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Chapter 25– The Morning After.

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Ahh, I don't want to open my eyes.

I am just so comfortable, surprisingly. I am very lucid as well, not like I was yesterday. At least, I think that was yesterday. I am feeling so good and refreshed that I think I might have slept for an entire week. Where the last time I awoke, I felt like shit and hurt like hell, right now, I am so relaxed, and I feel like I am resting in the middle of a light, fluffy cloud.

Unfortunately, I am wide awake, even if I have not opened my eyes yet. Still, I want to just sit back and relish in the feeling of bliss I have awakened to. In fact, wanting to go back to sleep but knowing that I could not do so in this position, I try and move to face the bed so as to sink into and smother myself to sleep once more. Except, I can't.

As soon as I try to move, I gain full awareness of my body and all my extremities. And I realise that they are all a bit heavier than they are supposed to be and that there is actually something on top of me pressing down on me, and yet I am not frustrated by this weight. On the contrary, whatever is on top of me is soft and feels excellent pressed against me, and with a quick sniff, I discover it smells great as well. But as I move my head, I feel strands of something moving across my face and moving across the front of my nose, and I realise that is where the smell of strawberries is coming from.

Opening my eyes, my vision is full of white. Or, to be more accurate, platinum blonde. Looking down, I see the top of Felecia's head, an ocean of gorgeous hair filling my vision as she is resting with her head atop my chest. My movement must have irritated her in her sleep a bit since she began to move, and I held my breath, not knowing what to do, but then she settled, her hair now out of my face giving me a fantastic view of her sleeping, peaceful face.

I am confused. Not that I am complaining, because obviously, this is a wonderful situation to wake up in, especially after nearly dying. But just how has it come to this. I find it very hard to try and figure out the sequence that could have led to me waking up recovering from a near-death experience to then waking up the next day with Felecia sleeping on top of me in what looks to be my own bed.

Not to mention the fact that this is Felecia, a woman that I have a very weird relationship with. She is a woman that I really have mixed feelings about, and to make things worse, those feelings are each extreme. On the one hand, she is a manipulative woman that uses her feminine wiles to get what she wants and initially approached me to use me to help her increase her riches or get some sort of amusement out of it.

Then on the other, this woman gave me some direction when I was left out in the cold with nowhere to go. So even if it was done with ulterior motives, the result remains the same. And then, even if it started off somewhat sinister, nothing ever came of it, and we slowly settled into a rhythm of helping one another, having fun and being there for one another. I would have wanted and tried for more, but I couldn't bring myself to open up and try with her. I was too cautious, and all I wanted to do was leave this city and live a calm life somewhere.

And yet, I have begun to question my previous course of action now that I nearly died. No doubt I still want to live a calm and quiet life away from New York, the epicentre of trouble in this universe, but I also don't want to have any regrets or miss anything. Life is fleeting. Want and restraint or two sides to a tug-of-war game, and If you do too much of one, you will just end up the worse for it. So the question is, even if it might have burnt and hurt me in the end, would I have regretted not going for it if I died at that point?

You know, at the end of the day, I think- Oh, shit, she's moving around, I think she is waking up, and I- I don't know what to do. How do I handle this? What should I say? Awkward, hey, how are you doing? Do you know why we are like this? No. So casual, hey, I slept great, what about you? No. So Humourous, did you take advantage of me in my sleep? So many options and not enough time. What do I do?

"Uhh." Felecia moans and my instincts quickly take over and do the work for me, forgoing the thinking process entirely. This is why I am a bit surprised when my body flops and the back of my head hits the pillow, my eyes quickly close, and my breathing starts to regulate itself, faking being asleep. But, huh, you know, I had that revelation, and everything about regrets, and the conclusion I came to was that I don't want to regret anything, that I want to take things head on, and yeah, I want to try with Felecia, whatever it is, I want to try.

I guess it is hard for a leopard to change its spots. Even if you have a realisation and realise that you should change, it is not that easy, just like there are still; vestiges of Spider-Man in me, stopping a crime if I see it. Hell, part of me is very much enjoying this Batman crusade I am going on, even if I am justifying it to be in my own self-interest. But, just like the Peter Parker in me is showing its white stripes, the man from the other world in me is revealing himself as well. A man that took the easy road most of the time and ran away from difficulty and conflict and avoided it like the plague.

"Hmm, shit. I guess I am still stuck here, huh? I would have thought he would lose his grip sometime in his sleep." I hear her say something, but I am more focused on beating myself up for immediately turning my back on my new philosophy right after I had just made it. It's weird because I have been facing fists, guns and bombs all the time while being Batman, and I never flinched, not once. And yet, when it came to Bullseye, who is, at the end of the day, just a normal guy with supernatural accuracy, I bolted. Yeah, maybe it was because I was bleeding out, and I had a big hole in me. But, the fact remains, I am stronger, tougher, smarter and all-around better than him, and I could have won against him. But my instinct was to flee; I came upon a hard fight and got hit and ran away.

Ever since I woke up in that smoke stack and climbed my way out of its depths, I have been on easy mode, enemies having low health and low awareness with me having a fuck ton of health. But then, I was booted up to moderate, and I fucking shit the bed and flailed like a dying fish. I wasn't on easy mode, I was just in the tutorial, and the difficulty level is actually on the hardest possible level, realistic. I, I think- I think I know my problem.

"Hey Felecia, I had an awesome sleep. The best I think I have ever had. What about you?" I think too much. That is my problem, and it has been the thing fucking me up the most. This world is scary, and I get caught up in my thoughts, fretting over my worries and problems. And from there, it snowballs, my mind racing and jumping to all sorts of conclusions and jump of points till I have frightened myself into bad decisions and an unhappy life- Fuck, I'm doing it again.

"W-What? You are awake, Ben?" Felecia says, her head quickly jolting up from where it was resting atop my chest as she backs away slightly, though she doesn't move that far for some reason, and her arm is still leaning over me. Her face, which showed slight alarm at my woken state, quickly dulls to a neutral look, not showing any emotion. Hmm, I guess we are a bit similar.

"I have been for a while. I just wanted to enjoy the extraordinary situation I awoke to." So I say, forcing myself past my own worries and concerns and brutally pushing forward the words. And I have to say, it feels... like shit. Like, the words come out, and I can physically feel them somehow damaging me as they leave. And if it hurt to come out, then it definitely pained me as they hung in the air in silence. Thankfully I have enough control over myself to keep a casual languid smile on my face, even if my face wants to distort into a cringe.

"...Yeah. So, could you let go of my wrist now?" Felecia's face stays neutral as she replies after a moment, deciding to sidestep what I just said entirely. Before I can get lost in a mire of despair and embarrassment, I quickly consider what just happened and come to a different conclusion. Felecia's automatic response to most things is flirting and seductiveness sprinkled with some irony and sarcasm, yet there was none of that there.

She ignored it entirely, which was way out of her usual response parameters, so she definitely felt something. Or maybe I am just making it up to make myself feel better- no, no, let's not go down that road and start spiralling; that way leads to depression. So, no, I think I will stick to the first version of events for my mental health- wait, what was that about a wrist?

"Oh, shit. Sorry, I didn't even realise. How long have I been holding it for?" I say after looking down and realising my hand was gripping her wrist, not hard enough to bruise but not soft enough to let her free. I quickly let her go, and as she goes to rub her wrist, I think it over and put two and two together. At least now I know why Felecia was sleeping on the same bed as me, which was strange, but that still doesn't explain why she was asleep on my chest.

Yeah, she couldn't leave because of my hand gripping her wrist, but she could have managed to sleep in a different position. I woke up on the right side of my bed with Felecia being on the left, having enough space for herself. With the length of my arm and her own, especially in my drugged state, she could have positioned my arm to come over my own chest, allowing her to sleep on that side even if she had to sleep on her stomach. She had that option, but instead, she rested on my chest. And yet again, I have gotten lost in my thoughts and whipped up various ideas. Stay in the moment, Ben.

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"Since I put you to bed, you grabbed on and wouldn't let go. You were too strong, even half dead, and I had to sleep here." I nod my head in understanding, sitting up in bed. Felecia seeing me getting up quickly, moves as well and sits up before scooting away from me to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Oh, well, sorry. I guess the drugged-up me is a lot more honest and open than the usual me." So I say, feeling the urge to stand up and stretch, my body feeling constricted and cramped, probably because my body had been very stationary for the last couple of days when it is used to being active all the time. It's like having a bike and never riding it when the bike wants to be ridden. The bike is dying. Ha, friends' reference. I need to start watching that again. It makes me feel better.

"Yaaawn." I yawn as I get out of bed and face the open window, stretching my body out. A series of pops and bursts echo out as I move my body, the staleness and lethargicness evaporating from my body. There are some aches and pains, though, but nothing alarming, and I have definitely felt worse than this after a typical night out on the town. Finally, I am brought out of my thoughts by a cough from behind me, and I can tell it is not a normal one but a getting your-attention cough.

"Ben, you might want to, uhh... cover up." I turn around to see Felecia still sitting on the bed, her body facing mine, but her head is turned to the left, averting her gaze from me. After registering her words, I look down at myself and embarrassingly realise that I am fully naked, apart from the bandages around me that don't cover up any of the intimate areas. Without wasting a second, I spring towards the bed and lift the cover before diving in, jolting Felecia around on it from my impact.

Now back in the bed, with the covers covering my lower body, I relax though that does nothing to hide the feeling of essentially revealing myself in all of my entirety to someone. Still, the realisation that I am naked also points to the fact that I was put in the very same state when delivered to my bed, and there is only one person here that could have done that. So, obviously, Felecia has already gotten an eye full, and I have vague memories of waking up yesterday and nonchalantly bearing it all.

Those drugs really fucked me up and made me very casual, as I otherwise would not have done that, ever. And yet, I kind of envy that state. The freedom, the fearlessness to be that open and uncaring. No fears, no worries and no fucking cares, purely just being and doing what you want. So is it wrong that I kind of want to get my hands on some drugs now and use them to take the edge off? I mean, I am not an actual superhero, and I don't have to be a role model for anyone.

I mean, Peter would never go near anything even slightly illegal. A definite goody two shoes if something drastic doesn't occur and send him out of wack. But while part of Peter is me, I am not Peter. So, I think it would be alright for me to partake in some of that good stuff, just to help me relax a bit. Nothing too hard or seriously fucked up, but maybe a little weed every now and again, just to help me stop worrying over all the fucking all-powerful beings that will eventually set their sights on planet earth... Fuck, I definitely need it now.

I mean, I have never really done any of that stuff, not as Peter and not as the man from the otherworld. I stayed away from all that stuff in both memories. Peter, because he was overall just raised to be good and was still very young when his sense of responsibility kicked in and didn't allow him to addle himself with drugs when h could be helping people. And as the other man, he lived a very strict and sheltered life, raised in a traditional and cold family. So he just never had the opportunity to do such things. But me, I have neither of those things, no family to get upset when they find my pot, nobody to get angry and whip my ass if I were to do something wrong. So in this life, I am unfettered and can try all the things I never had before.

"I- I need to go and shower. I have things I need to do today." Felecia says after a moment, speaking up after me staying silent and staring at her after her informing me of my nudeness. Obviously, my sprinting into bed and quickly covering myself up has revealed that I am not quite as casual and nonchalant as I have been making out, and picking up on that seems to have affected Felecia as well as she gets up and moves to leave the room without looking back.

"Alright, well, I will still be here. Recovering. Feel free to hop in tonight as well. I had a really great sleep." Acting on impulse, I blirt that out before she leaves, not wanting to leave it on such an awkward note. If it wasn't clear already, I did not succeed in changing that impression as I very much furthered the cringe. Felecia stopped at the door after I said that, not turning around. I try to think of something to say quickly, to offset all the shit I just said. She walks off before I can get anything out.

Shit. I think I fucked that up beyond belief.

I guess I am not so good at this flirting and subtle bullshit. I think it would be better if I was just straight up instead of drawing it out. At least that way, I can come to a resolution and not waste my time. I am tired of wasting my time when I could be using it on living life.

... I really need to get my hands on some weed.

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Alright, so here I am. A couple of days after having a piece of rebar plunge through my mid-section, losing a ridiculous amount of blood, and somehow managing to come back from the brink of death, roaming the streets and keeping an eye out for a dealer or something. I am in my Batman outfit, sealing up the hole with some duck tape I coloured black for the time being, and out on the prowl once more.

Not even a fucking hole going straight through my body is going to stop me, not even close. So I rested at home for a while, watching TV and eating a whole bunch of food, feeling incredibly hungry. But my body felt a little stale after a while, and I needed to go out and get some fresh air. And not a walk in the street because that would not stretch my limbs at all. I needed to get back on the horse and really get my body back to fighting fit.

Some might think I am getting back out there too soon after nearly fucking up and dying, and I also thought about that. But then I decided, fuck it. I have decided on a new way to live my life, and I am sticking to it in almost everything I do. So instead of getting hung up and worrying over every little thing, like if Bullseye is going to come for me again with maybe even some backup, I decided to get out there. Fuck those guys. If I see 'em, I'll tear their arms and legs off, see what they can do then.

Oh, forget all that. I just found exactly what I have been looking for. I come to a stop at the edge of a rooftop and peer down to see two guys huddling together around a garbage bin. And that bin is not holding a fire inside. At this time of the year, at this time of the day, in this part of the city, localised entirely in this little alleyway. There is only one thing they can be doing, and that is nothing legal. Well, they could be doing something else, but given the cleanly dressed one and the gaunt other, I don't think that is the case.

And yeah, as I watch a slim packet being handed over from the clean man to the gaunt one, my suspicions are confirmed that I have discovered a drug dealer and a drug taker. I don't bother wasting time. This is not a trap since I just chanced upon this, and I can't be bothered to waste time thinking about how to handle two miscreants when they are so below my level.

I jump down, not even bothering to open my cape or anything because a drop of this height is something I should easily be able to handle. I land right next to them, with only a slight twinge in my torso though I ignore it in favour of looming of the two men before me, who quickly realise that they are in danger. Even so, they don't make a move, merely turning to look at me with whole-body shivers, stopping their transaction. The little baggy of what I assume to be cocaine or heroin hanging from the dealer's hands, yet to drop into the waiting palm of the druggie.

Reaching forward, I grab the bag, finding no resistance as I pull it away, both of them too frightened to do anything. And then I look at the druggie, who shivers even further under my gaze, which is not the result of his drug abuse. "Leave," I say, wanting him to go so I can deal with the criminal. I know that if I were a proper hero, I should probably deal with this guy as well, but the only person he is hurting is himself, and I can't be bothered enough to try and stop a self-destructive person. That's not my job.

"I-I... C-Can I just get my m-m-money back..." The audacity of this bitch to realise he won't be getting the drugs and will be allowed to leave, and then to try and get his drug money back. Am I not scary? Am I not dressed as a black bat? Is he blind? Can he not see my eyes boring into his very being?

"S-So?" I-Is this fucker, serious? Pissed off, I reach forward with my other hand and gently grab onto his nose, the offending nose that he would have used to snort this white shit, and I twist it slightly, drawing a painful scream from him as he quickly falls backwards, clutching his broken nose. As he quickly turns and scurries away, not bothering about his drugs or money now as he flees for his life. Let's see how he's going to enjoy any drugs with a broken nose.

Turning to look at the dealer, who still hasn't made any move, as if I am a T-Rex that reacts to movement, I reach out and grab onto his shoulder, hearing a sharp intake of air from him as I do so. Clenching down on it, slowly increasing my strength until I can listen to the creaking of his bones with my enhanced hearing and then maintain that strength. The pain must be very high, but surprisingly the dealer only lets out a whimper, so kudos to him.

"Where is the rest," I say simply, not really expecting to get an answer. But still, figured I would test my luck and see if I could get anything out of this. "T-There is a warehouse. F-Full of cocaine, heroin, weed. E-Everything... Please don't hurt me..."

Well, what do you know? Looks like things are looking up, and would you believe it? I was just wondering where I could score some weed.

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"Hey, Ben. I'm back... Is everything okay?" I say, closing the door behind me. I-. Well, I left in kind of a hurry because it was pretty weird this morning. I mean, it was fine when he was casual and didn't bother about it. That way, I was okay with it too, but that was clearly because he was still drugged up. This morning he was wide awake, and while he tried to play the whole situation off, he was clearly embarrassed by his nudity and a bit awkward, and the fact he was like that also changed it for me for some reason and made it weird. I don't know why, and that is why I left.

It is now, only after the sun has been down for a while that I have come back. Those words left my mouth for some reason, even though I left to avoid him. But I have said it now, and so I have to walk forward with it. Hopefully, he is still asleep and didn't hear me. That way, I can-

"Ben! What happened! Where are you!" Walking further in, I can see a whole bunch of smoke, and I worry for a moment that whoever tried to kill him the other day has come to try again, so I rush forward into the living room, concerned for his well-being. He was just saved from death, and he is in no position to defend himself.

"Oh, heyyy, Felecia." Ben replies, sitting on the sofa in the middle of all that smoke. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, as if he is seeing something that isn't there. I worry again that maybe he has been poisoned or something, but then I spot the white stick hanging from his lips.

This bastard is high.