The instant Aunt May hugged him, Batman's pupils blew wide. His body went rigid. Shock and fear flooded him, filling every inch.
For a few seconds he even wanted to bolt. Deep inside, the eight-year-old Bruce Wayne was screaming to clutch at this fleeting warmth—only to be crushed back down by Batman.
Everything he was doing in this world had a single goal: get back to Gotham. Peter Parker's identity existed only to make that possible.
"Peter… oh my God, you're hurt."
Seeing her nephew frozen, Aunt May looked up, clapped a hand over her mouth, and dragged him inside, pushing him into a chair.
He'd taken a few punches fighting the Spider-Slayer—he hadn't cared. But Aunt May, looking at his blackened eye, couldn't hold back tears. Sobbing, she rushed to the fridge, pressed an ice pack to the bruise, and nearly wilted with guilt and worry.
"I'm Batman. I have to play Peter Parker well. I… will keep Aunt May safe, Peter. Until I'm back in Gotham."
His hands trembled. He stood, steadied her, and pulled her into his arms. "I'm okay, Aunt May. I just tripped."
He didn't even know how Peter Parker's birthday gathering finished. After a hasty goodbye, he returned to the lightless, cut-off world of the abandoned shipyard.
He didn't rest. Through the night he stripped the Spider-Slayer's powered armor and glider down to the bones and rebuilt them to his specs. As the night deepened, the suit took shape.
2 a.m., Hell's Kitchen, in the alley behind an orphanage.
"Boss Joseph, you sure we're starting with this orphanage?" a bruiser asked, eyes shining at the broad back ahead of him.
"Yeah. This is Fisk's turf. I hear he volunteers at this place all the time. We torch it—send a message. Let him know who's really going to be the underground king of New York."
The figure turned. Under the jaundiced streetlight, a familiar square face appeared. "And 'Joseph' is past tense. From now on, use my new name… Hammerhead."
The bruiser swallowed. Before, he'd followed Joseph because he had nowhere else to go. Now he followed Hammerhead because of the man's ambition—
—and that almost unbreakable skull.
He hadn't died from the round Black Cat put through his forehead at the shipyard. He lived—barely—but with a shattered skull that had to be replaced with metal. A blessing in disguise: with a steel skull, Joseph didn't fear bullets. His ambitions grew from running a crew of seven or eight to challenging Fisk himself.
"Post lookouts. Paul, light it up," Hammerhead ordered.
Paul nodded, waved the others off to spread out, and started rigging Molotovs from booze he'd just stolen from a convenience store. Halfway through, he paused.
"Boss… that guy won't show up again, right?"
The shipyard gun deal had been Joseph's first try at leveling up the crew. With those guns, flipping and extorting could have turned a gang of eight into a "big" crew of fifty. He'd even hired the Squid-Man to make sure it went smoothly. It hadn't. A black shadow wrecked everything; Joseph took a bullet to the head; the Squid-Man bolted on the spot.
"That was in Manhattan. This is Hell's Kitchen," Hammerhead snorted. "New York's huge. Even Spider-Man can't be everywhere."
"Relax. We torch the place and—"
Before he could finish, the streetlight above them flickered. A crisp crack. Then a stifled, pained whimper.
Paul froze, Molotov in hand, and thought of that shadow.
"Who's there? Come out!" Hammerhead growled, one hand touching his head. The metal skull gave him courage.
Thud!
No answer—just the heavy thump of something slamming into flesh, echoing down the alley.
Hammerhead's cheek twitched. He peered into the dark. Nothing.
Thud!
Blows sounded again and again. He tried calling his men back; no one answered. He thumbed his pistol's safety off and edged deeper into the alley.
Paul followed, gun up. Together they saw a shape hanging in the air—swaying, clawing at nothing, more monster than man.
"Boss…" Paul whispered. His legs were jelly; he wanted out.
Hammerhead shot him a sharp look. "Stay with me."
Paul swallowed and forced himself on. They left the pool of yellow light and stepped into shadow—finally seeing the truth.
It was one of their own from tonight's arson crew. His arms and legs were broken. His neck bent at a grotesque angle. Foam bubbled at his lips as he dangled, slowly swaying. Barely alive.
Both men exhaled—a monster, it wasn't. Then their hearts leapt into their throats.
What kind of thing could do that, silently, right under their noses? A moment ago they'd been under a streetlight, no more than twenty meters from the others.
"Fall back. We—" Hammerhead's breathing went shallow. He'd stirred up something he shouldn't have.
At the word "back," Paul spun, desperate to grow two more legs and run faster. He'd barely turned when a heavy splash sounded behind him—followed almost at once by the crack of snapping bones.
He froze. He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't. He wanted to look, but fear told him not to.
In the end he twisted mechanically, inching his gaze over his shoulder.
He saw a pair of sharp, upright ears—and a pair of cold, inhuman eyes.