When Leon placed Bruce into the cardboard box, his movements were as gentle as if he were lowering a live bomb.
The little stray dog with the broken leg huddled in the corner, staring at him with watery eyes, neither barking nor struggling.
“Good boy. If you dare howl like a wolf at two in the morning, I’ll send you downstairs to the Maroni Gang as a midnight snack.”
He muttered while pulling out an assortment of bottles and jars from his coat.
Iodine, gauze, pet anti-inflammatories—things he had bought with the last of his conscience and a few crumpled bills at a pharmacy just before closing.
He had checked the price list for Gotham pet hospitals on his phone: fifty dollars for a basic exam, two hundred and up for setting a bone and splinting, and a full six hundred just for an X-ray.
“Six hundred dollars?” Leon had sneered at his phone screen at the time.
“How many pounds of ribs could that buy? It’s enough to buy a dog’s life, isn’t it?”
Actually, it was enough for a human life too.
And in this city, human lives generally weren’t that valuable.
Leon cursed quietly while skillfully using his webbing to stabilize Bruce’s broken leg.
He wasn’t exactly trained in veterinary orthopedics, but he was already practiced at fixing human legs.
Webbing was much better than a plaster cast; it was lightweight, breathable, and would automatically dissolve in a few days.
After wrapping the gauze, he poured a handful of cheap puppy kibble into a chipped bowl.
“Eat sparingly. A bag of this stuff cost me fifteen bucks. Our combined net worth is only enough to buy a hundred bags right now.”
Bruce leaned over to take a few licks, the tip of his tail wagging slightly.
Leon looked at that wagging tail and sighed.
He hadn’t just picked up a dog.
He had picked up a money shredder.
But puppies really were adorable.
Leon squatted there, admiring his new dog for a moment longer before standing up and walking over to the second-hand sewing machine.
The machine’s creaking sounded as loud as a construction site.
He tossed aside the old shirt he had worn out over the past two days and changed into a pair of second-hand cargo pants he had recently scavenged for less than ten dollars.
Although they carried a persistent musty smell, at least they were clean.
He sat at the desk and spread out his drawing paper.
He was an art student—he had been one before crossing over, and he still was now.
The nights in Gotham belonged to Spider-Man, but during the day, he had to rely on this pen to survive.
The comic manuscript wasn’t finished yet.
This was next month’s rent and Bruce’s ribs on the line.
He had just finished six panels.
Outside the window, the Bat-Signal flickered against the clouds again.
Leon stared at the light for two seconds.
“Leaving such a massive spotlight on every day… doesn’t anyone care about the electricity bill?”
He quickly changed back into his suit, pulled on his mask, and squeezed out through the vent.
…
At the docks in the early hours, the fog was so thick it looked like someone had overturned a milk bucket over the harbor.
Crane arms loomed in and out of the mist, and shipping containers were piled into jagged mountains of steel.
The harbor lights were muffled by the fog, turning into blurred, eerie orange halos.
The air was thick with the scent of engine oil, sea salt, and rotting wood.
Leon squatted on the edge of a suspended container, one leg dangling over the side, idly playing cat’s cradle with a web strand on the crane’s crossbeam.
He was waiting.
Surely no one would light the Bat-Signal just to mess with him for no reason, right?
Besides, it was too quiet here—the kind of quiet that made your skin crawl.
Then, Leon heard a sound.
A choked wail, squeezed from the deepest part of a throat after something heavy had crushed it.
Immediately following was a low growl.
It was a sound that didn’t belong to a human, but to an apex predator capable of tearing a person apart like scrap meat.
Leon’s Spider-Sense suddenly spiked, a sharp prick traveling from the base of his skull all the way down his spine.
He flipped off the edge of the container.
In the mist below, a massive creature had a dockworker pinned against the side of a corrugated steel container.
The worker’s feet dangled at least two feet off the ground.
The hand clutching his throat—if it could still be called a hand—was covered in thick, dark green scales.
The knuckles were as thick as steel wrenches, ending in five black, razor-sharp talons capable of gouging trenches into solid concrete.
The worker’s face had already turned purple, his struggles growing weaker by the second.
Leon adjusted his posture in mid-air.
With his feet together, his entire body slammed down through the mist like a torpedo.
He crashed directly into Killer Croc’s back, his knees and elbows striking simultaneously.
He used the gravitational acceleration to drive his full body weight into the most vulnerable part of the creature’s spine: the cervicothoracic junction.
There was a heavy, dull thud.
Croc’s massive frame swayed, and the claw choking the worker loosened.
The dockworker collapsed to the pavement, coughing violently, and scrambled desperately toward the nearest warehouse.
Killer Croc turned around.
His golden, reptilian eyes glowed coldly in the fog, the pupils narrowing into vertical slits.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated out of his throat.
“Spider. Go away. I’m looking for the Bat…”
Leon didn’t land.
The moment Croc turned, Leon fired a web line to a nearby crane and yanked himself sideways.
His body spun a full 360 degrees in mid-air.
Gathering momentum during the rotation, he used the speed from the web’s pull to deliver a brutal front kick directly into Killer Croc’s face.
“Seriously? Am I not cuter than Batman? Why all the hate?” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
The impact felt like kicking a solid block of granite.
But the sheer force made Croc stumble back half a step, a spray of dark blood flying from his nostrils.
Leon used the recoil to bounce back up to the crane, squatting lightly on the crossbeam.
“Hey, big guy,” he called down.
“Have Gotham’s skincare routines stopped working for you? Your stratum corneum is thick enough to patch a battleship.”
Killer Croc looked up, his slit-like pupils locking onto the red-and-blue figure.
“I’m going to chew every bone in your body to dust.”
Leon stared at that crocodilian snout, and a thought popped into his head.
Sure enough, every Spider-Man had to deal with a giant lizard eventually.
“Hello, Dr. Connors. Were you also turned into this by some sketchy genetics experiment, or were you just born this ugly?”
Killer Croc let out a deafening roar that made Leon’s ears ring.
“I’m a goddamn crocodile! You’re the bug!”
Croc stomped a massive foot, cracking the concrete beneath him.
His hulking frame surged forward like an out-of-control freight train.
Leon sprang from the crane, executing a backflip to land softly on top of a nearby container, crouching right at the edge.
“Look at you getting all defensive. Crocodile, lizard—you’re both cold-blooded reptiles anyway. Sadly, I’m not a bug. Spiders are arachnids.”
Croc pivoted, his massive claws digging into the steel edge of the container as he violently hauled his entire body up.
Standing nearly nine feet tall atop the container, his dark green scales shimmered with a cold, damp light under the fog lamps.
He spread his talons and lunged at his prey with the ferocity of a true beast.
Leon didn’t retreat.
The instant Croc lunged, Leon kicked off the container lid, dashing sharply to the front-left.
He kept his body incredibly low, practically sliding across the corrugated steel surface.
Croc’s right claw viciously swiped at his back, the razor tips missing his spine by a mere inch.
The stinging alarm of his Spider-Sense screamed in his brain, but he had already perfectly calculated the distance.
Leon slid to Croc’s blind spot, planted his left hand on the steel roof to invert himself, and brought his right leg crashing down like a whip onto the back of Croc’s skull.
Dong.
A heavy, hollow sound rang out, like an iron rod striking a thick sandbag.
Croc’s head snapped forward, and the dense layer of scales on the back of his neck finally showed a visible indentation.
Leon used the reaction force from his handstand to spring back into the air, flipping twice before landing smoothly on the edge of another container ten feet away.
He crouched, keeping one hand flat on the steel.
“Didn’t you just say you were going to chew my bones?” Leon tilted his head mockingly.
“How come you can’t even land a hit? Maybe you should file down those scaly calluses around your eyes so you can actually see what you’re swinging at.”
Killer Croc was enraged.
“I’ll crush you! Little bug!”
He launched himself off the container, slamming into the pavement below.
The impact kicked up a cloud of dust and gravel as he charged straight forward, blindly destroying everything in his path.
Every wild punch he threw left deep craters in the shipping containers, denting the heavy sheet metal as if it had been struck by a wrecking ball.
“Uh-oh. Still have to correct you on the taxonomy…”
Leon bounded between the containers, his feet touching down just fractions of a second before Croc’s massive fists obliterated the spot where he had been.
He fired a web line past Croc, attaching it to a container behind the beast.
He pulled it taut, using the tension to slingshot himself backward.
Like a cannonball fired point-blank, Leon tucked his knees in and slammed full force into Killer Croc’s chest.
The thunderous impact echoed across the docks.
Croc staggered back two heavy steps, the thick scales on his chest cracking slightly and oozing a dark, viscous liquid.
Leon bounced off the beast, landed, and dropped into a firm crouch.
His knees were completely numb.
The recoil from that last strike had been jarring to his own bones.
Killer Croc looked down at the fresh crack in his chest armor.
For the first time, something other than blind rage flashed in his reptilian eyes.
“How could you break my scales—”
“Surprised?”
Leon stood up, rolling his sore ankles.
“I’m surprised too. Look, your hide is so thick my hands actually hurt. Let’s make a deal: you go turn yourself in nicely at Blackgate, I’ll save my energy, and you’ll save on the massive medical bills. Sound fair?”
Killer Croc answered with violence.
He spun abruptly, his thick, muscular tail sweeping out like a massive bat, slicing through the air toward Leon with terrifying speed.
Leon didn’t dodge backward.
He shot a web line straight up to a crane beam and catapulted himself vertically, his body stretching out mid-air like a fully drawn bow.
The deadly tail swept mere inches beneath his feet, the intense wind pressure whipping his hair back beneath his mask.
At the apex of his jump, Leon tucked in his stomach, flicked his wrists, adjusted his angle, and used the recoil of his web to drop straight down.
Elbow first, his entire body weight following behind it.
All his kinetic energy was concentrated at the tip of his elbow, aimed dead center at the crown of Killer Croc’s skull.
Bang.
The sheer force of the blow drove Killer Croc down to one knee.
The concrete pavement sank in a shallow crater beneath him.
A faint cracking sound echoed from the thick scales crowning his head.
Leon bounced away and hit the ground, but he didn’t stick the landing perfectly.
His knees buckled, his balance wavered, and he had to throw out a hand to brace himself against a nearby container. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
That rapid sequence of high-intensity maneuvers—the inverted whip kick, the torpedo strike, the vertical elbow drop—had drained massive amounts of explosive power and heavily relied on the tensile pull of his webbing.
The spider genetics were constantly enhancing his muscle density and stamina, but even a superhuman body had limits when pushed this hard, this fast.
Still not strong enough.
System, I’m talking to you!
Killer Croc slowly stood back up.
His massive jaws opened wide, revealing rows of crooked, razor-sharp teeth.
A roar of absolute, unhinged fury erupted from his throat.
He launched himself like a living missile, all eight hundred pounds of muscle and scale leaving the ground as he lunged.
Leon tried to dodge.
His Spider-Sense was screaming at maximum volume, but he couldn’t find a safe trajectory.
Croc’s massive frame completely blocked every possible angle of evasion in the narrow aisle between the containers.
Leon braced himself, crossing his arms rigidly in front of his chest.
The thin titanium alloy plates took the direct force of Croc’s brutal claws.
The colossal impact hit him like a freight train.
Leon heard his ribs groan under the pressure.
They probably hadn’t snapped yet, but they were dangerously close.
He was thrown backward over three feet, the heels of his boots gouging two deep furrows into the solid concrete.
The titanium plating on his chest was severely dented, and the newly sewn seam on his shoulder violently burst open.
The threads snapped, peeling back the ballistic nylon to expose the raw, reddened skin underneath.
That tear is going to cost at least fifty bucks to patch.
My money!
Killer Croc raised his massive claws, rearing back for a second, lethal pounce.
Leon didn’t give him the chance.
He fired two rapid web lines to the containers behind Croc, planting both feet against the beast’s chest.
Like a compressed spring suddenly releasing, he kicked off, launching himself backward.
He flipped mid-air, fired a web line to the highest steel frame of a nearby crane, and swung away.
He didn’t stick around to finish the fight.
If he kept brawling, his ribs would definitely snap, his suit would be destroyed, and Bruce really would be stuck eating cardboard-flavored ration bars for the rest of the week.
Below him, Croc’s enraged roars and the metallic crunch of smashed shipping containers echoed through the fog.
Leon didn’t look back.
This wasn’t running away.
The Spider’s only objective tonight was to save that dockworker from being choked to death.
He had successfully executed the rescue!
He had stalled the monster long enough for the civilian to escape!
This was a highly tactical, strategic withdrawal following a completely successful mission.
…
When he finally returned to his attic, Leon crawled through the narrow vent.
Although he crawled through it every night, some nights felt heavier than others.
Leon collapsed onto the broken sofa, lacking even the energy to pull off his mask.
“Bruce…”
Leon groaned, his voice muffled by the fabric.
The tiny puppy poked its head out of the cardboard box, staring at the battered, dirt-covered red-and-blue figure.
Leon’s hands shook slightly as he peeled off the torn top half of the suit.
A massive, ugly bruise mottled with blue and purple stretched across his ribs, with harsh, dark red bruising at the center.
He uncapped a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it directly over the injured skin.
“Hiss—ha—!”
Leon gritted his teeth, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
The spider genetics were already rapidly repairing the micro-fractures, but the deep, bone-deep itching sensation was somehow worse than the actual pain.
“See that, Bruce?” Leon pointed to his bruised ribs, then gestured to the puppy’s splinted leg.
“We match now. But I’m definitely going to heal faster than you, because I have radioactive spider blood.”
The puppy just wagged its tail, seemingly unimpressed by his pathetic state.
Leon lay paralyzed on the ruined sofa, staring blankly at the water damage on the ceiling.
His suit was torn, his ribs were cracked, and the dwindling cash in his pocket now had to cover suit repairs instead of food.
And that giant, scaly freak was still roaming around the docks.
Leon closed his eyes, mentally replaying every single one of Killer Croc’s combat movements: devastating bite force, impenetrable back armor, immense raw strength, but sluggish turning speed and a massive recovery window after a heavy attack.
That tail sweep was his deadliest weapon, but it was also a massive tell.
Before every single tail sweep, Croc instinctively glanced in the opposite direction for a split second to gauge his balance.
Leon suddenly remembered a nature documentary he had watched ages ago.
Didn’t crocodiles have a glaring biological weakness?
The temporal region—the sides of the skull where the jaw muscles attach.
Their back armor was practically bulletproof, but their underbelly was relatively soft.
Honestly, wrapping his jaws shut with a few layers of high-tensile webbing would probably be more effective than punching him.
Leon groaned, rolling over and fighting through the pain to grab his comic manuscript off the makeshift desk.
“When I finally get rich, the very first thing I’m doing is buying two tons of C4 and blowing that giant iguana into charcoal-grilled gator ribs.”
He grabbed his pen, fiercely sketching an angry, chibi-style crocodile face in the margins of his paper.
Since his fists weren’t hitting hard enough yet, he was going to have to rely on his brain.
No wonder Batman loved fighting with prep time.