At night in Gotham, the wind carried the smell of rotten salted fish mixed with cheap gasoline.
That was what port cities were like.
They stank.
Chen Mo crouched atop the rust-speckled crane at the south district docks and tugged up the mask he had cut from an old T-shirt.
The thing barely breathed, and his hot breath steamed his whole face.
He would have to figure out how to cut a breathing hole in it later, but not too big, or it would show his face.
A dilemma.
Being broke sucked.
At least other unlucky Spider-Men weren't illegal immigrants.
At least they had Aunt May.
Could Bruce Wayne change his name to May? He had wanted a relative for a long time.
Not for Wayne Enterprises' wealth. Absolutely not.
Chen Mo stared down at the edge of the docks.
Several homeless people lay with their hands and feet bound behind them, stacked behind a shipping container like discounted supermarket turkeys.
A group of burly men in black suits stood in a circle. Their leader, whose face bore a scar running from his brow to his chin, was ordering his men to throw the captives into the sea.
One of the homeless men had graying hair and was as thin as kindling, with tiny creatures dropping off him here and there. When they picked him up, he didn't even struggle, as though he had long since grown used to being disposed of like trash.
Chen Mo counted them in his head.
Six gunmen, one leader, two compact submachine guns, four handguns.
Their firepower fell into the category of "enough to turn a high school kid in pajamas into Swiss cheese twice over, with some to spare."
But it still fell a little short against Spider-Man.
Chen Mo took a deep breath and leaped off the crane.
In midair, he raised a hand and fired a strand of webbing. It traced a crooked arc through the air and barely caught the submachine gun in one thug's hands.
He yanked hard. The gun flew out of the man's hands, clattered onto the concrete, and slid into the gap between the dock and the ship.
Splash. It sank.
"Hey!"
Chen Mo landed on a shipping container, crouched, and waved at the men below.
"Good evening. Those things go off easily. They're dangerous for little kids to hold. See? Dropped it in the sea. I'm helping you here, seriously. The fish will thank you. They've been short on iron lately."
Several thugs looked up at once. Their scar-faced leader slowly turned around. Under the dingy dock lights, the scar looked like a drunken centipede sprawled across his face.
A motormouth, red and blue, not Batman.
"Spider-Man?"
"That's me, your friendly neighbor." Chen Mo stood and dusted off his pajamas. "Quick question: are those suits company-issued, or did you buy them yourselves? If they're company-issued, I'd suggest talking to your boss. That fit, that tailoring-clearly clearance stock."
Scarface didn't laugh. He stared at Chen Mo for two seconds, then lifted his chin.
"Kill him."
Every gun rose at once.
"Wait, wait, wait-"
Chen Mo raised both hands over his head, sounding as sincere as someone offering them a credit card installment plan.
"Gentlemen, calm down. Violence won't solve anything. Look at you, staying out instead of going home to bed, standing in the sea breeze throwing homeless people into the water. What's the point? Homeless people aren't going to affect your KPIs. Why don't we sit down, talk, have some coffee-"
A barrage of gunfire answered him.
The shriek of bullets slicing through the air sent a tingling across the back of Chen Mo's head.
He pushed off with his toes, springing off the container and flipping through the air.
Bullets struck the sheet metal, sending sparks flying.
"My clothes!"
Chen Mo landed on another container and looked down at the two new bullet holes in his pajamas, utterly distraught. "This is my only outfit! You can't buy this fabric in Gotham, you know! I sewed it myself out of old curtains! Curtains! You shot holes in my curtains!"
He twisted aside to dodge a burst, shot webbing at the crane beam overhead, and swung away.
Wind rushed into his ears as he kept up his commentary mid-swing.
"Also, who taught you to shoot? All those shots and not one hit. Do bullets grow on trees? Oh, right, you're gangsters. I guess they kind of do for you. Never mind, then. But your physics teacher would cry. Was your gym teacher covering ballistics class?"
He swung above another container, let go, landed, and settled into a crouch.
The entire sequence flowed without a break.
Scarface raised a hand, and the shooting stopped.
He stared at Chen Mo, narrowing his eyes. The movement squeezed his scar into a line.
"You talk a lot."
"Thanks. I've practiced."
Chen Mo stood and dusted off his knees. "If you want to learn, I could teach a class. First lesson's free: how to maintain your speaking speed while getting beaten up. Core strength is important. I'd suggest starting with planks. Though you look like you might not last ten seconds."
Scarface drew another gun from his waist.
This one was a full size larger than the others, its muzzle gleaming coldly under the lights.
Chen Mo took one look, and his brain automatically did the conversion: anti-materiel grade. For shooting armored vehicles.
On him, it would probably produce an instant red-and-blue abstract painting.
"I don't have time for your bullshit."
Scarface raised the muzzle.
Chen Mo didn't give him a chance to pull the trigger.
He flicked his right hand, firing webbing at an iron drum full of used motor oil on the ground.
The strand wound around the lid, and he yanked hard with the momentum of his swing.
The drum rolled sideways with a rumble, like an enormous bowling ball, straight at the gun-wielding thugs.
"Ow-"
"Motherfucker-"
Three men went tumbling across the ground. The others were splashed with black oil, lost their footing, and fell in a heap. Their poses varied, but they all had one thing in common: none could get up.
Chen Mo jumped into their midst, grabbed one thug's arm, and carried the motion into a shove sideways. The man's head struck the hanging cargo hook beside him with perfect accuracy.
Thud.
Chen Mo sucked in a breath.
He might have used too much force.
"You ran into that yourself. Nothing to do with me. Being hardheaded doesn't mean you should use it like that. Remember to get some calcium later."
The remaining two thugs climbed to their feet, exchanged a look, and took off at the same time.
They scrambled away, one losing a shoe as he ran and disappearing behind the containers hopping on one foot.
Chen Mo watched them go, full of reflections.
"They're fast. A waste not to compete in the Olympics at that speed. Gotham track team, gang division. Could get them to film a public service announcement later. Theme: 'The Joy of Exercise.'"
Bang.
A bullet skimmed past his ear, trailing a searing gust.
Scarface.
He held the big gun, the scar on his face twisted into an S by rage.
Without a word, he pulled the trigger a second time.
God, a silent villain paired with a silent bat.
A truly grim and gritty aesthetic.
The red-and-blue-clad Chen Mo rolled aside. The bullet blasted a crater in the ground, spraying his face with fragments of concrete.
"You little brat! Didn't your family ever teach you to mind your own business?"
Scarface roared as he fired.
Chen Mo sprang up from the ground and slid behind a container.
Bullets struck the sheet metal, making his ears ring. He covered them and shouted back.
"They did! They taught me to help people! Especially middle-aged guys like you who've lost their way on the road to crime! Also, could you give it a rest? My ears are ringing!"
He scanned his surroundings.
A crowbar lay on the ground, probably dropped by one of the thugs earlier.
He snatched it up, crouched low, and circled around the other side of the container, moving quickly.
Scarface was still pouring bullets into the same container, completely unaware that Chen Mo had already crept around behind him to one side.
Chen Mo stood, swung the crowbar in a full arc, and hurled it.
The crowbar spun several times through the air and lodged precisely between the gears of the crane above Scarface's head.
Creak.
Metal scraped with a teeth-grating screech.
The gears jammed, the boom's locking mechanism failed, and the enormous steel arm began sliding slowly downward.
"Look up, old man!"
Scarface looked up, his pupils abruptly contracting.
He dove clumsily aside. The boom grazed the soles of his shoes and slammed into the ground.
With a thunderous crash, a web of cracks spread across the concrete.
Chen Mo was just about to rush in and restrain him-webbing around the wrists, knee against the back, a standard pin-when suddenly every hair on his body stood on end.
It wasn't Spider-Sense.
He hadn't unlocked that badass passive yet. This was a chill shooting upward from the base of his spine, as though something bigger, darker, and far less open to reason had set its sights on him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced toward the top of the distant Gotham Bridge.
A black silhouette.
Standing at the highest point of the bridge tower, its cape snapping in the night wind.
Motionless, like a stone statue.
Those eyes-though he couldn't possibly make them out at this distance, Chen Mo simply knew they were fixed on him.
Batman.
His fellow vigilante had seen it-seen a minor in pajamas beat six adults senseless on the docks, one of whom had even been hit by a crane boom.
He would understand.
He was Batman, after all.
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