For Peter Parker, Joey was the only useful lead besides Dr. Connors.
And for Joey, this version of Peter Parker was nothing but trouble.
"How exactly am I supposed to explain this in a way you'll believe?" Joey glanced at him helplessly. "I literally just looked at the research data and calculated the answer."
Peter obviously wasn't buying it.
"How could anyone possibly calculate something like that instantly? And how could you even see the research files? You were standing downstairs the whole time!"
"Excuse me. Coming through."
Joey casually pushed Peter aside and continued walking toward the nearest bank while holding Starfire's hand.
"I saw it because I saw it. Same way I can currently see that your backpack contains a half-eaten sandwich with ham, pickles, and salad dressing. The wrapper's already torn too. If you don't take it out soon, that Yashica Electro 35G film camera next to it is gonna suffer."
The moment he heard that, Peter immediately swung the backpack from his shoulder to his chest, unzipped it, and pulled out both the damaged sandwich bag and the camera that had only barely gotten sauce on it.
That Yashica camera had been a birthday gift from Aunt May, bought under serious financial strain. Peter absolutely refused to let anything happen to it.
"How did you…"
Peter obviously knew what was inside his own bag.
But how did the other guy know the sandwich wrapper had broken and gotten sauce onto the camera — something even Peter himself hadn't noticed yet?
It was almost like…
X-ray vision.
Finally understanding how Joey had seen the research materials upstairs, Peter still refused to let the issue go.
"That still doesn't explain anything! You're telling me you glanced at some research files and immediately derived the final solution?"
Peter was an extremely smart kid, even before becoming Spider-Man. He understood perfectly well how absurdly complicated that research project was.
Dr. Connors had spent over a decade chasing that answer without success.
Yet this guy had written it down in minutes.
Even with the proper knowledge base, shouldn't something like that require a supercomputer?
If this dude was really that absurdly smart, why wasn't he out there solving the three-body problem instead?
Peter, being both blunt and incapable of shutting up, immediately voiced all of those thoughts aloud while chasing after Joey and Starfire.
And unexpectedly—
Joey actually answered him.
"The three-body problem? You mean the irregular orbital motion between three stars? What's so difficult about that? You just—"
Mid-sentence, Joey arrived at the bank entrance. After thinking for a brief moment, he realized the problem would actually take some effort to calculate properly, so he gave up.
"Actually, forget it. Why even calculate it? Just extinguish the other two stars. Then the three-body problem becomes a one-body problem."
As a sci-fi nerd himself, Peter had briefly felt genuine anticipation, expecting some earth-shattering answer.
Hearing that response instead made him feel personally insulted.
"What kind of answer is that?!"
The guy said it like extinguishing stars was as easy as flipping off lightbulbs!
"It's not that easy," Joey replied seriously. "You'd still need to spend some effort figuring out how to do it. But it's probably simpler than solving an eighteenth-order differential equation."
Watching Joey pull out the check and prepare to transfer the money into another account, Peter felt like his worldview was collapsing.
"I don't understand."
Peter genuinely couldn't comprehend it.
If Joey possessed abilities like these, then why did he even bother going to Oscorp for a mere eight million dollars?
"Because I never needed the eight million in the first place," Joey answered calmly. "Someone else did."
From Joey's perspective, he could clearly see every cell inside Peter Parker's body undergoing transformation.
Very soon, this skinny high school kid would obtain the powers of Spider-Man.
"You don't need to understand right now," Joey said while looking at him. "You'll understand someday."
"Ungh—"
Peter suddenly inhaled sharply.
He instinctively pressed against his temple, feeling as though something was terribly wrong.
His entire body trembled faintly.
A tingling sensation like weak electrical currents crawled through his nerves.
The feeling resembled instinct itself warning him of approaching danger.
This was the Spider-Sense possessed by every Spider-Man — a sixth sense capable of detecting danger before it arrived.
"Sir, I think there might be dan.…where'd he go?!"
Peter subconsciously tried warning Joey, only to realize the man had already disappeared.
The only one left standing there was Starfire, hidden beneath sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat that concealed her expression.
Though he had no idea what was happening, Peter hesitated briefly before deciding to trust his instincts.
"Uh, ma'am… I think there might be dan—"
BOOM!
The heavy impact against the bank's glass entrance doors interrupted him.
Screams erupted throughout the crowd.
Outside the bank came a loud, distorted roar:
"This is a r-robbbery! Hand over your cash!"
Everyone turned toward the entrance.
Standing outside was a gigantic humanoid figure several meters tall, its entire body composed of constantly shifting sand.
At that moment, the creature slammed its massive sandy arms against the bank doors again and again.
BOOM!
Even under impacts like that, the revolving glass doors somehow still hadn't shattered.
Peter couldn't help admiring the bank's construction quality.
No.
Now that his enhanced senses had awakened, Peter noticed something else.
A nearly invisible pale-green barrier covered the entrance, blocking every single attack from the sand giant.
Hidden beneath her coat nearby, Starfire's Green Lantern ring glowed faintly.
Right now, all she needed to do was prevent this suddenly appearing — and apparently mentally unstable — Sand thing from breaking into the bank and hurting civilians.
Someone else would handle the actual fight.
Having removed the black-rimmed glasses he'd only recently started wearing and finished changing outfits by pulling open his collar, Joey descended from the sky.
Looking down at the mountain of living sand assaulting the bank entrance, Joey could only sigh.
"Being an ordinary New York citizen really isn't easy."
"That's enough, Sandman!"
Sandman — yet another one of Spider-Man's iconic enemies.
Joey genuinely felt like he'd already encountered way too many Spider-Man villains in a single day.
First Dr. Connors before becoming the Lizard.
Then Norman Osborn before becoming the Green Goblin.
And now Flint Marko, already transformed into Sandman…
Wait.
Flint Marko?!
Joey's memories immediately rolled back to the previous Christmas Eve.
What had that petty mugger called himself again?
And hadn't he mentioned having a terminally ill daughter?
Only now did Joey realize that he had already met Flint Marko before he became Sandman.
And he had personally sent the guy to prison.
In the original timeline, Flint became Sandman after escaping custody and accidentally stumbling into an experimental site in a desert area, where he was exposed to excessive particle radiation and transformed into what he was now.
Apparently, even in this version of events, fate had still dragged him down the same path.
And honestly, it wasn't strange at all that the first thing Flint did after gaining the power to manipulate sand was rob a bank.
He still had a daughter waiting for impossible medical bills to be paid.
What kind of desperation could force someone like that onto the road of crime?
Joey thought—
"Cough."
Seeing Starfire already beginning to frown inside the bank, Joey realized this probably wasn't the time to keep joking around like a reporter doing social commentary.
He immediately focused on dealing with Sandman properly.
Fortunately, handling someone with abilities like Sandman's wasn't particularly difficult for Joey.
At the very least, it was a lot easier than solving the three-body problem.
Relaxing the restraints on his bio-field slightly, Joey began spinning at incredible speed, generating an extremely precise tornado.
With assistance from Starfire's Green Lantern barrier, every single grain of sand composing Sandman's body was swept high into the sky.
After receiving the emergency call, NYPD officers arrived at lightspeed with sirens blaring, slamming on their brakes before leaping out with weapons drawn.
Using their squad cars as cover, they instinctively aimed their guns toward the entrance.
"Don't move! Put your han… where's the criminal?!"
A little boy with a runny nose, standing among the gathered crowd of onlookers, enthusiastically raised his hand to explain:
"That super guy came! Then there was a tornado—whoosh, and that Sandman disappeared!"
"…Huh?"
After escaping police custody, Flint Marko had spent days hiding and running.
In his panic, he accidentally wandered into a sealed experimental facility.
When he emerged, he had become a mass of living sand.
After gaining powers, the first thing he naturally tried to do was exactly what he'd been doing before—get money for his daughter's treatment.
Except he had barely escaped one nightmare before running headfirst into another.
First, he'd been beaten half to death by some polite, iron-bodied man who maybe could read minds before getting thrown into a police car.
And now he'd been sucked into the sky by a caped lunatic who could summon tornadoes!
Sandman genuinely felt wronged.
All he wanted was enough money to save his daughter.
Why did everything always go wrong?!
To avoid being completely dispersed by the tornado, Sandman had no choice but to forcibly gather himself back into human form.
The instant he did—the violent winds stopped.
And immediately afterward, a powerful hand grabbed him by the collar.
Why did that feel so familiar?
Sandman didn't even have time to think about it, because based on experience, getting grabbed by the collar usually meant a brutal beating was coming next.
Except… the beating never arrived.
Instead, Joey handed him a check.
Eight million dollars.
And then he spoke his daughter's name.
"Your daughter's name is Penny, right?"
Sandman's eyes widened instantly.
"You're the guy from the alley the other day!"
Now he finally understood why the gesture felt so familiar.
"It was you… You're Superman!"
After Joey accidentally achieved the legendary feat of painting half of Queens red with one punch, the name Superman had spread across New York almost overnight.
Even Sandman recognized the newly emerged superhero who had only appeared publicly once.
"You actually remembered my daughter…"
Flint Marko had always been little more than a thug and drifter with no stable livelihood.
And now that he realized this money was completely legitimate, his emotions became indescribably complicated.
"I… I don't even know how to repay you. If there's ever anything you need me to—"
"No," Joey interrupted calmly. "All I need is for you to stop being a criminal from now on."
From the very beginning, Joey had never helped Flint in order to gain gratitude.
And any repayment Sandman could offer was meaningless to him anyway.
The enemies Joey faced were far beyond Sandman's level.
After letting Flint leave, Joey prepared to find somewhere secluded to switch identities and remove the now mostly pointless disguise.
But then—one glance downward through the clouds toward the bank made him immediately accelerate back toward the scene in full Superman form.
"Calm down."
Thanks to her Tamaranean abilities, Starfire could sense Peter Parker's nerves stretched taut like an overstressed wire.
Seeing Joey carry Sandman away, she gently tried comforting the trembling teenager.
"It's over now."
"No," Peter whispered.
His entire body had begun shaking uncontrollably.
Peter had never been cowardly.
Even before gaining powers, he had always dared to stand up against school bullies hurting other students.
But this time was different.
The terror crawling up from the depths of his soul grew stronger and stronger, making it impossible for the newly awakened Peter to remain calm.
Danger… danger… danger…
Bzzzzzt—
A crimson mirror-like portal suddenly opened.
A tall figure stepped gracefully through the blood-red gateway.
Long black hair draped over his shoulders, and he wore a perfectly fitted swallowtail coat.
His gaze swept across the crowd.
Then, almost as though guided by instinct, his scarlet eyes locked directly onto Peter Parker behind Starfire.
"What a marvelous Spider-Man," the man said softly. "So young… so… fresh."
The moment their eyes met, Peter's heartbeat thundered violently in his chest.
Because he recognized that look.
It was the exact same expression he himself had worn that morning while staring hungrily at his sandwich.
Green light instantly covered Starfire's body.
She could clearly sense the newcomer's pure, undisguised hunger directed at the boy behind her—as well as the terrifying depth of his power.
In a single instant, she shifted fully into combat mode.
"Who are you?"
Despite obviously starving, the newcomer still maintained perfect elegance.
Placing one hand over his chest, he bowed politely toward Starfire, revealing a pair of sharp vampire fangs.
"Ah, fair lady," he said with refined grace. "I am called Morlun."