At this point, hopping through the city had become synonymous with walking for me. I didn't have to maintain the same level of caution and focus I used the first few days.
With the ever watchful eye of Spider Sense added to the mix, my freed up mind allowed me to focus on other things, such as asking Felicity's mom out.
Did I want an actual relationship with her? The answer was no. I was horny and she was hot. The fact that she was related to a major character (in the Arrowverse) also played a part. I couldn't explain that one though.
However, like any reasonable adult, I was willing to work towards something more meaningful if she was down for it. Her age didn't matter at all to me. If it actually became a problem though, this was DC.
There had to be a couple of loony scientists pursuing immortality. It'd just be a matter of finding them or their work. Still, all of this hinged on her agreeing to go out with me. If not, I'd have to set my sights elsewhere.
As had become the norm these past two weeks, I arrived home safe and sound, though a bit tired than normal. Checking the time and coming to a decision, I pushed back the trip to the bar and threw myself into bed.
When the alarm exploded at the two hour mark, it took every ounce of willpower to not destroy my phone. Though I was feeling way better than I did before.
A quick but thorough shower later, I changed into fresh, comfortable clothes and left my apartment, setting off for the tavern like a normal person, forgoing the roofs this time.
I saw Donna the instant I arrived. She was serving a customer, so I waited till she was done and raised a hand to signal her. She smiled as soon as she realised it was me, a subdued semi-professional thing.
That told me a lot about my chances, but I didn't let it deter me. A definite "no" was better than ambiguity. Looking around and finding my favourite corner occupied, I settled for the next best thing and she joined me soon after.
"Hi," she greeted. "Welcome. What can I get you?"
"Two large burgers and two medium sized cokes."
She mouthed my order and finished with "coming right up."
It didn't take her long to return with the stuff. She set it down and I nearly couldn't resist the urge to dig in. With my other agenda still unsettled though, I looked at her and smiled, "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you about something. Won't take much of your time."
Her face showed some conflict and she looked back at the bar and then the entrance that led to the back.
"Is this about Felicity? I called her last time and apparently she's no longer in college. She has a job now. I mentioned you, Elliot right? But she said she doesn't remember."
Oh fuck.
If I was drinking that coke I'd be choking right now. "Uhh no. I wanted to talk about you, and me actually. I wanted to see if you'd like to go out. Like a date."
"Awww," her face turned motherly all of a sudden. "My baby girl left quite an impression huh."
I smiled at her, making sure to convey my meaning through it. "Seems to run in the family."
"Ohh," she laughed, quite loudly, "I'm flattered, really. But you're a bit too young for me. You're better off with someone, what's the term kids use these days, 'your speed.'"
It didn't take much to keep how much bummed out I was off my face. "I understand," I simply smiled and nodded. "Thanks for giving it to me straight."
"Oh, don't you worry about it," she turned and started walking away. "Enjoy your meal. I'll be here if you need anything."
'Anything? Don't make promises you don't intend to keep lady.'
Disappointed, hungry, and worried all at the same time, I decided to deal with the only solvable one of those things and picked up one of the burgers. I bit into it and started to chew, thinking about what she said about Felicity.
Of course she doesn't remember me. I have records proving I'd lived in this world my whole life, and nowhere in them would you find any sort of overlap with Felicity Smoak.
We've never been in any place together. The only image I had of her was from a show, and if she was like anything I remembered, she could dig all of this up easily.
This made me a bit worried, but only a bit. The worst she could do was accuse me of lying, and that wasn't a crime. At least not in this circumstance.
Nodding at the end this train of thought had brought me to, I finished the last bit of the first bite and dug into the burger with gusto, opening one of the cokes to get its sweet help in washing it down.
My only meal of the day went uninterrupted from start to finish, the food fit for two vanishing into my stomach in record time. After wiping my hands and lips clean, I gestured to one of the waitresses and paid what I owed.
With a fresh bottle of whiskey in hand, I left the bar and took out my phone, checking for any of Mike's updates. There were a few, one about the 3D printer shops and the others about the ebooks.
The one that stood out to me though, was the calculated proceedings from some of the coding jobs he'd done. Once again, I had to remind myself that Mike, while very human in terms of interaction, ultimately wasn't one.
He worked fast. Maybe a bit too fast. Because why was I set to receive 500 dollars in my bank account in the coming days? And this was from just four gigs. At least, he heeded my advice to not stand out.
"If it's like this, then I don't need the jobs anymore," I typed out, "I can even finish the bike before the month ends. Hell, I can even buy one of the 3D printers you sent."
I hit send and got a message back instantly. "Are you coming back?" read the reply.
"Want to go home and crash for a bit before work. What do you think? Should I take the leap and quit?"
"I suggest you wait for the two weeks pay to arrive first. Otherwise your efforts would've gone to waste."
"Right," I hurriedly tapped the keypad, "Though does it really matter? We can make significantly more in a shorter time if we go full-on on the coding."
"That's true. Ultimately, it's your decision."
"I'm quitting. I'm on my way back. Expect me soon."
"Don't forget to bring a pillow."
I frowned at that text and hurriedly sent back, "Where the hell am I gonna find a pillow? And why would I walk around with it? Do you know what that looks like?"
"You can buy an inflatable one. Here: link"
My fingers blurred across the touchpad for a while before I paused, sighed, and reversed everything just as fast. Knowing what this was about, I typed four simple words and hit send.
"Sure. See you soon."
.
.
.
.
It had taken a month of sleepless nights and a shitload of money, but we were finally at the point where I could replicate powers with my tinker specialization.
After buying a used 3D printer for cheap and bothering the clerks at a printer shop in a mall by eye fucking their displayed goods for the better part of half an hour, I'd gotten what I needed to up my game.
Buying the lasers, fake diamonds, and the plethora of other parts had eaten a good chunk of the proceedings from the coding gigs, but the sacrifice was well worth it.
I had finished my bike a week ago, improved it even further, and built a custom made printer that could break down stuff and print out not just plastic, resin, and glass, but metal too, textiles being the one thing it still fell short at.
Though even that had a solution in the works. It would just take a bit more time and money.
On the topic of replicating my powers, I had started writing a predictive program modeled after Spider Sense, but it was a ways off from completion. And I was still undecided if I wanted something like that existing anyways.
Too much disastrous potential if you ask me.
For wallcrawling though, the boots and gloves were done, and I was just about to test out the former. I don't know how the other spider guys did it, but shoes with flat soles felt absolutely wrong on my feet.
I preferred thick soles, ones that thumped when you walked. It was a pair of such combat boots that I had installed the tiny devices that applied the molecular adhesive effect on, and it was time to see if they worked.
"Recording, wallcrawling footwear, test 1," Mike said, his voice reverberating through the workshop.
Clad in loose cargo pants and a simple shirt, I looked at the wall right in front of me and raised my right foot. I pressed the sole against the painted brick, flexed my big toe a certain way and then pulled my leg back.
My foot refused to budge and I smiled. Emboldened by the success, I followed suit with the other foot. With the same toe triggering and deactivating motions, I slowly walked upward until I reached the edge of the ceiling.
Just as I was about to step on it and hang upside down, the back of my head tingled mildly and I whipped my head towards where the sense prompted me to look; the computer screens.
"I believe we are being hacked," Mike said the moment my eyes fell on him. "I am rebuffing the attempt. Tracing the location… they are… outside."
Landing with a loud thump, I darted to a table and grabbed a mask I'd finished working on a few days ago and pulled it over my head. A pair of gloves came next and then a jacket.
"Keep them out and secure our files. I'll go out and check things."
"Securing. Be careful."
"Always."
Bounding out of the room, into the main display that now held car skeletons, and then up the staircase leading to the roof, I jumped multiple steps at a time and emerged from the door.
Already in a crouched position and senses on high alert, I rushed to the edge of the roof and scanned the lot, finding the anomaly immediately. Parked far away from the old, rotting car carcasses was a modern one, sitting by its lonesome as though to distinguish itself.
It was occupied by a lone person, a blonde with glasses and a ponytail, her face buried in a laptop. Those three things I observed brought someone to mind, but that only made me do a double take.
It couldn't be right? That couldn't be Felicity Smoak. THE Felicity Smoak. What was she doing here trying to hack me? What in the actual fuck.
This had to be about her mother. It was the only thing that made sense. If so then—I paused, then pulled off the mask, stuffing it into my jacket pocket. No need to reveal my secret identity, even though my presence here was damning anyway.
Watching her closely to make sure she didn't see this, I leapt off the roof and dropped straight down, rolling to hide behind one of the cars as soon as I touched down.
As if to mock my efforts at a stealthy approach, I heard a car engine start right after. Forgoing stealth completely, I dashed out of the row of cars and darted towards her revving mini cooper.
She screamed upon seeing me and accelerated, swerving out of my path. I matched her movements and rushed in front of the car, earning myself another piercing scream.
A bang echoed when I stopped the vehicle dead cold with both hands pressed down on its bonnet, its wheels spinning and throwing rocks desperately.
Looking eye to eye for the first time, I registered the storm of emotions behind those glasses of hers and read her next intent just as easily.
She looked down to her right, and just before she could put the car into reverse, I hooked my hands beneath her bumper and lifted, earning a series of panicked screams and yelps.
I lifted the car till its rear end was inches away from the ground and stopped. Using one arm to keep it in place, I carefully maneuvered over to the driver side window.
"Please don't kill me," was the first thing I heard.
"Kill you?" I frowned, the thought of how to reverse this on her coming to mind. "Why would I do that? You're the one stalking me."
She looked genuinely offended as she fixed her skewed glasses. "St–stalking? You're the one stalking me and my mom! We never went to school together!"
"Of course we didn't. It was a lie to initiate conversation with her. You know, like most guys do when they want to ask a pretty woman out."
The "eewww" didn't have to be said. It was practically written on her face. "Then how did you know who I was?"
"I saw her and I remembered that she looked very much like a girl I had a crush on. I didn't remember where I saw her, but I remembered her name, that's how I knew."
She looked skeptical at that cooked up story but didn't voice it. Probably because I was holding up a car with a single arm with her still inside it.
"I'm gonna lower the car, and we're gonna talk, like reasonable adults. Agreed?"
She closed her eyes and nodded frantically. "Mmhm."
With even greater ease, I brought the car down gently, keeping my eyes on her even when the wheels touched gravel. She clutched her steering wheel tight but didn't do anything else.
Good.
"How did you do that?" she asked, still seated inside the car with the seatbelt on.
"I have powers. My turn," I leaned on the car. "How did you find me?"
She actually looked and sounded guilty. "I uhh, may have hacked a couple of security cameras at my mom's workplace and worked from there."
"What does 'worked from there' mean?"
"I answered your question. It's my turn."
I sighed. "Go ahead."
"What are your powers?"
Internally debating what to say while watching for any prompting from Spider Sense, I decided to give her… something. "Super strength. Explain what you did when you got my picture. I'm assuming that's what hacking the security cams got you."
"Yes. With your image, finding out everything else was easy. That's how I knew we'd never crossed paths. You have to understand, I was worried about my mom. This strange guy knew my name and used it to get close to her. So I tracked your phone and well, you know the rest. What are you doing here by the way?"
"Secret base. Every superhero has one."
"Wait… are you that guy who's been beating up criminals in this area for the past month? Night Monkey?"
"What?!" I spun to face her. "Where did that come from?"
As though she anticipated this, she fiddled with her phone for a bit and held it out, showing me a blurry video that most likely had been recorded from someone's room.
It was dark and hard to see, but it showed me in my all black getup weaving through the furious but sloppy attacks of a group of twelve. I remembered that night. They were kids playing gang. Gave them a couple of slaps and sent them packing.
Displeased with the name but chalking it up to my own non-existent handling of my image, I dismissed the topic from mind and focused on the current, pressing problem. It was my turn to ask a question.
"You know my secret now. What are we going to do about it?"