them that Ghost Spider was a hero they could trust.

She would also prove to that arrogant bastard just how absurdly wrong he was!

Watching Gwen's stubborn little figure in the bank lobby through the reflection in the building's glass, Peter, who had already carried Shocker around the street corner, could not help smiling faintly.

Still too young, little Gwen.

Reality would teach her a proper lesson.

The NYPD's efficiency never disappointed Peter.

By the time the bank robbery had ended and most of the customers inside had fled, the shrill wail of sirens finally arrived from afar.

"NYPD! Everyone inside, listen up! Drop your weapons and surrender immediately!"

A large group of heavily armed officers stormed into the bank lobby, only to find a complete mess and a masked woman in strange attire standing silently in place.

Almost instinctively, they raised their guns, their dark muzzles all aimed directly at Gwen.

Gwen froze.

She held up both hands, momentarily having no idea what to say.

Things had developed completely differently from what she had expected.

She had imagined the police arriving, then her explaining the situation and receiving thanks and praise. Instead... why was she being held at gunpoint?

Was this what good people got—guns pointed at them?

"Don't shoot! She's the hero who came to save us!"

"That's right! That robber in red and yellow was chased off by her... no, another even stronger hero took him away!"

"She's a good person!"

Fortunately, the bank employees and customers lying on the ground waiting for rescue all spoke up to testify for Gwen.

Otherwise, Gwen might have turned evil on the spot.

Hearing the civilians give such consistent testimony, the officer leading the team finally raised a hand uncertainly, signaling his subordinates not to fire for now.

"This... lady."

The officer examined Gwen, his tone still full of vigilance:

"No matter what, you need to come back to the station with us and provide a statement."

Go to the police station?

Gwen's heart skipped a beat.

What a joke!

She was not mentally prepared to meet her father, George Stacy, at the police station while dressed as Ghost Spider!

Just imagining that scene made her scalp tingle.

Refuse! She had to refuse!

At the same time, Gwen could not help thinking to herself:

I should have listened to the Arbiter!

If I had simply left too, there wouldn't be this much trouble!

"Sorry, I have something else to do."

Gwen decisively rejected the police's request.

"Hey! You can't leave!"

The officer's expression changed. He immediately stepped forward, intending to stop Gwen.

But how could Gwen possibly let an ordinary man like him catch her?

With a flick of her wrist, a strand of web shot out and stuck to the ceiling.

Whoosh!

Amid the cries of alarm from the officers and onlookers, Gwen was carried soaring upward by her web, slipped through a shattered window, and quickly vanished among the city's skyscrapers.

That very moment was captured perfectly by Eddie Brock, a Daily Bugle photographer who had rushed over after hearing the news.

"Did you see that? Did you see that?!"

At Daily Bugle headquarters, J. Jonah Jameson looked at the photograph in his hands and excitedly shouted at everyone around him:

"The masked hero you all suggested I report on fled in panic right in front of the police!

What does that tell us? If she had nothing to hide, why did she run?

Hmph. If you ask me, she, that so-called Dock Butcher, and the so-called Arbiter those witnesses mentioned are all the same kind of people! They're a bunch of masked thugs threatening the city's safety!"

Having only just shaken off the police pursuit, Gwen had no idea that a storm of public opinion against her was quietly brewing.

She only knew that the guy called the Arbiter seemed to have been right again...