The docks smelled of salt, diesel, and rust while the freezing January wind bit at my face even through the mask. I was following a rumor that they were moving important merchandise tonight, nothing out of the ordinary, just another shipment to disrupt before it ended up in the wrong hands. I dropped silently upon the group of six armed men who were arguing nervously over the delay of a truck that was never going to arrive.
"Good evening, gentlemen." I said the second my boots hit the concrete. "Did someone order a home-delivery ass-kicking?"
The first one raised his pistol in fear and didn't even manage to aim properly. I ripped the weapon from his hands with a swift movement and twisted his arm until I heard the dry snap of bone, letting him drop screaming while the others opened fire at the same time. It always happened the exact same way, the moment panic gripped them, they fired like madmen without caring who was in front of them. One shot his own partner in the shoulder, another bounced a bullet off the side of a container, grazing a third guy's leg, and I moved among them using their own bodies as cover, letting them do most of the work for me.
"Hey, watch your aim." I commented as I buried my fist into one guy's stomach and shoved him into the one coming up behind him. "You're making my job way too easy."
One tried to attack me with a metal bar, but I deflected the blow, shattered his knee with a lateral kick, and left him on the ground. Another shot at me point-blank, and I felt the heat of the bullet pass close to my head before responding with a kick to his chest that sent him flying against some stacked crates. In less than a minute they were all on the floor. One tried to crawl toward a fallen weapon; I stepped heavily on his hand and heard a muffled groan.
"Stay still." I said calmly. "The police are already on their way."
That was when I looked at the large container they were guarding. The padlock was thick, but not thick enough. I snapped it with a sharp yank and swung the container open. A strong, foul stench that made me furrow my brow hit me first, right before I froze at the sight of what lay inside.
There were young girls, some sixteen or seventeen years old, others younger, and at the back, almost hidden within the shadows, two little girls who couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve. They were gagged, their wrists bound with plastic zip-ties, staring at me with terror. It wasn't the first time I stumbled into something like this. This was the third time in less than two months, and each time left me feeling just as bad, if not worse.
I stood there at the container's entrance longer than I should have. The images superimposed themselves with others that didn't belong to this world: reports I had seen in my past life, documentaries, and news that one used to watch from the safety of a screen, only to carry on with their day right after like it was nothing. As I reflected on this constant situation, I began to cut their bonds in silence. When I finished, I made sure they could get out, took a few steps back, and called the police from a nearby payphone, giving them the exact location before hanging up.
I waited until they were close, and then I left.
As I moved away across the rooftops, I couldn't stop thinking about whether I was doing the right thing by leaving criminals of this nature alive. They ended up half-dead in the hospital, but they were still breathing, except for a few who ended up dead by their own partners' weapons, I missed the part where that's my problem. And later, when the screens in Times Square displayed the first headlines from the Daily Bugle, rage mixed with something far more bitter. "SPIDER-MAN LEAVES ANOTHER TRAIL OF CORPSES AT THE DOCKS," the massive letters screamed. They didn't mention the human trafficking victims I had saved. It seemed the talk I had with Jameson a few days ago was useless, even after I had made it clear to him that I wasn't a threat. And yet, when I rescued a group of little girls from being condemned to a nightmare, the newspaper preferred to turn me into the problem once again.
Not wanting to see any more, I headed toward a nearby church, knelt in the very last pew, far from the few remaining parishioners, and joined my hands. I had come because I still believe that everything is part of God's plan, but that thought was beginning to waver, not out of a lack of faith in God, but in human beings themselves. I looked up at the crucifix behind the altar.
As I listened to the priest talk about mercy, each phrase struck me in a different way. In my previous life, I was nobody special, just someone who watched the news, felt outraged for a moment, and then went on with their day. I used to see reports on human trafficking, on overloaded judicial systems, and on criminals who walked free time and time again, and in the end, all I did was change the channel or criticize the politicians who did nothing to improve things. Now that I had the power to do something, I felt I had the responsibility to save others, no matter the method.
I thought about how absurd the whole situation was. One day I was in my world, worried about small, insignificant things, and the next I woke up in the body of Peter Parker. At first, I thought I could do things better, that I could avoid the mistakes I had seen in the comics and movies, that I could be what most people thought should be done when watching the bad guys commit their misdeeds before being evangelized by the power of love and friendship. And in a way, I was achieving it. The city's crime rate dropped, and Uncle Ben was still alive, it comforted me to think that I wasn't doing so bad.
I shifted in the pew, but I didn't get up. I knew what I was thinking was wrong; I knew it clearly. I needed to create someone worse than Spider-Man, someone who would take all the blame and all the accusations of being a loose killer so that the spider wouldn't be stained with blood, and could be seen as the lesser evil once again, making him more tolerable to the general public. I reflected on the memories of my previous life: systems that didn't work, news channels that preferred scandal over the truth, and innocents who paid the price while the guilty always found a loophole to slip through. Locking them up solved nothing; it only postponed the problem. And while the system and the newspapers put on their theater, the innocent kept paying the consequences.
Tension tightened my chest. My heart was beating faster than normal, though it wasn't exactly fear. It was the feeling of standing on the edge of something from which you couldn't easily return. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, the cross was still there, looking at me unperturbed. And then I prayed in silence.
"I don't know what I should do... whether to ask for forgiveness for what I am about to do... but I would be lying... because I feel no pity watching criminals suffer, Lord. Am I the one who is wrong? Could it be that this is my role in this world? Is that why I ended up here? Truth is, I don't know... but what I do know is that I would never want to harm another human being... but I cannot consider them human beings. What makes us human is our empathy and love for our neighbor, just as You taught us... so they are nothing more than savage beasts."
The silence that followed was heavier than any possible answer. No sign or voice arrived, only the distant echo of the priest and the creaking of the old wood beneath my knees. I remained kneeling a bit longer, feeling the weight of those words inside my head. I knew it was wrong and that I was crossing a line. And yet, I couldn't find another way out that didn't end with more innocents suffering in the long run, and with Spider-Man gradually becoming exactly what Jameson said he was.
When the Mass ended, I stood up with numb legs and walked out without looking at anyone.
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I know this is becoming a habit, but I apologize again for the delay. I spent two weeks unable to do much of anything on the fic due to personal responsibilities. I hope you enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think; I had to rush it a bit because I'm sick and can't do much other than stay in bed.