Gotham Arc #18.
Pain woke him.
Sharp, immediate, lancing through his shoulder like lightning. His spider-sense flared: danger, threat, attack. His body moved before his mind caught up.
His left hand shot out, caught someone's wrist mid-motion. Squeezed hard enough to make bones creak.
"Easy!" A woman's voice. Calm. Authoritative. "You're safe. You're in the clinic. I'm Dr. Thompkins."
Jake's vision cleared slowly. The elderly woman from before stood beside the examination table, one wrist caught in his grip. She didn't look frightened. Just patient, waiting for his brain to catch up to his instincts.
He released her immediately. "Sorry. I--" His voice was rough, throat dry as sand. "Sorry."
"Understandable reaction," Dr. Thompkins said, rubbing her wrist absently. "You're not the first caped vigilante who's walked through my door with trigger-happy reflexes. Won't be the last."
She moved back to the medical tray, picked up fresh gauze. "You came in here last night with a gunshot wound. Through-and-through, clean entry and exit. I removed fabric debris, irrigated the wound channel, packed it with hemostatic gauze. You lost blood but not enough to require transfusion. You were lucky: missed the brachial artery by less than two centimeters."
Jake looked down at his shoulder. White bandages wrapped it professionally, already showing faint red seepage. His suit was gone above the waist, replaced by a hospital gown that didn't quite fit his frame.
"You'll need rest, antibiotics for infection prevention, and--" Dr. Thompkins paused mid-sentence.
Her fingers had moved to change his dressing, peeling back the outer layer. She froze, eyes widening behind her glasses.
The wound had scabbed. Completely. What should have been raw, bleeding tissue was already forming new skin: pink and fresh but unmistakably healing at an impossible rate.
"Nevermind," she said quietly, almost to herself. "Your body is handling the recovery on its own. Accelerated healing factor. I've seen it before, but never quite this fast."
She looked at him with new curiosity. "What are you?"
"Trying to survive," Jake said. The honest answer.
Dr. Thompkins studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. She continued changing the bandage with careful, practiced movements. "I can respect that. Gotham has a way of demanding survival from all of us."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jake started, reaching for his torn suit with his functioning arm. "How much do I--"
"You mentioned Catwoman sent you," Dr. Thompkins interrupted gently. "Well, you couldn't finish the statement when you arrived, but you said her name quite a lot while you were unconscious." A small smile touched her lips. "No need to pay. Any friend of Selina's deserves that much consideration. How is she doing, by the way? I haven't seen her in ages. Well, months. But in Gotham terms..."
"She's perfectly fine," Jake said quickly, perhaps too quickly. "Safe."
He hoped that was true. Hoped she'd made it to Dixon Docks, found that smuggler's container, gotten out of Gotham before dawn. The thought of her trapped here, hunted, made his chest tight.
The memory hit without warning: her lips against his temple, warm through the mask. 'Miss me when I'm gone.'
He stood carefully, testing his balance. The room swam slightly but steadied. His shoulder ached but the pain was manageable, already better than it had any right to be.
"Take it easy for at least twenty-four hours," Dr. Thompkins said, handing him his damaged suit. "Your body may heal fast, but it still needs energy and rest to function. And Spider?"
She met his eyes. "Your identity is safe here. I've been treating Gotham's costumed population since before you were born. Whatever secrets you're carrying, they stay between these walls."
Jake nodded, grateful. He pulled on what remained of his suit: the tears, the bullet hole, the bloodstains. Battle damage. Evidence.
"One more thing," Dr. Thompkins said as he moved toward the door. "Be careful. Gotham has a way of consuming people who try to make a difference. Or people just trying to survive. Sometimes I can't tell the difference anymore."
Jake paused at the threshold. "Thank you, Doctor. For everything."
He stepped out into morning light.
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
Gotham's dawn was the color of old bruises, purple-gray light that made the city look even more diseased than usual. Jake walked through an alley in Old Gotham, moving slowly, preserving energy.
He needed food. A change of clothes. Maybe a real shower instead of the quick rinse Dr. Thompkins had given him to remove the blood.
The Navigator pulsed in his vision, that green rose, Poison Ivy's totem, calling to him from somewhere in the city.
The red thread pointed north. Not Robinson Park, surprisingly. Canonically, that was her tuff -- but there had been no signs of her during the riddle hunt.
Well. He'd think things through after taking care of basics. A decent meal. Fresh clothes. Maybe actually following Dr. Thompkins' advice and resting.
He checked his Time Bank: 02:30:43
Yeah. He could afford to take care of himself and still go hunting without losing significantly. Five percent complete meant ninety-five percent remained. Long road ahead.
His foot caught on something.
Not a stumble -- his spider-sense had caught it before impact. But it made him look down.
A manhole cover. Standard Gotham infrastructure, rusted and cracked like everything else in this city.
It shifted slightly as he watched. Lifted maybe an inch, then settled back.
Jake froze.
The cover lifted again. Slowly. Deliberately. Metal scraping against concrete.
A face emerged from the darkness below.
Clown makeup. White face. Red nose. Grotesque grin painted over human features.
They locked eyes for three seconds.
Then the clown descended, lowering the manhole cover carefully back into place. The metal settled with a dull clunk that echoed through the alley.
"What in the--" Jake breathed.
Then it hit him like cold water.
The clown network. Gotham's underground tunnels. The dockworkers had mentioned them -- a maze beneath Gotham that let her move undetected, eyes everywhere, always watching.
He'd been careful with his aerial routes. Varied his patterns. Covered his tracks through Gotham's rooftops and fire escapes.
But down here? In the alleys and streets?
He'd walked right past one of Harley's spotters. And now she knew where he was.
Jake's wrist moved instinctively. He aimed up, ready to launch himself to the rooftops.
His shoulder screamed. The wound tore slightly, fresh warmth spreading beneath the bandages. His vision swam.
The web-line fired weak, barely catching the fire escape above. He tried to pull himself up. His right arm wouldn't cooperate. His left strained, muscles burning.
He made it three feet before his grip failed.
Jake hit the ground hard, rolled to absorb impact. Pain exploded through his shoulder. Stars burst across his vision.
Okay. New plan. Walking it was.
Tedious. Exposed. But possible.
He started toward the alley's end, moving as fast as his body would allow without tearing something else open.
Behind him, metal scraped on concrete.
Then again. And again. Multiple manholes lifting in sequence, a coordinated response.
Jake didn't look back. He ran.
His spider-sense exploded: danger from behind, multiple sources, closing fast.
"THERE!" A voice echoed through the alley. "HARLEY WANTS HIM ALIVE!"
Footsteps pounded pavement. Too many to count. A dozen? Twenty? They poured from the underground like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
Goons in clown masks. Baseball bats. Crowbars. Chains that rattled as they ran. All flooding the alley with manic energy and Harley's promised bounty driving them forward.
Jake's shoulder was on fire. His body was running on fumes. He'd burned through too much too fast -- the tournament, the fight with Batman, Falcone's mansion, the gunshot wound.
And now this.
He reached the alley's end, burst into a wider street. Early morning Gotham: sparse traffic, a few pedestrians who took one look at the situation and scattered.
The goons kept coming. Relentless. Hungry.
Jake fired a web-line at a building across the street. The strand caught. He pulled, launching himself--
His shoulder gave out mid-swing.
The line went slack. Jake fell, managed to roll, came up limping.
The goons were twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.
His spider-sense screamed warnings from every direction.
This was bad.
This was really, really bad.
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