Chapter Text
Peter put his controller down after thoroughly whooping Hood’s ass on Mario Kart. This cheered him up a bit after being down over the whole, you know, hopelessly stuck in another universe thing. Ugh right, he was still stranded in another universe.
If he was at home with a problem of this magnitude, things would be so easy. He’d just go tell Mr Stark and Mr Stark would tell the avengers and they would all figure it out together. Stupid non-existent Avengers. Wait. There could be another group of superheroes who could help, after all, Hood existed.
“Um Mr Hood?”
“Yes, Pete?”
“Do you know any other superheroes?”
“Not a superhero kid.” Hood paused briefly and huffed, “but yes I know a few.”
“What about like a big group of them?” The bigger the group, the higher the chance that someone knows something about multiversal travel.
“Well, I’ve helped out the Justice League a few times, if thats who you’re talking about?”
“The Justice League?”
“Yeah, you know… Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman.”
“Haha pfft, of course, the Justice League duh.” Smooth Peter, smooth.
“Righhht. Why do you ask?”
“Would I be able to meet any of them?”
“Aww wanna meet your heroes kid? Who’s your favourite?”
“Umm.” Oops, should’ve thought this through a bit more. Oh right, Hood mentioned some earlier, “Wonder Woman, obviously.”
“Ha! Thank you! Correct answer, kid.”
“But, yeah umm..” Ugh this is awkward, “Would you, umm possibly, please, help me meet them?”
“I’m, uh, not-”
Suddenly, Peter heard a loud crash and thunking noise coming from the kitchen. “Fuck! Owwww, Jasonnn. Why the fuck would you leave a knife in front of your window?"
Hood, who had whipped a gun out thin air at the crashing sound, swore and bolted out of the bedroom.
Peter stood up and rushed to follow, but his spidey sense wasn’t tingling in danger so he wasn’t as scared as he should’ve been at the intrusion. Entering the kitchen, he saw Hood attempting to shove the intruder back out the window they had clearly come in through.
“Out, Nightwing. Not the time.”
“Aww little wing, don’t be mean to your big brother,” the intruder, dressed in a black skin tight body suit with blue stripes on his arms, was combatting Hood’s shoves with attempts at hugs. Clearly the stray knife hadn't injured him that much.
“No. Out, I have a guest.” Hood hissed at the guy.
“Ooo, Roy’s round?” At that, the guy (Hood’s brother?) ripped off his own domino mask and tossed it to the side. “Let me say hi, I haven’t seen him in forever.” He started singing, “Ohh Royy, you betterr be fully clotheddd.” He turned from Hood, clearly in an attempt to say hi to whoever this Roy was and instead made direct eye contact with Peter. “You’re not Roy.” He said and turned back to Hood, “Jason. There’s a kid in your flat.”
Hood (Jason???) sighed, “I know” and pinched the tip of his nose. “And now thanks to you, he’s seen your face and knows my name.” He huffed, stood in front of his brother and turned to face Peter. “Hey Pete, give me two seconds, I’m just gonna have a word with this idiot,” and without waiting for acknowledgment turned back around and, successfully this time, shoved his brother onto the fire escape through the window and shut it closed after them.
Peter was a bit baffled at everything that had occurred in the last two minutes. He had learnt quite a bit after that interaction, now knowing that Hood’s name was actually Jason, and that Jason’s brother was also a vigilante/superhero. He was tempted to just stand and stare at them whilst they talked on the fire escape but thought that may come off as a bit rude and instead sat down on the sofa.
“Dude, you literally just gave away both of our identities!” Peter heard Jason hiss from outside. Oh yeah, enhanced hearing. How handy!
“How was that my fault? You didn’t tell me you had a kid over! Who even is he anyways?”
“None of your business! And it’s totally your fault for not respecting my privacy, you could knock you know!”
“Psh, privacy. In this family? You’re kidding right?”
Peter heard Jason huff, and imagined he had a pout on his face.
“Oh, you’re serious. I’m sorry little wing, I promise I’ll knock next time.”
“Ugh, Dickie, it’s fine. I just don’t want you to scare the kid off.” Jason sighed, “Pete’s just really important to me, and I know he will be to you too.”
“Aww, Jase.” There was a pause before, “Soo, do I get to properly meet my new nephew in a moment?” Peter blushed at that.
“Shove off. I only met him a couple days ago.” There was a long pause before anything was said again. Jason sighed, “I suppose you probably should meet him anyways.”
“Hey, its okay if it’s too soon, I don’t want to force you.”
“No, I shouldn’t hide this from you any more. You deserve to know.” Jason sighed once again, “Just promise me you wont freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?” … “Jason, what’s going on?”
“Just promise, ok?”
“ … Fine.”
And at that, Peter heard the window open and both of the vigilantes step through. Before Peter could get up to go speak to them, they appeared in front of him instead.
Hood, Jason, placed one of his hands on his brother’s back and the other on Peters shoulder. “Dick, this is Peter. Peter this is my brother, D-”
“Dad?” Peter whispered, shocked to his core. Standing in front of him was, without a doubt, his father. He knows this face, along with his mum’s and uncle ben’s, it is forever burned into his soul.
“…What?” It was Jason who had replied, his dad was frozen completely still.
“Tati,” Peter was crying now and launched himself at his dad, hugging him so tight that he couldn’t ever think about leaving him again. “You d-d-died, you left me, you promised you wouldn’t ever leave me.” He was bawling his eyes out, he realised this must have been a dream, but he never wanted to wake up.
“Shh, shh Sweetheart.” His dad whispered, “You’re ok, I won’t ever leave you again.” He was hugging back, his dad was hugging him back.
“I’m s-sorry dad, Ben d-died and it was all my fault.”
“No, no. I’m sure it wasn’t kiddo,” his dad was rubbing circles on his back,“Everything will be okay.”
After a few minutes of Peter sobbing into his dad’s arms, when Peter finally calmed down, Jason spoke up again “Hey Pete, you’ve met Dickie before?”
“What do you mean?” He sniffed, “Of course I have, he’s my da-” Oh right. He wasn’t dreaming. He was in another universe. This must be his dad’s doppelgänger. At that thought, Peter jerked back and wrenched himself free from the lookalikes arms. “I can’t. I can’t do this, I-” Peter’s breaths, for second time in two days, sped up uncontrollably. He needed to get away, to breathe. So, he bolted. He ran away from the two brothers, out the lounge, down the hall and locked himself into the bathroom.
He slid down the back of the door and curled himself up into a ball up against it. This is so not good. He didn’t know if he could ever go out and face the two again, especially his dad’s lookalike. It hurt too much to look at him, knowing that he’s not his dad. Peter’s dad is somewhere decomposing at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.
He’s just acted like a complete nutcase and now Hood’s going to kick him out, and he will have lost any chance of getting back to his own universe, to Tony. God, he would kill to have Tony here right now. He missed him already so much. He missed everyone so much. Thinking like this wasn’t helping whatsoever. Everything was too much, this was too much. He couldn’t breathe, he was alone and he couldn’t breathe.