Persona
"Hey, Matches. I know it was a long night, but we still have to get up."
"Do you have work?" he asked as his eyes opened.
"Not on Saturday. Jameson's a real slave driver sometimes, but if he doesn't want to come in on the weekend, there's nothing for me to do. What about you? You never said what you did, exactly, just about trading and securities."
"That's what I do," he said, getting up. "It's a living."
"Damn. No wonder you have time to work out so much. I could tell you were being gentle."
"You don't like that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as if to imply she should have said something.
"I'll bet you use that line on all the girls who take you home, you stray dog." There was a familiar note of playfulness in her voice. She's just horribly disappointed in herself.
"I never thought of myself as a dog. I wouldn't worry about it, though, you can tell your friends I was a charming breed, like a golden," he said as he put his suit back on. It was something of a risk having the Spider-Man costume on right beneath his black business suit, but he found he was quite capable of taking both off quickly, and turning on the lights when they got back to Miss Brant's apartment never so much as crossed his mind. It could be my enhanced senses. I feel particularly at home in the dark. He balled up the costume and stuffed it under the arm of his jacket while she was throwing a robe on.
"Oh, you just might be a charmer, though," she said. "Last night, it seemed like you were some kind of undercover hero disguised as a dangerous man- though who could say how much danger was really there?" She turned around. "This morning, however, it's as if you're a regular playboy. Do you have a fast car?"
"In this city? What's the point?" She cocked her head. "Even if I ran into two or three pedestrians every few minutes, there would always be more."
That, she at least found funny, but his objective was to play into the role in which he seemed to have found himself. Perhaps it's simply because I woke up with company. Perhaps it's not that it's easy for me to be a criminal, but it's easy for me to invent a persona and work with it.
"You know, you look a little like a young man at the office. You don't talk like he does, though. How old are you really, thirty?"
"Give or take," he said. "I've never set foot in the Daily Bugle, though. I prefer to stay out of the papers. Take this warning to Jameson. If he does a column on me, I might just have to buy the paper."
"Oh, you're bad again," she said, smiling. The joke about hitting pedestrians didn't do it for you? "I think I like a noir hero the best. Do you ever read the genre?"
"I'm familiar with it."
They were both up and dressed in another few minutes, but he knew he had business to attend. I feel more comfortable in the suit than I do in the Spider-Man costume. It provides no less physical protection and looks more anonymous. The weaponry attached to the costume may be effective, and it may be all I have for the moment, but I find it strange and the trigger seems like it would fire accidentally. I can only think that Spider-Man must have accustomed himself to the triggers being on his wrists to such a degree that he never pressed them without intent. He had also found a spider-shaped tracker on the belt and for the moment he was not sure how they worked, but he could always tell where they were.
"Would you like to make it a date this evening, then?" he asked. "I seem to have failed to wine and dine you, though the hour was so late-"
"I could see myself going on a second date with you," she said. "We'll call whatever happened last night the first date. I'm sure my friends will only lose a little respect for me."
"Oh, how inconsiderate of me," he said, crossing the room to the door. "You'll have to tell them my charm makes up for it."
As he exited, he wondered if he usually made the kind of jokes that seemed to come so naturally, at least when he woke up. He found none of them terribly funny, but perhaps that was his true nature. What concerned him was that though he remembered her name, he had forgotten the one he had only just given himself, though that was when he was in the middle of acting like some gangster. It seemed reasonable that he had different modes, meaning he most likely maintained multiple identities. It was something relatively common for cops, depending on the department, and more common for secret agents, but his cover ran particularly deep. Whatever he did, it was more than just a job for him.
His mind turned to the concept of reincarnation and he had a strange thought that he could have become aware of all of his past lives, if such a thing were possible. It felt so real and recent, and yet, it would, if he suddenly remembered them. Whatever kind of memory loss he was currently experiencing was nothing like what he had read in actual case studies; it was indeed as if he were in the middle of some test, a trap or an opportunity as it might be. Do I even have a true nature? Does anyone?
Before long he was out on the street again and he saw a poster for a missing person. I don't think I've seen that person before. At the same time, unless I reappear as Spider-Man's secret identity, they'll start to do the same with him. If he's reported missing, I'll find out who he is, but I might not be the only one. There might be someone else who knows how I ended up in this body.
He had still made no progress on that front. There seemed to be simply nothing he could do; he had no idea who he originally was, or at least nothing that could identify him from the outside looking in, and even though there were things that felt familiar about the world around him, it simultaneously seemed like he had never been there before. As he passed under a screen playing on the side of a building, to his disgust, he looked up to see a strange man in an advanced suit of armor. I should know who he is. They're talking about him like everyone knows who he is.
As had occurred to him, simple brain damage could not explain his current experience. He only knew who he was in terms of his skills and knowledge as well as multiple, probably false personae. I could put out feelers for someone of my skill set. How would I do that, though, post a job in the classifieds?
"So, Spider-Man has gone missing?"
"It's too early to say that. It's just that we lost track of him after a mission close to where we see him most often."
The story had his almost undivided attention.
"Was the mission successful?"
"No, not exactly. We went in thinking that we would look into some dimensional rift that was reported in the area, but there was no sign of it when we arrived."
"You're talking about New York City."
"You got me there," the metal man admitted. "It's easy to see how bizarre of a claim this was; a rift opened up in such a densely populated space and no one noticed? We can't mark the mission as successful because we can't even determine what the problem was. Jennifer's first thought was that we were just being distracted; she's an attorney in her everyday life."
"Jennifer... the female hulk?"
"Yes, she's open to the public about her identity. Spider-Man isn't, though, and since certain developments, I've decided to respect that."
"So you agreed to this interview because you knew it would be broadcasted in Manhattan?"
"I own some of the advertising space," he said. "If you're an old guy missing the look of the city, sorry, but some of us like it better like this."
The playboy was at a loss. It was valuable information, to be sure, and he knew that he needed to be filing away all the information, but was it being implied that multiple dimensions were actually real? If I have some relationship with this Iron Man, how am I to get in contact with him? He seemed to only be appearing on the screen because he had no other way of getting in contact with me... or I just haven't been picking up the phone.
Wherever his secret identity lived, either there was a landline with a bunch of missed messages, or there was a cellphone wherever he had left his clothes before becoming Spider-Man. The costume is thin enough to be worn under clothes without being noticed... is that the point? So that he can keep it on him at all times? It followed logically that rather than leaving the house in costume, he just stored his regular clothes somewhere whenever he needed to assume his hero identity. I had no way of finding them when I assumed control. Unfortunately, it seemed he possessed exactly none of the memories leading up to assuming control.
He realized that not only was his secret identity going to be reported missing, but if Spider-Man was gone at the same time, the wrong kinds of people would draw an unfortunate connection. I don't know what this Iron Man wants. I should at least do my research on him before reporting that I'm still alive here. As long as I act like something's going on here, it should be possible to keep him from realizing anything is going on with me. As long as his intention is to leave this city under my protection, he should not ask too many questions.
As he went to the library again, it occurred to him that even if had the same look as Spider-Man, and it seemed likely that he had the same voice, no one who knew him personally would be fooled if he opened his mouth. My personality is irreconcilably different from whoever I normally am. How closely do these people know each other? Iron Man implied that he knew my real name- is he dangerous?
In the public records section, he found there were a great many self-described heroes, and apparently they were just as heroic as the man he was currently pretending to be, and he had worked with them multiple times. It seems that for the most part, they solve their own problems, but whenever there is no avoiding it, they fight together. He expected that not all of them could stand each other and had different ways of fighting injustice, or whatever they fought, in their own cities. It seems that with Spider-Man, there are no crimes to pin on anyone or mysteries to solve. All of his foes seem to be out in the open.
"This is pointless," he said after a moment. I could look around in the sewers to see if there is a change of clothes lying around somewhere, but I would still have no way of knowing how to contact Iron Man. Instead of doing that, though, there is another way to keep people from realizing Spider-Man and his secret identity disappeared at the same time; I keep acting as Spider-Man.
Revising somewhat, having read more about the other heroes was useful in the sense that he knew the Fantastic Four had no presence on Earth at the moment; they were dealing with something in another galaxy, which he found impressive, but strange at the same time. Why were they concerning themselves with things that happened so far away? He could go ahead and assume the planet was not at risk of annihilation at the hands of large alien empires; they probably had some technology that could deflect relativistic missiles, but did that come with a desire to fly through wormholes to ensure that other entities adhered to their moral standard?
What, though, is my frame of reference? What would I consider to be normal behavior for a hero, or a man who puts on a mask?
In his thinking, a man wore a mask when the world around him could not be trusted with his identity. He suspected Jennifer, whatever her last name was, had no family, or they were all as powerful as she was, whatever the name "She-Hulk" meant. At the same time, there had to be some amount of injustice in the world for a hero like Spider-Man to hide his true face, and he had to have a vulnerable family, or at least be vulnerable enough himself. Even though he had not suffered any injuries thus far, he knew he was still basically human, and he seemed young enough to still be in college, if he had the resources for that.
Getting back into costume and putting on the suit on top of that before leaving, he felt he needed a better system of transportation, but he lacked the funding for anything that would actually help in an urban context. Taking the train, he heard some armed men talking in Spanish, and he figured they were involved with some kind of gang, though he really had no idea of what the gangs were in the area.
"¿Han oido sobre Oscorp?" he asked. "¿Han oido que va a caer?"
"¿Cuando?" one asked, perhaps more credulous than the others. "¿Com-"
"Tengo mis recursos," he said, showing them the card, which they knew was stolen just by looking at the picture. "Fisk va a separar sus-"
"¿Quien eres?"
"Soy Matches Malone; soy de Fisk Enterprise, más o menos. Sí quieres más, es posible encontrarme aquí."
Without saying anything more, he boarded a train. The gangs in this city are a complex network. To get any idea of how they work, I have to make a name for myself, and in that case I have to give away some information. At the same time, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They go back to their bosses and tell them that Fisk is moving assets out of Oscorp, and the boss will do the same.
The spider-shaped tracker that he placed on one of them without their noticing would ensure that he could swing back around to figure out who their boss was.
When he disembarked from the train, he noticed there was a teenager messing with her cellphone, muttering complaints about it. On the display, there was a man in costume, wearing a green, inhuman mask and speaking with a strange, rasping voice. He was not able to see more because the girl gave it up and turned off the phone, stuffing it into her back pocket, but it was playing on another phone, and yet another. He must have come up with a way of abusing cellular data transmission. I haven't seen him in the papers, though. Is there anything about him on the internet, or is he new?
As he passively listened to the illegal broadcast on multiple different phones, walking through a crowd of people who ranged from concerned to indifferent, he discerned that it was a threat for Spider-Man. I should not let people think that he disappeared, even temporarily. If people believe that he did, and then see a somewhat different version enter the scene, they will most likely think of him as a different person taking the place of the original.
"Do you think he's gonna come out?"
"He's gotta. Can't not do anything after you get called out like that."
"I dunno. I never met the guy."
It seemed the hero was at least a topic of conversation for the average person. He made no secret about his presence and his actions, and he seemed to want people to think of him as a hero. Does he even know how difficult that is? How many people would turn on him as soon as it becomes unpopular? How many people would think themselves brave for doing so?
At least in his observation, people did not always seem to be terribly good at determining who was in charge. It was not really a lack of intelligence, he knew because it was a simple thing; it was some combination of not wanting to think about it and not wanting to reach the correct conclusion. As long as the people had some amount of power, what put people in charge was their beliefs; unless everyone was in a working cage and forcibly fed through a tube, the powers that were had to appeal to them in some way, and that started with their basic perception of reality. What had the most influence over that, as far as he could tell, was culturally subjective. In the most traditional contexts, parents and religion had the most influence, and in more modern societies, it was a combination of mass media and the public forum, whatever form that took. These, for better or worse, took the primary role in shaping the beliefs of the average person, with education playing a role during the formative years.
Once outside, he could see the place where the strange enemy had challenged him to a fight. They call this place Time's Square. Is there some reference to Kronos that escapes me? Is there a statue of him somewhere? I saw a statue of Athena in a park; perhaps these people have a sense of nostalgia for Classical Antiquity.
On one of the many screens, the broadcast continued, and he half-listened while forming a plan. I had intended to go back to Oscorp and continue to act as an information broker, but it would be a disaster if this maniac threatens random citizens as a way of drawing Spider-Man out. I don't have much in the way of equipment and I have no idea what he uses to fight, even whether he uses some innate ability or advanced weaponry.
It seemed the police were already responding, which was probably good for the people of New York, but it meant there would be more eyes on everything that transpired, and probably cameras as well. I can't even change out of the suit with everyone watching, even if no one would make the connection between my current appearance and my secret identity.
Spider-Man had one other gadget of interest, however. I need a large, glass window... perfect. Perhaps I'll have to thank Iron Man for ruining the look of the city at some point. Before he could so much as think of anything else, he felt an increasing sense of danger before his enemy appeared, flying on some bizarre craft powered by compact jet engines. How is it even balanced from front to back?
"Urgently we meet, Spider!" he screamed. "You have heard my warning, and you will now decide- or everyone here will die!" Several shots rang out from various officers. I have to act quickly. They have no visible protection from whatever weaponry he brings to the table. Deciding that he would not be able to observe, even for a moment, he took the light off the belt of his costume and shined it, upside-down, at a large window on a nearby building. I can feel bad for anyone working there after I get him out of range of the general public. Fighting his way through the crowd, he entered the building right as it seemed several people were rushing out of it and the enemy was observing how strange it was for Spider-Man to want to take a fight inside. I have no resources on his usual strategies. At the same time, it objectively makes sense to deprive this flying maniac of his mobility.
As soon as he was in the building, he took to the stairwell, jumping up through the middle as it built up around him, bouncing off whatever was closest on his way up, putting on the mask and stuffing parts of his suit into the only thing he could think of at the moment, a bag made of the adhesive solution the gadgets produced. As soon as he was at the top, climbing mostly with his feet, he had everything squared away and sprinted to the edge of the building, surprising himself with his speed. In an urban environment, the only place he can let loose is on the rooftops.
The enemy was approaching the windowpane he had indicated with the brand light only a moment ago as if he suspected a trap, and he was right to be suspicious. Spider-Man leapt from the edge, turning in the air and putting an arm around his neck. The enemy was surprised, not having an equivalent early warning system, and struggled with an unexpected strength, but even as he tried to throw his enemy against the side of the building, Spider-Man braced himself with his boots against the glass, remembering that the tensile strength of windows was stronger at the edges for some reason. It was an awkward position in which to find himself, putting a powerful enemy into a sleeper hold with his feet at either corner of a large window, but it was strangely not even uncomfortable; his body was remarkably flexible. The costumed maniac tried a daring measure of cutting the power to his own flying apparatus, causing it to fall, but Spider-Man was strong enough to hold them both just with his feet on the window, which even he had not expected.
Put simply, the downward force of holding a strong, struggling enemy by the throat, extended along his reasonably tall body, and only braced by the muscular strength in his legs which were flat against the window- it was as if there was simply nothing in the world that could possibly overpower his adhesion. Well, now I know it isn't an epoxy that only I am strong enough to break. The costumed maniac lost consciousness after pretending to lose consciousness, probably for a last ditch effort to break free as the flying machine fell. It's going to hit the people below-
Spider-Man hit the wing with a web almost instinctively, pinning the web to the side of the building and then carrying the unconscious body up the windows, heaving him onto the roof. There were five men in suits waiting for him.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
"We're feds. We heard about this and basically came to arrest him." Federal agents never identify themselves as 'feds'. They're also on top of a highly convenient building. At the same time, Spider-Man is supposed to be trusting and friendly.
"Well, I hope you don't ask me to testify at the trial," he said as they put cuffs on him. "Those won't hold him if he wakes up."
"There's no need. The charges are all criminal acts with countless witnesses. Oh, and the cuffs'll work just fine; we have to bring in super strong criminals all the time."
Overall, there was probably nothing about the scene that would make the regular Spider-Man terribly suspicious. His arachnid early warning systems were not firing, after all. To whomever it was who wore the costume at the moment, however, there was something that did not quite add up.
"I'll see you around," he said, eyes narrowing for a moment.