When Cole Vance lowered Bruce into the cardboard box, his movements were as delicate as if he were cradling a live, ticking nuke.
The little mutt with the broken hind leg huddled in the corner.
Its wet eyes stared up at him without a whimper or a struggle.
“Good boy.
If you dare howl like a wolf at two in the morning, I’m handing you over to the Maroni mob downstairs for a midnight snack.”
Muttering under his breath, he pulled a collection of small bottles and jars out from his jacket.
Betadine, gauze, pet anti-inflammatories—bought with his last shred of conscience and a few crumpled bills at a pharmacy right before closing.
He had checked the price list for Gotham’s vet clinics on his phone earlier: fifty bucks for a basic checkup, two hundred minimum to set a bone and put on a splint, and six hundred down the drain just for an X-ray.
“Six hundred dollars?” Cole had sneered at his screen at the time.
“How many pounds of pork ribs does that buy?
That’s enough to buy a dog’s whole life!”
Actually, it was enough for a human life too—and human lives in Gotham were usually cheaper than that.
Cursing all the while, Cole skillfully used his webbing to secure Bruce’s broken leg.
Setting a dog’s leg was new to him, but setting a human’s leg?
He could do that in his sleep.
Webbing worked way better than plaster anyway—lightweight, breathable, and it would dissolve on its own in a few days.
After wrapping the gauze, he poured a small handful of the cheapest puppy kibble into a chipped bowl.
“Pace yourself.
A single bag cost me fifteen bucks.
Right now, our combined net worth could barely buy a hundred of these.”
Bruce shuffled over, licked the kibble, and gave a tiny twitch of his tail.
Cole watched the wagging tail and sighed inwardly.
He hadn’t picked up a stray dog; he’d picked up a glorified paper shredder for cash.
Then again, puppies were undeniably adorable.
Cole squatted there admiring his dog for a bit longer before getting up and walking over to his second-hand sewing machine, which creaked loudly enough to sound like home renovations.
He tossed aside the tattered shirt he’d worn for the past two days and pulled on a pair of second-hand cargo pants he’d just picked up.
The whole outfit had cost less than ten dollars.
It smelled persistently of mildew, but at least it was clean.
He sat at the desk and spread out his drawing paper.
He was an art student—both before crossing over and after.
Gotham’s nights belonged to Spider-Man, but during the day, he had to rely on this pen to survive.
His comic pages were still unfinished.
That manuscript represented next month’s rent and Bruce’s pork ribs.
He had just finished six panels when the Bat-Signal flashed against the clouds outside the window once again.
Cole stared at the beam for two seconds.
“Leaving a light that bright on every single night…
does nobody care about the electric bill?”
Quickly changing back into his suit and pulling his mask on, he squeezed out through the air vent.
…
At the Gotham docks in the dead of night, the fog was so thick it looked as though someone had overturned a giant vat of milk over the ocean.
Cranes loomed in and out of the mist, shipping containers were stacked into uneven steel mountain ranges, and lights swallowed by the fog softened into hazy halos of orange.
The air reeked of engine oil, sea salt, and rotting wooden crates.
Cole crouched on the edge of a suspended shipping container, one leg dangling off the side, idly playing cat’s cradle with his webbing against a crane crossbeam.
He was waiting.
Surely no one would shine the Bat-Signal just to drag him out for fun, right?
Besides, it was far too quiet here—quiet enough to make a person’s skin crawl.
Then Cole heard it.
A muffled whimpering, crushed out from the deepest depths of a throat.
Immediately followed by a low rumble—a roar that didn’t belong to a human, but to an apex predator that could tear people apart like disposable scrap.
Cole’s Spider-Sense spiked violently, like a needle pricking its way from the back of his skull down to his tailbone.
He flipped off the container edge.
In the mist, a hulking behemoth had pinned a dock worker against the wall of a container.
The worker’s feet dangled in midair, at least half a meter off the ground.
The hand strangling him—if it could still be called a hand—was covered in dark green scales.
The knuckles were as thick as wrenches, tipped with five black claws sharp enough to gouge trenches into concrete.
The worker’s face had turned purple, his thrashing growing weaker by the second.
Adjusting his posture midair, Cole snapped his feet together and slammed through the fog like a torpedo.
He slammed into Killer Croc’s back, driving all his weight—boosted by gravitational acceleration—straight into the most vulnerable part of the creature’s spine between the neck and chest using his knees and elbows.
A heavy thud echoed.
Killer Croc stumbled, his grip on the worker slackening.
The worker hit the floor, coughing violently, and scrambled on all fours toward the warehouse.
Killer Croc turned around.
Golden slit-pupils gleamed coldly through the mist, narrowed to fine threads.
A low growl rumbled from his throat.
“Spider…
go away.
I’m looking for the Bat…”
Cole didn’t touch the ground.
The moment Croc turned, Cole tagged a side crane arm with a line of webbing, yanking himself sideways.
Spinning three hundred and sixty degrees through the air, his left leg loaded with torque, he used the web-slingshot momentum to plant a kick directly into Killer Croc’s snout.
“Seriously? Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Am I not way cuter than a bat?
What’s with the harsh rejection?”
The impact felt like kicking solid granite.
But the momentum forced Croc back half a step, a foul, metallic breath snorting from his nostrils.
Cole rebounded off the recoil back onto the crane, crouching on the beam.
“Hey, big guy,” he said, looking down.
“Are Gotham’s skincare products beyond helping you at this point?
That calloused skin of yours is thick enough to build the Great Wall!”
Croc looked up, his slit eyes narrowing further.
“I’m going to crunch every bone in your body.”
Cole stared at the crocodilian snout, a realization dawning on him.
*Of course.
Every Spider-Man really does have his own Dr.
Curt Connors.*
“Hello, Lizard Man!
Were you turned into this by some crazy gene experiment too, or are you just naturally all grown wrong?”
Killer Croc roared so loudly Cole’s ears rang.
“I’m a damn crocodile!
You’re the lizard!”
He stomped his foot, cracking the concrete floor.
His massive frame surged forward like an out-of-control semi-truck.
Cole launched off the beam, flipping backward onto the top of a container and crouching at its edge.
“Look at you getting all worked up.
Crocodile, lizard—you’re both cold-blooded reptiles anyway.
Sadly, I can’t be a lizard; I’m a spider.”
Killer Croc spun around, dug his claws into the container edge, and hauled his massive bulk up.
Standing eight feet tall on top of the container, his dark green scales glinted with a clammy sheen under the fog lights.
Opening his claws wide, he pounced like a true predator upon its prey.
Cole didn’t retreat.
The moment Croc lunged, Cole kicked off the roof, sprinting toward the front-left.
Staying low, he slid beneath the strike, practically grazing the surface.
Croc’s right claw swiped past his back, missing his spine by a mere two centimeters.
His Spider-Sense screamed inside his skull, but Cole had already calculated the margin.
Sliding behind Croc’s side, he planted his left hand on the steel, kicked up into a handstand, and whipped his right leg downward onto the back of Croc’s head.
*Thud.*
A dull sound echoed, like an iron bar striking a sack full of sand.
Croc’s head pitched forward, and the thick scales on his neck finally showed a visible dent.
Borrowing the recoil, Cole launched back into the air, somersaulted twice, and landed cleanly on the edge of another container ten feet away, crouching with one hand braced on the roof.
“Didn’t you say you were gonna crunch all my bones?” He tilted his head.
“How come you can’t even touch me?
Maybe pare down those facial calluses first so your eyes can actually see?”
Killer Croc went ballistic.
“I’m gonna crush you, little bug!”
He leaped off the container, crashing down onto the pavement with a shower of splintered concrete, and charged full force.
Every fist he slammed into a container left a deep crater, buckling the corrugated metal like a sledgehammer blow.
“Uh-oh.
But I still gotta correct you: spiders aren’t insects…”
Cole bounced between containers, dodging split seconds ahead of every landing blow.
He anchored a web line to a container behind Croc, pulled it taut, and snapped back with boosted acceleration.
Like a stone shot from a slingshot, Cole curled up, knees pressed together, and slammed into Croc’s chest like a cannonball.
The impact thundered through the docks.
Croc stumbled back two paces.
A fine hairline crack fractured his chest scales, oozing dark liquid.
Cole bounced off, landed, and crouched low.
His knees were numb.
The recoil from that hit had rattled him badly.
Croc glanced down at the fracture on his chest, an emotion other than fury finally flitting through his slit eyes.
“How did you break my scales…?”
“Surprised?”
Cole stood up and rolled his ankle.
“Honestly, so am I.
Look, your skin’s so thick my hands hurt.
How about a deal?
You turn yourself into Blackgate Penitentiary, I save some energy, and you save on medical bills.
What do you say?”
Killer Croc answered with action.
He whirled around, sweeping his massive tail across the air with a sonic boom straight toward Cole.
Cole didn’t duck.
Firing a web at the overhead crane beam, he catapulted straight up, arching his body like a fully drawn bow.
The tail whipped under his feet, the displacement of air blowing his hair back beneath his mask.
Then he tucked his core, flicked his wrist, adjusted his angle, and launched straight down, driven by the tension of the web.
Elbow leading the way, his entire body weight channeled behind the point of his elbow, he aimed straight for the crown of Croc’s skull. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
*BOOM.*
The strike forced Killer Croc down onto one knee.
The concrete caved in around him.
The scales atop his crown cracked with a faint crunching sound.
Cole pushed off and landed—but stumbled.
His knees buckled, his balance wavering, forcing him to brace a hand against an adjacent container.
That intense sequence of leaps and spins—from the handstand whip-kick to the torpedo tackle to the vertical elbow drop—had relied entirely on web tension and sheer explosive force.
His spider-genes enhanced his muscle density and stamina, but overexerting them back-to-back took a heavy toll, even on an upgraded body.
*Still not strong enough.*
*System, I’m calling you out here!*
Killer Croc dragged himself back up.
His jaws peeled wide, exposing rows of crooked, razor-sharp teeth.
A roar of pure, unadulterated fury tore from his throat.
He lunged like a cannonball, taking to the air to flatten Cole under hundreds of pounds of armored muscle.
Cole tried to dodge.
His Spider-Sense shrieked, but he couldn’t pinpoint an escape angle.
Croc’s massive frame completely blocked his dodging routes.
Cole crossed his arms in front of his chest.
The titanium alloy plates on his suit lined up directly against Croc’s claws.
The massive kinetic force slammed into him.
He heard his ribs groan—not broken yet, but dangerously close.
He was driven back a full meter, his boots carving two deep gouges into the asphalt.
The titanium plate buckled, and a newly stitched seam at his shoulder snapped wide open.
Stitches tore loose, nylon peeled back, exposing the flushed skin underneath.
That tear was going to cost at least fifty bucks to repair.
*His money!*
Croc raised his claw, preparing for a second pounce.
Cole didn’t give him the chance.
Firing two web lines onto the container behind Croc, he kicked hard off the giant’s chest to launch himself backward.
Like a tightly compressed spring releasing, he rocketed away, flipped midair, and tagged the steel girders atop the crane with his left web-shooter.
He didn’t linger.
If he kept fighting, his ribs would break, his suit would be destroyed, and Bruce really would have nothing but dry kibble for dinner tonight.
Behind him, Croc’s furious roars and the sound of crushing steel echoed through the fog.
Cole didn’t look back.
This wasn’t running away.
The Spider’s purpose in being there was simply to save a poor dock worker.
Mission accomplished!
He’d bought enough time!
This was called making a tactical retreat after a job well done.
By the time Cole got back to his attic apartment, he literally crawled inside.
Granted, he crawled in every night, but there was crawling, and then there was *crawling*.
Cole collapsed onto his beat-up couch, lacking even the strength to peel off his mask.
“Bruce…”
Cole called out weakly.
The puppy poked its head out of the box, staring at this mud-splattered red-and-blue spider.
Cole’s hands trembled as he stripped off his suit.
A massive purple bruise splotched his ribs, tinged with dark red at the center.
He dumped rubbing alcohol directly onto the injury.
“*Hiss—gah!*”
Grit his teeth, tears nearly bursting from his eyes.
His spider-genes were frantically repairing his body, and the deep itching sensation radiating from inside his bones was far more agonizing than the raw pain.
“See that, Bruce?” Cole pointed to his ribs, then to the puppy’s short, splinted leg.
“Matching set now.
Though I’ll recover faster than you—benefits of spider powers.”
The pup wagged its tail, almost as if mocking his pathetic state.
Cole lay limply on the couch, staring up at a leak in the ceiling.
Suit torn, ribs cracked, and the few bucks left in his pocket would have to be carved up to repair his gear.
Meanwhile, that giant crocodile-skin freak was still stomping around the docks.
Cole closed his eyes and replayed Killer Croc’s every move in his mind: insane bite force, thick armor on his back, terrifying strength, but slow on turning, with noticeable recovery lag after heavy strikes.
His tail sweep was his biggest weapon—and his biggest habit.
Every time before swinging it, he’d glance slightly in the opposite direction first.
Cole suddenly recalled a snippet from a nature documentary he’d watched back in the day.
*Don’t crocs have a fatal weakness?
The temporal region—the sides of the skull where the temporal muscles attach.
Deep armored back, but relatively soft belly.*
*And wrapping their snout shut works better than anything else.*
Cole rolled over, gritting his teeth against the pain as he reached for the comic pages on his desk.
“Once I’m rich, first thing I’m doing is buying tons of dynamite and turning that big lizard into charcoal-grilled croc chops.”
He grabbed his pen and viciously drew an abstract, chibi crocodile face on the paper.
If his fists weren’t hard enough, he’d have to rely on his brain.
No wonder Batman was so obsessed with prep time.