Over fifty years old and with only a few years left until retirement, Captain George Stacy had once been a high-spirited young man who yearned to make Manhattan a better place after becoming a police officer.
However, decades of a police career had caused the light in Captain George's eyes to gradually fade, growing dimmer and dimmer until it was nearly invisible.
Until now, when he had truly established a cooperative relationship with Batman. At this moment, the old captain's spine couldn't help but straighten considerably, and that spark of hope which had been on the verge of extinguishing was reignited once more, burning fiercely.
He transformed back into the high-spirited young man he had been decades ago, extending his right hand toward Batman.
One police captain, one superhero—two men standing in the light and the shadow gripped each other's hands firmly.
"Right."
Seeing that Batman was about to turn and leave, Captain George hurried to speak up:
"Four or five months ago, a guy calling himself Spider-Man appeared in Manhattan. Judging by the current trends, people seem to consider him a superhero as well, but this guy vanished after just a single month."
Batman paused his departing steps, looking back at Captain George.
The Spider-Man he spoke of wasn't Benjamin Reilly, but the true Spider-Man, Peter Parker.
Captain George spoke at a rapid pace, terrified that if he slowed down even a fraction, Batman would vanish into thin air:
"Now I've received intelligence that Spider-Man has reappeared. But unlike you Avengers, he works entirely alone and doesn't seem to have crossed paths with any other superheroes..."
"He has already been on my observation list for a long time," Batman said.
After those words were spoken, even though Batman stood less than five meters away right in front of Captain George, the captain still failed to catch a glimpse of how Batman suddenly vanished.
He shook his head, wrapped his coat tighter around himself, and lit the third cigarette of the night in the chilly wind.
This time, he smoked it down to the filter drag by drag, and the hope in his eyes grew increasingly vibrant along with the burning ember.
It wasn't until he finished the cigarette that Captain George returned inside the precinct, quickly drafting the details of this cooperation.
At 11:00 PM, with everyone except the duty officers having already gone home, Captain George finally stopped working. Habitually pulling open his drawer, he picked up the Batarang that had been resting there for several months, and drove his police car toward home.
The cold wind howled, but Captain George rolled down his car window, letting the biting chill cut across his face.
It had been many years since he last felt the way he did today.
Footsteps echoed in the stairwell as Captain George unlocked his front door.
His wife was already fast asleep, though a strip of light still beamed through the gap in the door of his daughter Gwen Stacy's bedroom.
There was food on the dining table accompanied by a note in his wife's handwriting.
Captain George smiled from the bottom of his heart, quickly reheating the food and polishing it off in a hurry.
Even after he finished a simple wash-up and prepared to head into his bedroom to lie down, the light in his daughter's room was still on.
Captain George frowned, gently knocking on his daughter's door:
"Gwen? Gwen?"
"Come in, Dad," Gwen Stacy's voice drifted out from inside.
Click.
Captain George carefully turned the doorknob to avoid waking his soundly sleeping wife.
He didn't step inside Gwen's room; instead, he cracked the door open just an inch and leaned his frame against the doorframe.
His daughter, Gwen Stacy, was sitting with her back to him on the swivel chair in front of her desk, holding a book in her hands.
"Gwen, why aren't you asleep yet?" he asked.
No sooner had his voice fallen than Gwen spun around with the chair, revealing the upper half of her face from over the top of the book:
"I'm reading, Dad."
Although Captain George was getting older, his eyesight remained as sharp as it had been in his youth.
He could see clearly that the book in Gwen's hands was none other than a comic book, and he was all too familiar with its cover.
In fact, just hours earlier, he had reached an agreement with the very guy on the cover—one capable of completely transforming Manhattan.
The guy on the cover was Batman; it was a comic book about Batman.
"May I come in?" Captain George asked.
Only after receiving Gwen's permission did Captain George hurry over to her desk and pick up the comic book from his daughter's hands.
The paper and printing quality of the book were abysmal; clearly, it wasn't any sort of legitimate published work, but rather looked more like pirated comic books privately printed by some small workshop.
That wasn't the crucial part, however. The crucial part was: why did his daughter Gwen suddenly start reading Batman comics?
Captain George shifted his gaze away from the comic book to look at his daughter.
Just as he was about to ask a few questions, his attention was first caught by the items scattered across Gwen's desk.
A teacup, bookmarks, a computer desktop background, stickers...
Without exception, all of these items were imprinted with the image of Batman.
Some portrayed him as a knight of the night, while others featured cute, oversized-head chibi designs.
Captain George parted his lips, finding himself somewhat at a loss for words for a moment.
Ever since the Battle of Manhattan concluded, superhero-themed merchandise had flooded the market endlessly; even inside the police precinct, there was a young man deeply infatuated with the Incredible Hulk.
Yet perhaps because long hours of working late-night overtime left Captain George with far too little communication with his daughter, today was the first time he realized his daughter Gwen Stacy was actually a fan of Batman as well.
Taking another look at the walls of his daughter's room, Batman posters and wallpaper were plastered everywhere—she was clearly a hardcore, die-hard fan.
"Dad, what's wrong?" Gwen Stacy looked at her father in bewilderment.
"Nothing, I just wanted to remind you to get some rest early." Captain George had originally intended to put a stop to this kind of celebrity-chasing behavior from his daughter, but the words stalled on his tongue as he thought of the Batman he had met tonight.
It seemed that mildly idolizing a superhero who cared for society's underdogs wasn't such a big deal after all.
"I will, Dad," Gwen said, picking up the Batman comic once more.
The contents of the comic were purely a product of the creator's wild imagination, as it depicted Batman fighting a group of yellow-robed mages wielding magic.
"Gwen, I'm not stopping you from idolizing Batman, but it really is getting late," Captain George said. "If you promise me, maybe I can manage to get you some genuine Batman memorabilia."
Gwen Stacy clearly didn't believe a word of what Captain George was saying. She was no longer a little kid; that sort of coaxing patter might work on a seven- or eight-year-old, but not her.
Yet the instant Captain George pulled that Batarang from his pocket and placed it on the desk with a crisp clink, Gwen's gaze locked onto it immediately.
"This is...? A real Batarang?!" Gwen widened her eyes, looking at Captain George in half-doubt, half-belief. "Dad, you don't have to go out of your way to machine a fake Batarang just to give to me."
"What if I told you this Batarang came from the real Batman?" Captain George said.
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