Different countries have different national conditions. Different places have different customs.
But on the free and fragrant land of America, no matter how many dimensional universes you cross, one thing never changes: people long for redemption from superheroes, yet submit to tyranny and power.
This is Gotham. People might not remember the mayor's name, but they will remember Falcone.
After all, mayors rotate every few years. Besides bragging and lying, no one really expects them to do anything.
The Falcone family had ruled the city's underworld for decades.
And now, that legendary man—Carmine Falcone—was getting old.
The ambitious ones who had once been suppressed by him and knelt obediently before him could already smell the decay coming from his body and were starting to stir.
Oswald Cobblepot was just a small fry, cannon fodder.
If even a small character like him could sense the shadow of war, the actual situation was probably much worse.
Of course, that had nothing to do with Gwen.
She was a superhero, but not Gotham's superhero.
The Spider family was especially cautious about this.
There were many Spider-Man counterparts in the Marvel universe. They had gathered together because of the Inheritors' totem hunting (see Spider-Verse: End of the Spider-Verse) and gained the ability to travel across the multiverse after the war. They could be considered very experienced at crossing universes.
The first principle to follow when crossing into an unfamiliar universe—don't meddle in other people's business!
You don't know whether this world's Captain America is a man or a woman, a hero or a villain.
Good and evil, right and wrong, are hard to distinguish in reality. Rashly intervening doesn't necessarily mean you'll uphold justice.
Would stopping the mafia war save Gotham? Gwen didn't know. From her past experience, it was probably impossible.
So she had no intention of getting involved.
Why bother? Didn't the young master's steaks smell good?
For a spider, the most important thing was always her own little nest.
Every day Gwen needed to eat a huge amount of food to replenish nutrients, spend energy teaching the young master to study properly and not go astray, take baths, and put on her suit at midnight to wander the city. She barely had any free time.
Unless it was on the way, she generally wouldn't waste time and effort striking poses to beat up small-time thugs.
Tonight she saw Little Meow on the rooftop again.
The kid was scared shitless, fur all puffed up, huddled in the corner shivering.
When Gwen swung down upside down on a web and got close to her face, she unsurprisingly got an earful.
"It's me!"
"Spider?"
"It's Ghost-Spider! Are you okay? Got caught stealing wallets?"
"Come with me!"
Once she calmed down, Little Meow grabbed Gwen's wrist and dragged her downstairs to under the subway bridge.
An elderly homeless man lay in a pool of blood.
Little Meow asked anxiously, "Can you save him?"
Gwen reached out and checked his pulse, then gently shook her head. "Gunshot wound to the liver. Too much blood loss. He's gone."
Little Meow plopped down on the ground, hugged her head, and fell silent.
"He was your friend."
"He was a veteran. He liked telling us stories—stories from his past. Just now someone tried to kidnap my friends. He rushed over to stop them and took a bullet."
"Why would a veteran be wandering the streets?"
"Because he's old, of course."
"I thought there were things like Veterans Affairs associations that specifically help people like him?"
"The two kidnappers who just shot him also claimed to be helping homeless children. They handed out sandwiches to everyone, and while people were eating, they stabbed them from behind one by one. Who knows where they ran off to now."
Gwen looked at the tire tracks on the ground and said softly, "Do you want me to help you rescue your friends?"
Little Meow looked shocked. "You can find those people?"
"I can't right now, but it's not impossible." Gwen noticed the phone booth in the distance. "Of course this isn't a free service."
Little Meow was stunned. "Didn't you say you're a superhero?"
"Don't superheroes eat and shit?"
"Sorry, I don't have a single cent on me."
"I know you're poor. I'm not blind." Gwen raised one finger. "I help you once, you owe me a favor. How about it?"
Little Meow's tense nerves instantly relaxed. "You scared me. I thought you were going to harvest my kidney."
Don't think America isn't a society based on favors. In fact, the favor network here is even stronger than in the distant Eastern ancient country. From the White House to Hawaii, regardless of status, favors here are like hard currency and can even be traded.
"What's your plan?"
"Call the police first!"
"Call the police first? Are you kidding? The police don't care about the life or death of a homeless man!"
"But at least they can prepare a clean body bag for this old soldier, and a grave—whether collective or not. If you don't call the police, do you plan to carry him to the suburbs and bury him yourself?"
Little Meow nodded. "Makes sense. You sound so experienced. Did you used to run in the streets too?"
Gwen walked to the phone booth, picked up the receiver, and turned back to give Little Meow a thumbs-up. "Not bragging, sis used to run both sides of the law!"
Then she got hung up on.
The GCPD side got nervous when they heard an old man had been shot dead. But once Gwen gave the location, they hung up.
An old man dead under the subway bridge couldn't possibly be a decent person. What decent person would be there in the middle of the night?
Gwen, who claimed to run both sides of the law, felt insulted and decisively dialed Officer Gordon's private number.
"Hello?"
Officer Gordon was indeed still awake. Rumor had it he had a super hot girlfriend. Maybe they were in the middle of some two-person exercise right now. Hopefully she hadn't interrupted.
"I'm a concerned good citizen!" Gwen said quickly. "There's an old man who just died from a gunshot, and some homeless children have been kidnapped. I think you might be interested…"
"Where?"
Sure enough, a hot-blooded rookie cop. A cop with five or more years on the job would have said, "Fuck, I'm already off duty!"
But Officer Gordon was full of justice. He feared nothing.
After hanging up, Gwen turned and saw Little Meow staring at her. "You called that Gordon? The one we met last time?"
"That's the one."
"I don't trust cops!"
"You're right. Neither do I." Gwen nodded in agreement. "That's why we should use him as much as possible before the other cops corrupt him."