Chapter 7: Smiles

'I guess I am more me, than I am him, but It's weird. I guess the only part of him that still remains after he 'died', Is his body's neurochemical emotions… from and for most things but not all? Are only the deepest levels of emotion still there?' Jacob thought. He realized that after reading for so long that his mind was buzzing with informative ideas and thoughts and it's hard for him to calm down. He looked at his phone again, seeing her name made him interested in what she had to say.

'Jacob Davis not answering my phone call. I guess we did hit an all time low huh, Smiles. Well, Call me back, we need to met up, you know I hate apologizing on the phone. Text me! Bye… ' Jacob noticed that the voice mail was still running but there was no sound, He pulled the phone closer to his ear until it was pin to it.

"Is it my fault.." Gwen asked in a whisper, she didn't sound like her typical go-getter type of self. She sounded fragile, and alone. Jacob felt his heartstrings tug after thinking about it. He sighed before saying.

"I can't just leave her. I may not want to be friends with her, but he was. I should do him the favor of at least trying to make amends before slowly separating " Jacob turned his attention to his phone, and quickly opened the Messages app.

"Study hall the Tuesday we come back. We can talk there. We NEED to talk." Jacob emphasized. He saw that she opened that message immediately but she didn't respond. Jacob paid no mind, going through his other notifications.

'Rio Morales wired you 50 dollar'

'Cindy: Hey Jaybird, it's me Cindy I was wondering if you wanted to meet a little earlier on?'

'Cindy: Jay*'

'Cindy: Sorry, I like birds so it auto corrected, honestly it should be your nickname. Bluejays are really cool- well some of them are cool. I'm not talking about all bird, like the shoebill, those things freak me out. Mordecai from Regular show is co-'

'Cindy: sorry for texting you so much'

'Cindy: *Crying emoji*'

Jacob flicked her hair back before re reading her messages and then re reading it again. He made a huge grin, before responding.

'Jacob: No Problem SilkWorm. As far as meeting early…Uhh sure? I should be available, just let me know what time.'

'Jacob: And as far as birds, I hate Vultures' Jacob then put down the phone, and grabbed a towel wrapping it around himself, leaving his upper body exposed. He turned back to his laptop, and ran the code, starting Project to which he know named Adam, which would hopefully birth his creation.

'Hopefully I have something promising eventually, maybe in a couple of weeks.' Jacob thought before he left his room, walking down the hall.

Jacob opened the door into his bathroom and climbed into the shower, thinking of the Project he had yet to be fully done with any time soon.

'It's going to take some time before Project Adam turns into anything useful so for the mean time, the Spider is going solo which is the way is should be when he or I starts out.' Jacob plunged into the luke warm waterfall holding his breathe.

'I should just go on some patrols, it might be fun to swing through Gotham, I always wanted to go to the MCU but DC minus Darkseid is fun too, especially since it's not the DCU . I wonder if I can help them fight Darkseid, what could the best of Peter Parkers do against a god?' Jacob thought banging his hand on the Blue tiles that highlighted, accenting the Grey paint of the rest of the room. He finished showering before putting his suit back on minus the mask, He looked around before remembering that he needed shoes and socks. Luckily he had good basketball knee socks, and so he put those one as well as some red Adidas superstars. He went back to his closet, looking for an old empty bookbag, He spotted his dusty navy red Jan sport book bag that looked similar to the one that Andrew Garfield's peter had. He put a regular hood and track pants in there as well as supplies like water, phone charger and most importantly his phone in there, and then put it on his back.

"Nice" Jacob thought before crawling back out of his window, closing it before going onto the roof where night had began to set, He looked towards the sunset, it's pink and purple clashing beautifully. He looked at his mask before he panned to the rest, looking at his body and the clothes he was wearing before putting the mask on and running towards the bridge. Which was directly east to him, it was the Gotham express that was one of the main expressway streets connecting the city, being so high up, it would make for easy swinging, though he wasn't exactly sure where he was going. He found himself jumping from roof to roof again until a huge block came up. Unlike this morning, Jacob went for it, with little hesitance, and jumping across. He looked down towards the crowd, everyone minding their business.

Jacob felt absolutely free in the moment, He wanted nothing more for this to last for everything but soon the people would know his name and he would have to be a hero that the people of Gotham would come to expect from. At least he hoped, it more than just a 15 year old kid trying to live his life, it was a responsibility that he wouldn't know if he was capable of during his 20 years of life in his original world. He would be taking more than most humans on his earth,

'I remember, the biggest worry of mine was trying to find meaning to my life' Jacob thought as his head dipped below his body, now in free fall he felt the adrenaline surround him. Everything became clearer as he descended down this path.

Jacob smiled inside his mask before turning over, and shooting both of webs on a building, He tugged and his body shot away from the street, and into the air. He swung and then let go, trying his best to increase his speed before trying to walk on another building but he found himself hurling towards the ground as his feet didn't stick. He shot another web to building and swung, continuing to swing to another building.

'I definitely need to train first!!' Jacob thought before swinging his body increasing the distance he went. He shot two webs on a building before pulling himself towards the roof of it. Jacob noticed that he went way above he was supposed too.

"Fuck patrolling around Gotham for the moment. I need to become proficient in the basics first, and then sleep but does Gotham have anywhere I can train privately that isn't the batcave?" He then looked on his phone as well as trying to remember any of the secret places from his knowledge of Gotham which wasn't to extensive. He looked on any of the information he could as he sat down on the ledge of a build letting the air pass by his dangling feet.

"There used to be a lot of underground activity next to the coastline, but there's also an abandoned subway station from..the night my father died. Its entryway collapsed and people haven't been down there since. But how will I get down there when connect way that is cut off? Is there might be a sewer line that connects me to it? Well it's either that or one of the tunnel systems near the port where tycoon laid their drugs.?" Jacob looked on his online map, and saw that the first option is 5 minutes away by car, so 2 minutes for him. The other is 30 minutes away. Deciding to go with the easier option, Jacob pointed his organic web shooters to the building across and after a couple of tries got it.

"I so need target practice too" Jacob said as he swung off in the the night. People were used to seeing batman but some looking up into the starless night saw a person that it wasn't the caped crusader and was confused. Some people pointed it out while others shouted, thinking the bat got a new attire. Jacob ignored, them and continued moving on and after a minute of almost falling to his death swinging, he saw the old sign of the subway system stop, but his goal was the sewer manhole cover. He turned his head, and saw that is was in the middle of the street.

"Fuck. Well I might be strong enough" Jacob thought as he wall slide down the building and into the alley way. He got to the ground level, and quickly ran to the manhole cover. He startled an old couple walking past but with a couple of obstacles, Jacob made it the cover. He tried to grab the lid but every time he tried it would slip. Jacob looked and saw truck speeding towards him with no used of grabbing it normally, Jacob laid his hand flush against the cover trying to grab it with his wall crawling ability. Not working, he looked back to the truck that a few feet away honking at him. He kept trying, but as the truck barreled towards him, he wanted to bail out. Jacob felt his hand suction towards the cover. He pulled up, feeling the cover lift as easily as a plastic Frisbee, and quickly went inside and dropped down.

"Woah that was close. Well I am definitely strong. Enough " Jacob blurted out, as he thought he was about to get made into mashed potatoes by the truck. He went to look around only seeing what the dim orange light showed which wasn't much. He went in his back and pulled out his phone before he turned his flashlight but suddenly his vision became clearer as he was back outside

"What the…I have nightvision?" Jacob thought. He put his hand in front of him and sure enough he could see the details of his glove perfectly.

"This makes things so much easier but I need to use my phone eventually so I guess, I'll set it low brightness with a blue light filter on to darken it even more" Jacob quickly changed his phones settings before being able to see the map. He had to travel a couple of yards north which led him to midtown before he reached the station, so Jacob started walking getting used to his new sight and saw a couple of lizard in the sewers as well as a couple of rats.

"This is a sewer, but I didn't expect it to turn into a small animal zoo" Jacob joked. He continued following the map until it he reached a door. He jiggled the door knob but it was locked.

"I guess instead of a hero. I'll just break door knobs and become the famous locksmith with his natural ability to instantly fix knobs" Jacob thought as he tore the door knob out. With the steel door moving freely, he quickly made his way inside, before seeing a unappetizing waterfall. The slightly tainted air invaded his nostrils, hitting him but he quickly ignored it, trying to find something. He looked around only finding himself in a mediocre sized circular room that wrapped around leaving a gap in the middle as well a drop that lead to multiple holes. He jumped down to the closest opening with it being directly under the gap but it just lead of in to a gated off section of the sewer. He jumped between the holes but there was only one of the holes that were actually open and it let directly back the way he came. Confused, he paused looking at his map, seeing if there was any mistakes. He found multiple discrepancies through the different versions of the maps, only to realize that the subway station didn't match up completely with the sewer lines and was offset meaning that he had long past his stop

'There was no entrances, but that could explain the fully abandoned part of the station. It was cemented off for fear it would be used again kill thousands. Jacob looked, at the open whole and decided to follow it for another couple of yards. He picked up the pace, focusing on where he was going until he heard the train going above him, and the entrance of it's station way until it became obvious that he was looking for a door, with no obvious handle.

'A Wall?' Jacob thought. He double checked his maps again, before looking at the wall in front of him. He turned slightly to his left seeing a slightly rusted yellow ladder. He noticed that one part the ladder was used by wear but it there wasn't any wear like that else where but there. He looked down, noticed something particular. He bent down to get a better look.

"There's angular scraping on the floor. A part of the ladder that looks like It was used more than anything. Maybe a door?" Jacob tested his theory and was found right but he pulled the part of the ladder as it detached. A door sized part of the brick wall opened, and what he saw was the abandoned Gothic Subway. He looked up and saw the ceiling had expanded into the beautiful architecture with painting and designs with the best materials that was made obsolete in the 21st century. He saw that the platform sign that let up to the entrance, dirt marking that time it has abandoned due to the entrance collasping during one of the Joker's schemes there.

'Bat evacuated all of the people but it still collapsed on itself when the bomb went off, leaving only the underground subway platform intact and blocking anyone from entering but none could exit, and even if they went through what I did they would be met with the difficulty of getting back and forth conviently. And any stranger that attempted would be met will the trick wall. It's sad that Joker bombed it, the platform had it's clear reign for a while being the third biggest platform of Gotham.' Jacob thought. He looked in the distance and saw underground stores.

'Its specialty was the stores it had before Gotham became so overrun with Joker's insanity again during Batman's beginning tenure with the league. The stores managed somehow. Nobody really came back down here after they lost it, though luckily, it's legacy in the people of Gotham still remain.' Jacob read the sign 'Burnside pit'

"Interesting name, I was thinking about calling it the Davis cave, or the Scarlet Den." Jacob mused himself with a chuckled before looking around and seeing the main attraction. as he noticed that two stores still remaining as well as the atms, Billboards, and other buildings that made it Burnside what it was. Tempted he went over to the atms that were untampered.

"Old Blue Atms, huh. Are they even still around?" Jacob checked, and Old Blue Bank, the bank that owned the atms had became bankrupt after years of scandals from Carmine Falcone, Penguin, and even Queen Industries.

"Well don't mind if I do" Jacob would've thought about returning the money if they were still open, but now that they didn't exist. He wouldn't exactly know what to do about it, so he pocket the money, using it to fund him and help others. Jacob ripped the first door open as clean as easily as opening the fridge. Placing that down. He ripped out the metal cash box before setting that down and check the reject box, repeating that four times. He decided to open all of them at one. The first one. Dud, The second on had $1000. Jacobs eyes lit up but he also felt bad. He knew that he exploiting things no better than villain, but he knew that he needed to find someway to earn money that wasn't exactly time extensive. Plus he could only sell or reuse the items he found besides the cash. Which he found didn't exactly ease his heart. He ripped open the other two before carefully opening up the last one.

'It's about 3269 dollars but 240 from the rejects which all look pretty good. I guess I can get a new computer and some hard drives and run it through a server for my future endeavors… Or I can invest in stock market but that would have to wait till I get more capital.. so I can reinvest in better equipment until I can build or make something feasible' Jacob said as he loaded up the cash in a spring mechanism that the cash box had. He took off his book bag as he thought of the money that would seen be put inside his bank account. He then ripped off the lock of the vending machines looting the coins. He had jumped when he found a couple of Mice chilling inside of their homes, they didn't bother him much. Collecting and store the money there. He then went inside the first store, a small convenience store that had be left a mess, but Jacob didn't care the candy or food inside. He saw the cash registers, and broke the lock taking out the cash and storing them in there. He then saw that they had heavy duty glad bags.

"Lemon scent. Mom would kill to have these" Jacob then back to see a huge purple sign with white text.

'Q-mobile?' Jacob laugh for a couple of minutes, before seeing if they had anything interesting. He broke the lock at the back of the counter, but it seemed like a fire went down as most of the phones on the bottom shelve were way fully crispy. It stopped at that though. It didn't reach the desktop computers that the employees used nor did it touch the top shelf however had some of the older generation of phones but mostly some old gen Q-pods, a blue tooth earplug that increased their Q tech ecosystem.

"A huge rage back in 2008 but l I could use a replacement. For both my phone, and Q-tip pods." Jacob loaded the findings into his bag before looking around in the store for anything else. He found a couple of some heavy duty Hard drives that would definitely need to be stored safely as well as a crap ton of sim cards, thumb drives. He looted the other stores, only finding more cash registers from big belly burger and decided for the moment to use the Q-mobile which took most of the store compare to the convenience store as his base for the moment. In total, he now had 7,690 dollar in missing cash from all of the machines nearby that held cash, as well as hard drives, and other storage units, 3 phones, 10 sim cards, and 10 cases of q-pods. He walked out seeing what as was in this place, and saw an abandoned cart from a crushed subway train. The path had been long destroyed, but the cart itself looked a little more modern than he was expecting it to be.

'Comparing it to the trains now. It looks like it is a couple of generation off' Jacob observed before walking to the door and forcing it open and looking inside

"Good, no skeletons." Jacob looked around and saw the rats had made it their home over the past decade making him shutter a little bit but after looking around, it seems like it held nothing special besides chairs window and a easier passage to the other side. He opened the other side to see the lights working properly. He also found some old construction light so they could see what they were repairing. He looked to see if they worked of if they were plugged but they we sadly all unplugged. Fortunately, there was a curcuit body, and he was a pretty good electrician in his last life.