Seeing Thompson's Spider-Man obviously flinched, despite his efforts to puff out his chest, such a pretense was limited to high school students, and Jason could clearly see he was scared.
Jason sighed inwardly, how could this guy have the strength to punch three times his weight, yet be afraid of a football player?
From Thompson's attire, you could tell he was a football player, possibly a quarterback; these types of people are top-tier in American school campuses, what a pity he's just missing a Cheerleading Captain girlfriend by his side.
Thompson was indeed strong, but only at the high school level of strength; Jason from the Arkham Knight Universe was higher, and stronger than most cosmos.
It was evident from many confrontations in the game that the Arkham Knight and Batman were about the same height, some people said the Knight surely had lifts in his armor boots, but wouldn't Batman have them too? They all came from the same lineage of technology, no one could criticize the other.
Moreover, the Symbiont had helped Arkham Knight enhance his physical abilities, making him even more robust and powerful. Just like before, his presence could block the bathroom door where Batman was, preventing Batman from even considering the option of bursting out immediately, which showed how strong he was.
More importantly, Jason's temperament was very aggressive. Once again, the Grandfather of the Arkham Universe could beat all criminals in one night to save Gotham, and even find Riddler's 200-plus trophies along the way; Arkham Knight could fight with such a Grandfather all night long, this feat ranked him among the top Red Hoods in the cosmos, almost like he had "I am fierce" written all over his face.
"Oh, our poor little Peter holding a doll... *burp*!" The disdain in the latter half was stifled back the moment Jason stepped out from behind Peter, almost choking Thompson's cohort.
"Are you Peter's friends?" Jason asked knowingly, still sizing Thompson up with a very provocative look and said, "His taste is as lousy as ever. What do you throw most, a football? The kind that rolls around on the ground crying to the referee when tackled by an opponent?"
Thompson's chest immediately filled with air, an instinctive reaction to his attack posture, making him appear more formidable.
Puffing up his cheeks, Thompson strode up to Jason, the two were roughly the same height, but he was nowhere near as broad as Jason, with the difference becoming more apparent the closer he got.
Jason simply raised his head with a laugh, then squinted One eye at Thompson and said, "You know? Your last two steps looked like you were walking a Victoria's Secret show, rather than mimicking a grizzly bear. If you wore less on the bottom half, maybe you'd hear even more cheers and applause since you seem like the kind that prefers working out your butt over your arms..."
Thompson swung a punch, Jason dodged backward, and with a kick, sent Thompson flying.
Spider-Man was stunned. He quickly got between them, shouting, "No, no, no, don't fight, this is a misunderstanding, I actually..."
The enraged Big Guy Thompson didn't care about any of that. He lunged towards Jason, but because Spider-Man was in the way, Thompson reached out to pull Spider-Man's arm, trying to throw him out of the way first.
Spider-Man instinctively withdrew his hand and dodged back, so Thompson only grabbed the lower half of the teddy bear that Spider-Man was holding. With his chest heaving with anger, Thompson yanked hard, and with a ripping sound, the poor bear's head was severed from its body.
Spider-Man tried to snatch the bear back, so he pulled hard. When the bear split apart, he lost his balance and fell to the ground, his other hand letting the bath duck fly away.
But he couldn't worry about that, he quickly got up from the ground; by this time Thompson and Jason were already tangled up in a fight.
Thompson was no match for Jason, but Jason wasn't trying to kill anyone. He just wanted to teach the Big Guy a lesson, to make him toe the line in the future and stop bullying people, so his moves were mainly about restraint.
Thompson wasn't easy to take down either, being a football player where confrontation is key. He charged with a powerful tackle and knocked Jason down, who was much stronger. Then, while Thompson was off-balance from the fall, Jason powered his right knee into Thompson's waist with a fierce blow, causing Thompson to let out a scream.
Immediately after, Jason used his waist to try and flip Thompson over, but just then, he saw Thompson being lifted up by someone.
Spider-Man wrapped his arms around Thompson's waist from behind and hoisted him up, then took a step to the side with his right foot and turned his upper body sharply, flinging Thompson away.
Thompson flew out about four or five meters and landed heavily on the ground. Spider-Man, looking at the results of his own intervention, shuddered and stuttered, "No, no, no, don't fight... I mean, fighting is not allowed, stop..."
After Thompson got up, he looked at Spider-Man in shock. He clutched his still throbbing waist and his rib that started to ache, being held up by his lackeys as they limped away.
Jason stood up from the ground, but saw Spider-Man pick up the bath duck and then go to pick up the two halves of the teddy bear.
He stood there silently with one half of the bear in one hand, head bowed and not saying a word. Jason walked over and patted his shoulder, saying, "Look on the bright side, he won't dare bully you again."
"He hasn't bullied me for a long time," said Spider-Man, pursing his lips. "I said I could run away, but what have I got now?"
Jason took a gentle breath. He opened his mouth wanting to comfort Spider-Man, but looking at the torn teddy bear with stuffing spilling out from the seams and the neatly laid, well-folded 20 dollars that he had snatched earlier, he found himself at a loss for words.
They had spent 12 dollars on a bear and a duck, while the bath duck actually only cost 8 dollars, which meant the bear was worth 4 dollars, but that was if it were a bear intact and undamaged.
The teddy bear had now become worthless, but their spending for the day was still 12 dollars, and all they got was a bathtub rubber duck that should have only been worth 8 dollars.
Was 4 dollars a lot of money? The first time this thought emerged in Jason's mind, he didn't find anything wrong with it, then he started to feel a pang of fear for thinking this way.
He once understood the weight of every single dollar more deeply than Batman and any Robin of the Batman Family because during his childhood, not just one dollar, but every cent was crucial to him and not easy to come by.
The assets of the poor are always more easily quantified because every hour of labor is precisely priced, so when it came to spending money, it would be accurately exchanged for an equivalent amount of labor.
Once something's value became the length of life, it seemed more precious, yet more tragic as well because losing it meant losing a part of life, your labor turned to naught, and you might as well have spent that time resting and relaxing since the result would have been the same.
For teenagers, they're not swapping their own labor, so for those who can recognize this, it's even more upsetting because the people who earned all this could have used the time to rest properly, but now they have worked hard for nothing.
Jason became somewhat uneasy; Spider Man would definitely be angry, possibly furious at Thompson for ruining his toy, but he himself was not without blame—if only he hadn't provoked Thompson...
Wait a second! That's not the right way to think about it! Jason snapped back to reality. Wasn't it the big guy who bullied Peter first? He was just helping Spider Man retaliate.
"Okay, I'll try to go back and stitch it up," Spider Man said, then he stood at the mouth of the alley, looked back at Jason and said, "Do you need a place to stay? My place really doesn't have room, but maybe you can make do on my bed for tonight, and look for somewhere tomorrow."
Jason was a little caught off guard by the rapid shift in topic. He hesitated for a moment, then walked over and walked alongside Spider Man, asking, "Aren't you angry?"
"Angry about what?"
"Your doll got damaged."
"Well, I'm a bit angry, but being angry can't fix it. I've never sewn a doll before, I'm thinking about how to connect these two parts back together, that's more important."
"What about Thompson…"
"He looks pretty lame, I don't really want to deal with him."
"Then me…"
Spider Man paused for a moment, turned his head to look at Jason and said, "Ah, I forgot just now, thank you for standing up for me."
"But I…"
"I know you meant well." Spider Man looked like he had an epiphany, lowering his head and saying, "You were afraid I'd be bullied, and you were angry because I told you about how Thompson always bullied me, so you wanted to take revenge for me."
"Of course."
"So you…"
"You misunderstood, I'm a normal person, I get bullied, of course, I want revenge, but I can't cause trouble for my uncle and aunt, and if something really happened, I couldn't afford the compensation, neither of us could."
Jason opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come out; he had to admit, Spider Man was telling the truth, the Parkers simply couldn't afford any medical expenses.
Let's not even talk about the medical expenses and legal sanctions after injuring someone; just damaging a toy worth 4 dollars caused Peter distress for several nights.
It's not to say that 4 dollars was really a lot of money, even for Peter, it wasn't a large sum, but more importantly, in his view, this was something that should not have happened, the damage and waste were senseless.
If they had just run at that time, Thompson definitely wouldn't have been able to catch up, and after shaking him off a few streets later, they could still have returned home, happily holding two intact toys, instead of walking out of two streets later, silent and preoccupied with their own thoughts.
Was this outcome any better? Jason started to doubt.
So did the grievances and bullying Peter endured mean nothing? Just let someone like Thompson strut around unpunished?
Jason still couldn't figure it out.