"Hello, hello, anyone there? Anyone there? Anyone there?"
Peter heard the rambling prayers again, but he really didn't have time to deal with them now. Because Bruce got hurt again and Peter was busy wondering what kind of intense battle would result in a wound precisely on the inner thigh.
This area was somewhat sensitive, so Peter had to be extra careful when bandaging Bruce's injury, otherwise Bruce might permanently lose a bullet.
After a few attempts, Peter finally admitted that there was still a considerable gap between him and a professional surgeon. He sighed and said, "Dude, it's not going to work, I'm afraid you have to go to the hospital. I really can't do it, it's not that I can't just improvise, but... "
Peter's expression went through several changes, and Bruce also understood his meaning. He too sighed deeply in his heart. That damned perfume the female agent named Natasha sprayed was definitely a problem. Also, the saying was right; the more beautiful the woman, the more deadly she is.
Of course, he and Natasha didn't actually do anything in the sky, but even in that intense movement, even if he just reached out to take advantage, a single bump could result in terrible consequences. His leg wound was just like that.
Natasha didn't attack him actively. It was when she was touching his thigh, a string of sugar-coated haws happened to hit the building, and Natasha's sharp nails stabbed into the flesh next to Bruce's bullet clip.
The wound wasn't very deep, in fact, it wasn't very painful either, but the difficult part was that the location was not great, and disinfecting the wound was so painful that Bruce wanted to die.
After the two stared each other down for a while, Peter finally said, "Alright, I know this is a bit embarrassing, but if you really don't want to go to the hospital, find a doctor."
Bruce was about to say that he could go home and find his butler, but he quickly swallowed his words, because there was no way he could explain to Alfred why his first battle resulted in a wound there.
Natasha apologized for this, saying she could go to the SHIELD medical room with him. However, judging from the wild winking and gesticulating of Hawkeye behind Natasha, Bruce figured he'd better not go.
But leaving it like that was not good either. The wound was in a location that frequently rubbed against clothing, which could easily cause infection. The key point was that walking was too painful and impaired his ability to move normally.
"Doesn't any other Batman have such a shitty experience?" Bruce slumped on the bed and murmured, "Haven't any of them ever been injured on the inner thigh? Don't they walk like a crab when they get a wound there?"
Peter seemed to imagine that scene and laughed heartily. Bruce grabbed a pillow from beside the bed and threw it at him, but Peter's laughter eased his embarrassment.
Because when your best buddy is laughing, you know the situation isn't that big of a deal. Even if it is, he'll come help you after he's done laughing.
"Sorry, but I need to take a call." Peter couldn't stand the nagging in his ear any longer, put down the disinfectant tool in his hand, walked out the door, and shifted his consciousness to the Gray Mist world. Sure enough, he saw Constantine again.
"Hey, remember me? Our deal is not over yet, and I have an urgent question that needs your answer."
"Go ahead." Peter said grumpily.
Spider-Man didn't like Constantine, there was no doubt about that. Actually, compared to the bad guys, Spider-Man disliked the scumbags even more.
He had to admit, some people had their reasons for being bad. Although it violated the law and moral principles, at least from the villain's perspective, it was beneficial.
But scumbags always did things that harmed both others and themselves. They clearly knew that letting themselves rot had no benefit for themselves or others, but they did it anyway.
There were always people who used the excuse that they were only ruining themselves. But Spider-Man had seen too many cases, and every time a scumbag screwed up, it was everyone else who ended up dealing with their mess. They never benefited, rather they paid the price for the trouble they caused.
So, Peter was really impatient with Constantine. He just wanted to quickly get rid of him, but he didn't expect the first thing Constantine said was, "Do you have Doctor Sophocles' phone number?"
Peter was taken aback. Actually, it wasn't difficult to see that Constantine was at odds with this Doctor Sophocles. Even though Peter wasn't a master at analyzing micro-expressions, his years of experience battling all sorts of scumbags told him that Constantine was probably being hunted by Sophocles.
Peter's feeling at this moment was that the world was crazy. The cats had rats for bridesmaids. How come Constantine suddenly stopped hiding?
Constantine rubbed his hands and said, "I think there may be some misunderstanding between us. And communication is the best medicine to resolve misunderstandings, isn't it?"
If anyone else said this, Peter might believe it. But a person who smoked during prayers and slipped 200 pounds of dirty language into an eulogy - not a word out of his mouth was trustworthy.
He cleared his throat and said, "In that case, I can ask Doctor Sophocles if he is willing to communicate with you."
Unexpectedly, Constantine agreed right away, which made Peter really wonder what his intentions were. But Peter didn't understand much about the mystic world, so he did as he said and went to ask Doctor Sophocles about his intentions.
Upon meeting the mysterious Doctor Sophocles, Peter found the place resembled some kind of monastery prayer room. It was a dark little room filled with wrinkles, and the man with hazy brown eyes was lighting the candles on the prayer table one by one.
"Hello." Peter ritually said.
"I prognosticated your coming. Lord, I suffocate this frantic lamb that wouldn't stray too far, he will confess to you, I would guide him to do so."
Peter didn't understand what he was saying. He bluntly expressed his thoughts, to which the other party, as if already aware, nodded and said: "I will speak with him. Give him this."
Peter saw the other drawing a unique design on a stone slab laid in front of him. Peter guessed this was probably the mystic world's version of a phone number. Although he didn't understand how the small pattern could work, Peter abided by the principle of less talk, less mistake, and sent the scene to Constantine as it was.
Constantine seemed quite surprised upon seeing the pattern. His expression mysteriously altered for a long time before he eventually hung up the call.
Peter was a bit curious about what Constantine would say after calling, so he projected his consciousness back to Doctor Sophocles.
In the dim prayer room with only the candlestick hanging high on the wall emitting a faint light, shadows thick and elongated were cast from his eyelashes beneath his eyelids. The heavy shadow made the contours of his facial features more distinct.
A blend of Eastern gentleness and Western depth, Peter thought, also an indefinable enigma, like a mottled, ancient, velum scroll, blurred, mystifying.
"He must be wondering, how can I have his phone number from when he was young?" Peter detected a hint of humor in his tone, as if it was the most obvious closeness he could express amidst the gloomy and distanced essence.
The doctor was speaking to the patterned stone slab, but why he should do so, Peter didn't know.
"He must've gotten into some significant trouble."
A voice came from within the stone slab, which felt somewhat familiar to Peter, albeit it was far-off, windy, making it fuzzy.
"No one knows you better than you do." The doctor added.
"And I never thought I would, I don't know this you, or the past of this you." The mysterious voice said: "I know not of such a you, nor the past of this you."
"That's obvious, Mr. Hell Detective," the doctor replied. "Not my deliberate concealment, it should come naturally."
"Yes, shifting to another me, do you like these fresh challenges? One after another, never satisfied, never-ending, and those that make you feel steady and content are all left behind by you."
The tone concealed some looming hazards. Peter caught it; it usually wasn't a good sign, signifying at least that some extreme ideas flashed in someone's head.
"John," The doctor called his name, his voice as steady as ever, saying: "All the lifestyles you've had were deserved, without bloody spookies and messy chaos. It would be peaceful and blissful. Isn't this the dream you've been pursuing?"
"It's the dream you think I should be pursuing, Doctor. Does the difference in origin distress you?"
The voice started to deepen, Peter finally recognized it, it was almost identical to Constantine's voice he had previously contacted. Only because it was less hoarse, he didn't catch it earlier.
The doctor called him John. Peter thought, it shouldn't be a coincidence, Constantine's name was also John, but this John sounded younger and more robust, or crazier.
Peter could only describe the older Constantine as worn-out and fatigued. Still, this was different. The voice from within the stone slab had a sort of menacing aggressiveness, as sharp as the thorns on an ironwood hedge.
Perhaps that's how he should have been, Peter thought, maybe this was a Constantine from some cosmos who didn't willingly fall. But that doesn't mean he became a good person.
On the contrary, Peter was sure, suffering could dampen people's will, dull their edge, causing their minds to cool down, as if they'd been splashed with a bucket of cold water. Once splashed enough times, those insane, impractical fantasies naturally drift out of their minds.
Some people weren't crushed by suffering doesn't necessarily mean they're on the right track. Peter knew, sometimes cruel realities would have to be credited for preventing some people's crueler ideas in their heads from becoming realities.
"I emerged to investigate this difference," The doctor responded: "But by then, I hadn't found anything, which made us nothing more than average tenants."
"Until you plan to find new interests?" The dangerous signals in the voice from the stone slab were getting denser. He said: "Since the beginning, you knew what rescuing me implied, yet you did it. Now you're refusing to see me."
"It's not that simple." More suppressed things lay under the voice from the slab. He said: "I will soon find you, I will repay you your debt; you return what is mine."