In The Web Of Gotham

Heart and Mind

Batman sat in the cave, his cowl sitting on the desk behind him as he observed the footage from the mask of Spider-Man. Along with surveying the vital signs that Oracle had recorded down in the coming hour. As he tried to observe and process what he's seeing, he hears the sound of heels clacking behind him.

"I heard from Babs that you might need my help. What's the sitch, Brucie?" Harley asked as she walked up next to the chair and stared at the monitor.

"I sent Spider-Man to talk to Matt about something, and apparently..." Bruce trailed off. The screen then starts showing the brawl that Matt and Peter had in the former's apartment. Harley chuckled at the beginning of the sight.

"Madman Matt Murdock kicked his ass like nobody else," Harley said. Then came the switch, Peter's vitals started skyrocketing. His heart rate shot up, along with his blood pressure, his breathing despite being silent got shallower and suddenly he fought lim a man possessed himself.

In watching Spider-Man fight the crimes he had seen before Batman caught him, he realized that he's exerting a level of strength that he never did before when Batman had seen him previously. Harley seemed to notice immediately what happened.

"He switched. There's someone else in there with him. An alter of some sort....I think he's got what Harvey's got. He's got Dissociative identity Disorder," Harley said.

Bruce had to take a moment to pause and consider that. He knows about Dissociative Identities. He knows that Harvey suffered from an extreme version of it before they started to reach a consensus...a sort of...well a settlement would be the apt statement. He also knows about backup identities in case of being overwhelmed, since he himself programmed one into himself. What he didn't think about was the possibility that Peter had these sorts of mental safe blocks in his own mind.

Then he thought about what he knew about Peter Parker, and then he thought of a question for the psychiatrist olim.

"Can an identity be ambiguous at conception, but take form once given a proper avenue?" Bruce asked. It took a moment before Harley nodded.

"Of course. In psychology, they're called Fragments. Usually they're just able to express a single emotion, maybe two. I've never seen something like a fragment fleshing itself out into another expressive iteration though. Although...it isn't too unheard of. Moony has some of that going on," Harley explained, using Moon Knight and his alters as a frame of reference.

"So Spider-Man might be more of a literal identity than I realized...but usually Peter is pretty talkative when he's under that mask. How do I know when Spider-Man has-"

"I can talk to him, if you want. Figure out who's who, what's what," Harley interjected. Bruce looked at her, with a cautious look in his eyes.

"Are you sure you want to do that? I don't want to accidentally open old wounds for him...or for you," Bruce said. Harley patted his shoulder.

"I'm not going to fall back into my...jester days. I've healed from that now, thanks to your help," Harley countered.

"He should be heading back to his apartment with Selina, so you can talk to him then," Bruce said.

"I'll talk to him," Harley said as she walked away, the clacking heels heading out of the cave.

Back at said apartment, Peter was looking over the Spider-Man suits. His new one splayed in front of him, with his old one hung up on its hanger. They were his suits, he made them both himself but sometimes he felt like it wasn't him wearing the suit. Sometimes he just dips into some place, where he's vaguely aware of what he does....or at least he thinks he is. The memories come back to him when he comes above the water.

He remembered stopping that carjacker, the robber, the Red Hood gang. He just doesn't remember the specifics, he remembers restraining them in webbing. Then he remembered Batman calling his name to pull him back into focus.

It was just aggression.... wasn't it?

Those thoughts got stopped in their tracks as he heard the doorbell ring. Maybe he heard someone's footsteps coming up before, but he was too deep in thought to notice.

"Coming! Coming," Peter said as he shoved the suits beneath a blanket and walked to the door opening it.

"Heya buggy," Harley said, wearing a red top beneath a black jacket and blue jeans with a black diamond patch sewn into it.

"Doctor Qu- Harley. Selina isn't in right now, she went to go crack a safe on some old money block," Peter said.

"I figured, but I was actually here to talk to you. 'Bout some Spidey stuff," Harley said, showing a tablet that had the footage of Spider-Man that she had recorded from the Bat-Computer. Peter actually saw firsthand what he did. He suplexed the carjacker so hard the bricks broke. He choke slammed the armed robber after crushing his gun's barrel with his bare hands. He brutalized the burgulars, threw one of them out the glass door. Smashed the driver's face against the steering wheel.

He didn't remember any of that...why didn't he remember any of it?

"You look confused, memories are a little foggy?" Harley asked sincerely. Peter looked at the footage, then back at the doctor.

"I think so," Peter said. It took a few minutes, and it took a cup of coffee or two before Peter was lounging on the sofa in the classic psychiatric position. Harley was sitting cross legged in the chair adjacent to him.

"So, Selina told me she took you in after you escaped an orphanage. Tell me about that. How did you end up there?" Harley asked, trying to get to the root of this identity issue.

A pang of hurt radiated through Peter's mind as the memories flooded to the surface. Fresh as the day it had happened. Within a split second, he was back at that place. Back behind the gazebo, it was his birthday again and everything.... everything had changed.