Gotham was a dangerous place at night.



But there were ways to minimize that danger, if you knew. The single best way to do this, is to stay inside. But even this strategy isn’t particularly foolproof. Case in point, Ned was technically inside, but despite the fact that it was 2:42 am, “inside” wasn’t his tiny south side apartment, it was a 24 hour convenience store. One of those stores where the M in mart is perpetually unlit because the owner can’t be bothered to fix it.



Ned stood behind the counter, sitting in the stool he’d pulled from one of the back rooms. There wasn’t any reason for him to be on his feet for the whole shift, and the lack of a back on the stool meant that if he did fall asleep, he’d be awake in very short order.



At the moment, he was trying to solve a four star sudoku puzzle, and had filled about half of it in when he heard the noise of a metal trashcan being knocked over. He sighed in annoyance at the thought of a raccoon or something getting into them again, and decided he’d just pretend he hadn’t heard anything and leave it to the next shift.



It was dangerous outside in Gotham, after all. Especially at 2:46 am.



Ned went back to looking at his puzzle, and jumped when he heard the sound of a dull thump against the glass of the entrance door. Looking towards the front of the store, Ned saw a haggard man in a black hoody pushing against the door that very clearly had “Pull” in bold letters printed above the handle.



Ned heard the man mutter what was probably a swear before pulling the door open and sliding inside.



This was not the first time Ned had seen a drug addict darken his door at around 3am, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. The only question is, was he hiding a knife or a gun in that hoody, and would he be putting money in, or taking it out of the register? Ned exhaled softly as he watched the addict stumble into the candy aisle.



Ned briefly tried to focus on his puzzle again, but was distracted when the addict started talking to himself. Lovely, Ned thought, on drugs and crazy too.



“Shut up,” the addict muttered to himself. “I’m handling it. I know you’re hungry. I’m hungry. We’re all hungry. I am getting us food.”



A few minutes later, the addict was standing in front of the counter holding an almost full box of choco bars, a two liter of Co-Cola, and a jumbo bag of beef jerky.



Up close, he looked less like he was strung out on something and more like he was going through an extreme case of withdrawal. His face was pale, he was sweating way more than was reasonable for the chill Gotham night outside, and Ned could swear that something was crawling under his skin.

He finally finished ringing up everything and putting it in a bag, and started to say “that’ll be-” before he was cut off by the man tossing several sweat-stained bills onto the counter before gruffly mumbling “keep the change.”



He grabbed the bag and all but ran out the door.



Ned looked down to see what was probably at least two hundred dollars in crumpled twenties.



The candy, jerky, and soda was only $44.96.



Ned put that much in the register, then as instructed, pocketed the change. Not the weirdest thing he’d seen on the night shift, and by far not the worst either. At least he hadn’t been robbed this time.



*****



Gotham was a dangerous place at night.



The criminal elements of the city prowled the streets and alleys as night, waiting for the careless or desperate to stumble into their lairs. Maddy was one of the reasons Gotham wasn’t such a nice place. Oh, he wasn’t a major contributor by any means. No one person could really be said to be responsible for the fact that Gotham was a hell hole.



Or at least, that’s what Maddy liked to tell himself. Look, people needed to eat, all right? Maddy took from those that couldn’t hold onto their own stuff and gave to… well… himself.



A perfectly reasonable system.



So he really didn’t feel all that bad when him and a couple of his buddies would skulk in allies, wait for someone to walk down them, then jump them and steal their stuff.



It was a tax on the stupid. Who walked down Crime Alley at 3:30 in the morning?



Idiots. That’s who.



Some scrawny kid was doing just that. Running through the dark, hoping to maybe avoid the gangs or just get home faster, abandoning the safety of the street lights, hoping to gain speed. Sneakers slapped against the cobblestones, splashing pooled stagnant water, giving away location even in the low light.



Maddy pulled the knife from his pocket, getting ready to step forward and act threatening. There were three others with him tonight, guys that maybe couldn’t get a normal job because of little things like a criminal record full of violent felonies… or other such bullshit.



“No one has to get hurt kid. Gimme your wallet and your phone, and you can leave.”



The kid swore as he stopped running, and began slowly reaching into his pockets. “Sure man, sure. No trouble.”



He held out a small black wallet that might have a few bills if he was lucky, being a kid and all, but the phone he could turn for some decent cash assuming it was one of them smartphones, at least as long as he was quick about it.



“Jeff, grab the shit,” he said, gesturing with the knife.



When Jeff didn’t answer Maddy looked to the left where he should have been. It was damned dark in the alley, but he should have seen Jeff there, if he was standing where he should have been.



Maddy heard a surprised, then rapidly muffled scream to his right, and turned to see Steve get pulled upwards into the darkness. “It’s the Bat!” he yelled. “Move it!”



He didn’t bother to see what happened to Carl. He just booked it down the alley. If he was lucky those guys would take the fall and get caught, and he’d be able to get off the streets. He weaved his way through the back ways of Gotham, taking every turn he could that would obscure line of sight from above.



The Bat wasn’t omniscient, it was just a guy in a mask. He wasn’t perfect, and Maddy knew that it was possible to escape his notice. He’d done it before, just once. After a solid ten minutes of running, Maddy came to a stop, breathing heaving as he rested his hands on his knees.



A shadow fell over him, and as Maddy whirled around, all he saw was a large, dark figure with a hand outstretched. The last thing he heard before the lights went out, however, was not the sound of a fluttering cape.



Thwip!





*****





Gotham was a dangerous place at night.



Batman was all too aware of that. His presence had lessened that uncomfortable fact over time. Criminals tended to be a superstitious and cowardly lot, and even on those nights when he was on monitor duty in the Watchtower or otherwise occupied with Justice League business, the mere possibility that he was patrolling the city made the criminals of his city more cautious, less aggressive.



This night, he wasn’t out on the streets, and was instead investigating a series of patterned murders that had cropped up over the last few nights.



He sipped the now cold coffee that had been left in the armrest of his chair, not even recognizing the lack of heat. His fingers tapped the keys on the board in front of him, narrowing search terms and tapping security feeds when something unusual caught his eye. An outlier.



He called up a security camera from one of the offices of Wayne Tower where a simple motion detector had been tripped, turning on the room’s automatic lights. It was in an office on the 26th floor. The camera did verify the motion but…



He rewound the footage, slowed it down, froze it.



A figure in black, outside the window, barely visible for half a second. Left hand outstretched, some kind of cable in his grip, swinging past the building’s window without entering, but still close enough to trigger the motion detector.



Even with the low resolution of the camera,the figure’s outfit was obviously a skintight black bodysuit. There was something else, however. He rewound the footage again, and expanded the image. The Bat computer was an impressive piece of technology, but even it couldn’t generate pixels from the aether, and the red iconography remained blurry and indistinct.





*****





Batman stood across the street from Precinct 3, hidden atop a roof. Just outside the police station, three officers were trying in vain to cut the men that were hanging from a lamppost, stuck there by some kind of webbing.



Using the smart lenses in his cowl, he zoomed in on the paper note that had been pinned to one of the men’s chest, revealing a crude crayon drawing of red spider on a napkin.



A tap on his wrist computer brought up the image from the footage from three days ago, comparing the blurry image to the symbol on the napkin.





*****





I walked down the alleyway with my prize in hand. I tore into the packaging, devouring the chocolate and beef jerky.



The hunger subsided, at least for the moment. I felt a little bad about paying for this stuff using the money I’d taken from mugger’s pockets, which was probably stolen itself, but it was either that, or dealing with the fact that people’s livers were starting to look… really really good… and juicy…



No! I’m not going to start eating people!



Well obviously not. As long as you keep supplying me with this… ‘well balanced’ diet… I shouldn’t feel the need to consume your organs… or anyone else's for that matter.



Thank you.



You are welcome.



“Okay,” I muttered to myself as I webbed up my trash and tossing it into a nearby dumpster. I cracked the seal on the soda and began chugging it. The sugar intake seemed to sooth the symbiote, which explained why I’d been craving the foods I’d been craving for the last few hours. “So, what do we do now?”



Well… don’t freak out or anything, but we are being followed.



I finished my drink, crushed the plastic bottle, and threw it over my shoulder into the same dumpster.



Well, the spider sense isn’t going off so I would probably guess…



My suspicions were confirmed when I turned around to see a pointy eared shadow at the end of the alley I’d walked down.



Should we eat him?



“Oh... probably not,” I whispered. “Let’s hear him out.”



“Who are you talking to?” The man dressed like a bat asked.



“That’s a long story,” I responded.



“I have time.”



If I had to be honest with myself, this was far from the worst case scenario. I hadn’t actually hurt anyone… too badly. I hadn’t even thrown a punch. I’d just webbed some guys to a lamppost.



And stole the money from their wallets, but there was no way in hell he knew about that. Did he?



From what I’ve seen of your memories, you really shouldn’t assume anything when it comes to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sonics on him. You should strike first!



“We’re not doing that!” I hissed.



Batman tensed, and I felt the lightest touch of the Spider Sense in the back of my mind.



“I wasn’t talking to you,” I clarified, holding my hands out in front of me. “I know how this is going to sound, but I was talking to the voice in my head.”



“Does this voice tell you to do things? To hurt people?” I could hear the concern in his voice.



I couldn’t help but laugh, “Oh, he doesn’t mean it. I promise I’m not crazy. The voice is an alien symbiote grafted to my nervous system. I can even prove it! Just… don’t freak out.”



“Alright.” His stance loosened, the tension appearing to leave his body. My Spider Sense put the lie to that but he was trying to be accommodating to someone who probably set off his super villain vibes.



It was, quite frankly, completely understandable.



I smiled, wiping a bit of chocolate from where it had smudged my cheek. “Animus, mask.”



The black hoody I was wearing rippled, red streaks flowing from the shoulders and pouring down my chest as it tightened into a bodysuit. The hood crawled up the back of my head and sealed around my face, my vision becoming watery before snapping back into focus, and could feel the needle teeth of our “symbiote state” form briefly before fading away into a proper mask.



Early on, Animus and I had agreed that we would not be emulating his father, but instead his father’s most famous host.



”We…” our voice echoed through the alley, deep and resonant, “are Spider-Man.”