Batman offered no comment on the name "blastproof plastic wrap."
He stood at the edge of the shadows, his white lenses facing Chen Mo, and did not move for a long time.
His stare sent a chill down Chen Mo's back.
In his half month in Gotham, he had seen Larry's greed and Scarface's madness when he got so worked up in a firefight that he practically wanted to gun down his own men too. When the landlady looked at him, she would casually estimate how much that face could sell for.
The way Batman looked at people was even scarier to a spider.
Those white lenses swept from his ragged clothes to his bleeding shoulder, then returned to his mask, as though Batman were preparing to take him apart for inspection.
How annoying.
Bats were clearly pretty cute creatures.
"Why do you want to be a vigilante?"
Batman spoke, his voice pitched very low.
Chen Mo froze for a moment.
"Huh?"
"You can lift a car, and you know how to avoid vital spots." Batman glanced at the blast-blackened web cocoon. "You're starving."
Chen Mo instinctively looked down at his stomach.
He could find out even that?
"You have plenty of ways to get food," Batman said. "You haven't used a single one."
"Thanks for the compliment?"
"You're acting."
The smile on Chen Mo's face faltered.
Batman took half a step forward.
"You deliberately act flustered. You talk to distract people, and after getting hurt, you watch my reactions. You knew where the hook would land, and you knew how to wrap up a grenade."
He stared at the mask Chen Mo had wrapped himself.
"What do you want me to see?"
Chen Mo opened his mouth.
He had prepared quite a few answers. Things like, "You're paying so much attention to me. Got a crush on me?" or, "Is this a job interview? Does Wayne Enterprises offer a night-shift allowance?"
Facing those white lenses, he suddenly could not get the words out.
Of course he could keep acting.
Be a little sunnier, a little more innocent, and deliver a few more lofty, righteous lines. That was how he had survived in Gotham for the past half month.
Chen Mo looked down at his hands. His palms were smeared with dust, and strands of webbing that had not fully broken still clung between his fingers.
"All right, all right. Since you asked so sincerely, I'll tell you."
His voice grew quiet.
"I didn't grow up here."
Batman waited for him to continue.
"There were bad people where I grew up too. Crime, too. When you walked down the street at night, you still had to watch for anyone following you." Chen Mo squeezed the strand of webbing in his palm. "But someone once told me that power should be used to protect others."
He paused, then said those words anyway.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
The sirens outside the warehouse grew a little more distant. Blood ran down Chen Mo's arm and dripped onto the ground.
"I don't know whether I'm acting either. Maybe I'm trying pretty hard at it, since even you noticed."
Chen Mo raised his head.
"But if I keep acting like this, for my whole life, until I die, until even I can't tell anymore... what's the difference?"
Batman looked at him for a long time.
"Who taught you that?"
Chen Mo did not answer.
That was a hard question to answer. Was he supposed to say it was the publisher next door, then whip out a thick stack of copyright contracts while he was at it?
Batman evidently did not expect him to speak right away either.
"I can't find your identity. You first appeared at the docks half a month ago. No residence, no registration records, and your abilities are still changing."
With that, he turned and walked toward the edge of the warehouse.
"I'll get to the bottom of it."
"Wait." Chen Mo called him back.
Batman stopped.
"Why did you become a vigilante?"
Chen Mo deliberately lowered his voice, trying to imitate that deep tone exclusive to the big bat. He asked quite seriously, though it sounded a little like two fellow patients comparing medical histories.
Batman stood there for a moment, then raised his hand and fired his grappling hook.
The line swiftly pulled taut. His cape swept past the edge of the warehouse, and he vanished into the night.
He sure left fast.
Chen Mo gazed at the now-empty steel framework, somehow feeling that this big bat would be back.
Don't ask.
If you have to ask, it's the Peter Tingle.
Though his current smidgen of intuition did not yet qualify as Spider-Sense.
"Hey."
Chen Mo suddenly turned toward a shipping container nearby.
A young police officer poked half his head out from behind it, still clutching a notebook.
"How long have you been hiding there?"
The young officer cleared his throat and emerged from behind the container.
"Not that long. Just since 'Why do you want to be a vigilante?'"
He glanced in the direction Batman had vanished, then back at Chen Mo.
"I'm here to clean up the scene. You two were getting so deep into it that I didn't feel right interrupting. You don't often see a guy in a bat suit and a guy in pajamas standing on the docks discussing life."
Chen Mo sat down against the wall and reached up to peel the scraps of cloth off his shoulder.
The fabric had stuck to the wound, taking a small piece of scab with it when he pulled it off. He sucked in a breath at the pain and forcibly swallowed the curse that followed.
There was someone else here, after all.
He had to maintain that friendly neighborhood image.
The young officer came over, dug a roll of bandages and a bottle of medicine with its label worn off out of a first-aid kit, and handed them to him.
"This is all that's left. Make do."
Chen Mo unscrewed the cap and sniffed. The strong smell of alcohol went straight to his head.
"Is this stuff meant for humans? Why do I feel like it'd be better for polishing shoes? Do vigilantes really not deserve health insurance? I work hard patrolling and stopping crime every day, you know."
"You're lucky to get anything." The young officer crouched beside him. "I'm a permanent employee, and even I don't have health insurance. You're a self-employed vigilante outside the system, and you want it too?"
"Rough."
"Thanks."
Chen Mo poured the medicine over his wound. His whole body instantly went rigid, his clenched teeth grinding audibly.
The young officer watched him clean the debris off the surface, then watched him bandage himself without saying a word.
"Hey," Chen Mo asked as he tied the knot. "No health insurance, no bulletproof vest, and no one cares whether you live or die. Why are you still a cop?"
The young officer looked down at his uniform. Its cuffs had been washed pale, and a missing button had been replaced with a staple.
"Maybe I still haven't learned how to live like a dog."
He stood and brushed the dust off his knees.
"Get going. Backup's about to come in, and they won't be as easygoing as me."
In the distance, atop Gotham Bridge, a black cape snapped in the night wind.
Batman crouched at the top of the bridge and brought up the footage he had just recorded.
The image paused on Chen Mo looking down and pinching the webbing. He had spoken that line very slowly, with no unnecessary movements before or after, and had not stolen a look at Batman's reaction.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Batman rewound the footage and watched it again.
The boy had indeed been acting all along. Flustered, afraid of pain, eager to please him-he had put considerable effort into all of it.
When he said that line, he had been far too quiet.
Batman closed the playback and reopened the "Pajama Freak" file.
Three sighting locations, an estimated four-ton strength capacity, and the newly manifested webbing ability had all been recorded there.
He added one final entry.
Identity and origins: continue investigating.
Before you continue