Chapter 46 Chapter 46 How did you overcome this desire...
At sunset, the skyscrapers of Manhattan shine with golden light.
The pink and purple sunset glow and clouds were clearly reflected on the glass curtain wall of One World Trade Center, as the colorful crowds of people and warm yellow taxis gently drifted by on the New York grounds. A calming blue filled the night sky, illuminating the building's spiral spire, which contrasted with the nearby golden-lit skyscrapers.
Elio sat there alone.
Above the vibrant colors, he gazed at New York at night. The night wind ruffled his black hair, but his heart gradually calmed.
Sometimes, he just liked to be alone like this. It was very helpful for calming his mind and sorting out his thoughts, especially when Elio realized that, to some extent, the Ring had become a burden to him.
"Who said that?!" the Ring yelled. In contrast to Elio's calm acceptance of the facts, the little thing was clearly quite dissatisfied with the current situation. "I don't agree!"
"You know," Elio stood up and stretched, "it seems like no one wants to be with you anymore."
He reached the edge, ready to leap into the returning wind. But just then, a red-hooded head suddenly emerged from the sky. Startled, Elio stumbled back, and fell to the ground. The head, startled too, let out a short cry, then lost its grip on the edge and fell.
"Wait!" Elio quickly got up from the ground and rushed over, "Hey!"
He nearly jumped after him, but before Elio could even get his head out, a sudden pull wrapped around his waist, pulling him back from the edge of the platform.
"Hold on, old man," said a young, lively voice, "you can't jump down under my nose!"
He held Elio's shoulders and retracted the spider silk he had just shot out. The assassin realized his identity and turned around, only to see a striking black spider pattern on his chest.
It was Spider-Man. His white goggles stared sternly at Elio.
"You look very young," Spider-Man said, squeezing his shoulder earnestly. "I believe you must be in some pretty tough trouble. I really do. But maybe we can think of another way to solve the problem instead of jumping down from here."
"I did run into some trouble," Elio paused, "but things may not be what you think..."
"It's okay, tell me," Spider-Man said seriously, "I promise I won't tell anyone."
He put his other hand over Elio's shoulders, solemnly grasping them. Elio hesitated, looking around, and gently brushed away one of Spider-Man's hands. "To be honest, I don't think I should tell you this."
"You can trust me, really," Spider-Man insisted. "I'll do everything in my power to help you. So what's your trouble, buddy? Blackmailed by the Black Gang? Witnessed a murder? Mentored by a mutant supervillain? Or…"
"Wait, wait." Elio raised his hands, unable to suppress his laughter. "I'm not here to jump off a building, Spider-Man!"
Spider-Man fell silent. But after a moment, he said "Oops" and let go of his hand awkwardly.
"So when I came up here just now," he gestured to the edge of the platform, "you were...?"
"I am..."
He seemed to be really jumping off the building.
Elio paused mid-sentence, peering outside and then back at Spider-Man, who was also looking at him with his head tilted to the side.
“…You just said you would believe me,” Elio scratched his face, “right?”
"certainly."
“I was jumping,” Elio admitted, “but I wasn’t killing myself.”
Spider-Man looked at him in silence. Elio could imagine his expression without even seeing his face beneath the mask.
"It's a little complicated," Elio explained, gesturing. "But we call it a 'leap of faith.' We can jump from great heights and not take any damage."
Spider-Man looked at him in silence. Elio looked at him too.
"You, um," Spider-Man said, "no offense, but have you talked to the school counselor?"
Elio responded by covering his face with his hands.
"...Have you never played Assassin's Creed?" Elio said sullenly, feeling a pat on his shoulder. "Everything I said is true. I won't die from jumping from this height. I'm an assassin."
Spider-Man asked seriously, "So this 'leap of faith' you just mentioned is a setting from a game called 'Assassin's Creed'?"
Elio raised his face from his hands. He stared at Spider-Man in silence for a moment.
"Never mind," he said, "please sit down. I'm really in a bit of trouble, if you've got nothing else to do."
Elio sat down first. Spider-Man sat down beside him and said with satisfaction, "I believe this is a good start!"
“I think so,” Elio said. “To be honest, I haven’t talked about these things with anyone in a long time—maybe I should actually be grateful for your misunderstanding—but I still have to say that everything I said tonight was true.”
Spider-Man nodded, "I believe it."
"I kind of don't believe this, but whatever." Elio sighed. "You sound about my age, Spider-Man, and although I would recommend a voice changer, we'll talk about that later—"
Spider-Man was about to speak, but closed his mouth under Elio's gaze, nodded, and made a zipper gesture at his mouth.
"—Have you ever thought," Elio looked at him, "that you wished none of this had happened? That you could be just a normal student, whose biggest worries were homework, exams, and how to ask the girl you loved out after school? All of this…it gave you superpowers, it allowed you to help so many people, save so many lives, but sometimes, you just want to go back to the past, to when none of this happened?"
He spoke softly, until the last words were blown away by the wind. But Spider-Man heard them, and heard the sob at the end of Elio's voice. He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke, he found that his voice was more muffled than usual.
"I thought about it," Spider-Man simply said.
"So how did you overcome that craving?" Elio asked.
Spider-Man was silent for even longer.
"I never suppressed it," he said. "I would let myself indulge in that emotion until the sirens started blaring again, until I was needed by the city again. You can't 'suppress' a desire or an emotion. Sometimes it just makes things worse, honestly. And you have to realize that it's normal to have those thoughts. Who wants to run out in the middle of the night and get rained on by bullets when they can just lie in bed and play games?"
Spider-Man smiled a little here. Elio smiled too.
"So, um," Spider-Man coughed, trying to get his voice back to a normal tone, "I can only say that there's nothing I can do about it. Now that I've taken that step, there's no turning back. When you're needed, you won't even think about 'should I go', your body will move first. The fact is that if you want to get away from this, no one can really stop you, but you didn't do that, which means it's your own choice to stay here."
Elio murmured, "…I chose to stay here."
He looked down. New York at night looked a lot like Gotham, just as prosperous, just as dazzling, like a string of cold, gorgeous jewels among his jet-black hair.
"Yeah," Spider-Man said.
They were both silent for a moment. The night wind from New York City ruffled Elio's hair, and he brushed it away with his hands and took a deep breath.
"Thank you, Spider-Man," he stood up, "I see. I hope I didn't take up too much of your time."
"Of course you didn't!" Spider-Man said. "We've only been here talking for a few minutes."
He sat there, watching Elio walk towards the edge of the platform again. This time, Spider-Man didn't rush to stop him.
"So," Spider-Man cleared his throat, "you really are an assassin?"
Elio turned around and smiled at him.
"My name is Elliot Smith," he said. "An assassin. If you search the Internet, you might find something about me. Not the good kind, of course."
"After our conversation tonight," Spider-Man told him, "I won't believe them."
"I'm glad you believed me." Elio turned his head. He turned his back to Spider-Man and waved. "See you later, Spider-Man. Remember to play Assassin's Creed."
The assassin stood four hundred feet in the air, gazing at the golden glow of New York. Like an eagle stretching its wings before taking flight, he calmly spread his arms. Spider-Man couldn't help but leap from the platform he was sitting on, but by the time he reached him, the night breeze had already gently enveloped the assassin.
Just as it gently combed the eagle's feathers, it also gently flows through the assassin's body tonight.
Across the river, the Statue of Liberty, holding a tablet, witnessed it all.
But what the assassin didn't know was that besides Spider-Man and herself, there were other subjects who noticed the scene.
At 160 Lexington Avenue in New York City, there's an abandoned library that once belonged to Touro College. Somehow, no government agency has bothered to clean it up.
"Mr. Reese?" said a middle-aged man with round glasses who looked like an intellectual. "We have been given a new social security number."
A Malinois lying at his feet pricked up its ears in alertness.
"And this time, the number is unusual—no, not now, Little Bear—it belongs to a Gotham man attending college in Blüdhaven," he said, gently pushing aside the Malinois that was rubbing against him. He took the printed photo from the machine, limped over to the glass, and taped it to the glass. "He was supposed to graduate this summer, but unfortunately, he was wanted by Blüdhaven before that."
"Gotham and Blüdhaven? I'm not surprised at all. What's really surprising is that he was able to graduate normally from there." Reese, who appeared behind him out of nowhere, said softly, "So what's his name, Finch?"
"Elio," Finch said, "his name is Elio Smith."
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Author's Note: *Finch & Reaser is from the American TV series Person of Interest, also known as Poi. It doesn't matter if you haven't seen it, and the case I'm writing about isn't based on the original story (?
P.S. Here I recommend the next assassin novel in the column~
Title: [British and American] The best way to protect your teammates
The text is as follows:
Having just shrewdly escaped the assassination scene and was about to fly off on vacation, the Assassin Adrian received another mission. He could have chosen to refuse, but he didn't. This was because the mission came from his savior, William Miles, the Mentor of the Brotherhood, and because it was of vital importance:
Attack the Abstergo Research Institute in Rome and rescue Subject 17, who was imprisoned by Warren Vidic.
Desmond Miles.
As the "prophet" who saved the world in the eyes of the Isu people, and a descendant of the Assassin mentors whose DNA contains the global map of the location of the Artifacts of Eden, Desmond must never fall into the hands of the Knights Templar.
But that wasn't the only reason he needed to be rescued.
"He's your son, right?" Adrian said quickly as he packed his things. "Your son who ran away from the farm when he was 16? - No, don't say that, William, I understand. Not to mention how important he is to our cause. After all, you are a father - you saved me from Hydra. Without you, I wouldn't be who I am today."
"I've been waiting for this moment. The moment to repay your kindness." Adrian took a deep breath and pulled up his hood. "Whatever you want me to do for you."
And this moment has finally arrived.
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