Archive of Our Own ^beta

PETER

Peter climbs into Wade’s apartment window, not bothering to holler in. He’ll find out he’s here soon enough, anyway.

Instead, he heads in straight to the kitchen, opening the fridge to find his target—a beautiful, beautiful can of some radioactive energy drink. One of dozens that the fridge is stocked with.

He’s chugging it like he’ll die without it when the tingling in the base of his spine tells him to jump up on the ceiling, sloshing the drink onto the floor, narrowly avoiding a knife that’s now sticking out of the fridge door.

“Wade!” Peter yells, slowly peeling himself off of the ceiling. “What did we say about Knives before Eyes?”

Wade Wilson is standing at the doorway to the living room, staring at Peter. “What did we say about breaking and entering into highly armed apartments?”

There’s a silent stare-off between them for a good few seconds. Then, both of them say at once, “I won’t tell Matt if you don’t.”

“Deal,” Wade says, and then scowls at the half-empty can in Peter’s now sticky hands. “You’re a menace,” he says, snatching the pure shot of caffeine-induced adrenaline out of Peter’s hands, to his protest. “Pour it in a cup, at least.”

Peter shrugs, jumping up to lounge on a counter as Wade rummages around for a wine glass, pouring the radioactive gamer blood into it.

“Hey,” he says, swinging his feet off the counter. “Have you been online lately?”

Wade blinks at him, conveying a few too many emotions from his completely emotionless face. “What do you think?”

Peter half-heartedly shrugs, reaching out for the wine glass. “I dunno,” he says, and Wade dangles the glass just out of his reach. “I just figured you’d want to check the Ass Ranks. You know, considering you’re the one who insisted and all.”

Wade snorts, taking a sip of the drink first, teasing Peter like the asshole he is. “Why would I need to check? I already know exactly how it’s going. Spandex wins, baby, you know that.”

“Mmhmm,” Peter says nonchalantly. “Yeah, but you didn’t account for bribing the jury. Double-D’s rising up the ass ranks. He’s now past you by a few thousand votes.”

Wade crushes the glass in his hand.

-

As Peter picks out the bloody shards of glass from the palm of Wade’s hand, fighting against his healing, Wade curses like a fucking sailor.

“It isn’t fair,” he whines. One of the best mercenaries in the world is an actual toddler. “This is strictly unconstitutional. I want a retrial.”

“Life’s not fair,” Peter says, watching in fascination as skin knits back together. “And you’re Canadian. And a merc. What do you know about the constitution?”

Wade huffs. “Enough to know that encouraging bias is wrong.”

“All’s fair in love and war.” Peter bags the broken glass together, careful not to cut himself on them. “And hate to break it to you, DP, but you kinda did wage war on Matt.”

This, predictably, does nothing to lessen the full sulk that Wade is in the midst of. Peter sighs and tries a different approach.

“On the bright side,” he offers, “Matt is bending and snapping in front of every civilian camera so they all catch a full ass shot. How much dignity do you think he’s lost because of this?”

“Not enough,” Wade wails. “I think this may be it, Spidey. The world is too cruel. I can’t live in a universe that thinks Murdock’s dump-truck is even half as fat as mine. Goodbye, you cruel God.” He raises a machete that he seemingly pulled out from fucking nowhere, almost as if he’s about to run it through himself.

Peter rolls his eyes, webbing the machete away with all the nonchalance of someone who has to deal with this shit regularly. “Stop being dramatic,” Peter orders, exasperated. “I haven’t even told you the best part.”

“There’s more?” Wade sounds inconsolable.

But Peter is absolutely gleeful. “Yep!” He grins sharply, barely containing a cackle. “Apparently, Gotham already had a best ass. And Matt just challenged it.”

At this, Wade sits up a little straighter, clearly intrigued at whatever might be worthy of being deemed such a prestigious title. “Who?”

Peter’s grin widens. “Nightwing,” he says, sliding over his phone, opened to a picture of a vigilante ass—and, admittedly, a very nice one. “And he’s pissed."

-

The Weekly Bugle was created out of boredom and a bet by one Peter Parker in the middle of homeroom.

It was the boredom of a very slow few weeks on patrol and the bet of one mercenary confidently boasting to a blind lawyer that his ass is way more appreciated than the other’s.

It’s just a simple ranking website, is all. Like a high school superlatives page, except for vigilantes, except with categories like Bimbos and Himbos, King Clown, Best Couple, and, of course, Best Ass.

Gotham gets to vote every week for the vigilante-slash-superheroes that deserve to win, with real-time results. Tim and Duke tried to convince him out of it.

Now, he watches the world burn.

-

The next time Spider-Man goes on patrol with Daredevil, it’s with the bats.

“What are you doing,” Peter hisses at Matt, who’s casually jutting out one hip as he stands.

“Don’t worry about it,” Matt whispers under his breath, and then minutely shifts his weight.

The tension is palpable. Nightwing, even through his domino, is giving him the stink-eye.

Red Robin is looking at them both in disappointment. “We literally have work to be doing,” he says, extremely unimpressed. “We have to write a report on the robbery.”

Nightwing shushes him. “I am doing work.” He mutters, trailing off. “Very important work.”

“Oh, my God, it’s Nightwing!” Somebody yells from below on the streets with a bit too much enthusiasm. Peter supposes it is pretty rare to see the bats out and open in the daylight. “Take a picture, dude!”

As if spurred into motion, Nightwing pretends not to hear but immediately shifts position, posing and angling his body towards where the voice came from. Jesus Christ, Peter barely has the time to think, before he’s suddenly greeted with the view of Nightwing casually, oh-so-subtly, posing his ass out for the civilian to take a picture.

Matt stiffens from where he’s beside Peter. “Don’t do this,” Peter quietly pleads. “You’re better than this.”

“I should help clean up,” Matt loudly blurts, as if he didn’t hear Peter when that’s not fucking possible. “It was good working with you.” Then, like the asshole he is, he parkours down the alleyway and into the bank with a whole in the wall.

“Nightwing, let’s leave,” Red Robin says, tugging on his arm, but Nightwing looks miffed, rooted in his spot.

It doesn’t help when Matt, from the other side of the street, in clear view of them, slowly bends down to pick up a few bills strewn on the ground. Stays in that position for a good few seconds too many, then slowly bends back up.

“No fucking way,” Nightwing breathes out, and then he’s gone too.

Peter’s created a monster.

“I figured I should help, too,” Nightwing cheerfully exclaims, landing beside Matt. “I’ll take the floor.”

“No, I will,” Matt grinds out through his teeth. Peter can’t believe this is fucking happening.

They both slowly bend down, keeping their asses held high in the air. And then, as if waiting for each other, stay down.

“You first,” Nightwing says into his shins. “I insist.”

Matt only settles further into his position. “No, you.”

There’s the sound of several civilian cameras shuttering away at the scene. Peter and Red Robin look at each other in mortification.

Matt and Nightwing are still bent down, ass out, clearly having some kind of testosterone contest about who has to get up first.

“I have to break this to Deadpool,” Peter says, extremely unhappy with the turn of events. “He’s going to lose his shit. He wanted to win so bad.”

“I don’t think anyone else has a chance now,” Tim agrees miserably. “The Great Ass War of our era. Between Nightwing and Daredevil.”

It takes half an hour and then bodily threatening as well as Batman scolding Nightwing like a petulant child before either of them come up for air.

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL:

DAREDEVIL: 14,309

NIGHTWING: 11,962

DEADPOOL: 3,469

BATMAN: 4

-

Peter’s on his way home after school when he’s intercepted and ambushed by Nightwing.

“Holy shit,” he yelps, clutching his chest like a pearl necklace. “Don’t do that.”

“I have a proposal,” Nightwing declares.

Immediately, Peter’s wary. Nothing good ever comes out of proposals. Especially not weddings. “What,” he asks, suspicious.

“You’re familiar with the caped crowd, aren’t you?” Nightwing declares more than asks, like he already knows the answer.

“I suppose…”

“Awesome,” Nightwing beams something bright—man, his teeth are white. “How do you feel about a job?”

Peter blinks. “A job?”

“You take pictures, don’t you?” Nightwing waves his hand dramatically as he speaks, emphasizing seemingly random words like articles and you. “Post them online or whatever.”

Peter huffs out a breath. “Kinda,” he says slowly, still unsure of where this is leading to. “You wanna rip the bandaid off?”

“How would you like a new model?”

- 

Peter would love to say it takes more than $500 a pop to trail Nightwing around taking pictures of his ass, but he really tries hard not to lie considering he has bad enough karma as it already is.

“Someone’s following you,” He hears Batman murmur to Nightwing where they crouch, a few buildings away.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nightwing whispers back, and then very casually leans forward and perks up his ass.

Peter coughs, and then brings up his camera because that’s a cue if he ever saw one.

He posts the pics on a burner twitter account which quickly receives more retweets than any of his actually funny tweets.

Matt refuses to talk to him for days.

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL:

NIGHTWING: 19,470

DAREDEVIL: 16,835

DEADPOOL: 2,419

BATMAN: 6

-

By the good grace of God, things are at more or less of a standstill for a week or so afterwards. Maybe it’s that Matt is quietly brooding like he’s barely holding in the pride to not throw a tantrum, maybe Nightwing feels secure in his place on top of the Gotham ass supremacy. Either way, Peter finally gets some of his homework done for a change.

Then out of seemingly nowhere, some redditor ruins everything for them.

It starts with a meme, posting the two possibly worst ass comparisons one could make. Reddit user u/batmancirclejerk posts a side-by-side picture comparison of the Bat himself’s ass, blurry and barely-visible as it is, next to the Elon Musk of Gotham, who’s actually just Bruce Wayne and not Elon Musk at all.

Which starts a fucking meme, in which keyboard warriors with nothing better to do would post a picture of a random celebrity’s ass and then another random vigilante’s, and let a debate war break out on whether one ass is better than the other or if, by God’s will, they might even match.

Peter’s not afraid to admit he shed a few tears when he saw a tiktok of Danny Devito melting into Captain America himself’s ass.

But of course it has to get worse, because the only case to-date of an “ass-match” is an awful comparison between Dick Grayson, who Peter isn’t entirely sure is but does sound very familiar, and Daredevil. Matt’s Daredevil.

Forget the cold shoulder Matt gave him the past week. He’s never felt such anger irradiating off of someone in his life. It’s almost a pity that he’s blind so he couldn’t see himself turn such shades of purple.

“Matt, you’re being a child,” Foggy reasons with him, voice more level than Peter could’ve imagined. That’s why he’s a big-bucks lawyer, he supposes. “Dick Grayson doesn’t even have a bad ass. It’s rather nice, actually—yours is better, of course,” he quickly adds before it gets even worse.

Wow, Peter did not need to hear that.

“It’s an insult,” Matt mutters to seemingly no one. “They’re laughing in my face.”

“Let’s take a deep breath and then think about how that isn’t true.”

Matt inhales deeply, and exhales for far too long. “The city never really forgave me after Fisk. They’ve been waiting all this time to betray me like this.”

“No—”

He stands up suddenly from the couch, pacing stiffly. “I can’t let this stand. Who the hell is this Prick guy, anyway?”

“His name’s Dick,” Peter butts into the conversation, idly scrolling through his wiki page. “And he’s an orphan. You’re bullying an orphan, right now.”

“He’s not special,” Matt grumbles.

Well, Peter’ll concede that point.

“I have to do something,” Matt is muttering to himself again, and it’s times like this when Peter wonders if that shot the Punisher took to his head did a number on him. “I have to speak my truth.”

Foggy seems suddenly alarmed. “Whatever you’re thinking of—is probably a bad idea.”

Matt shakes his head, abruptly sitting down next to his laptop. “Nuh uh.”

-

“Hey,” Duke very mildly greets Peter at school. “Do you mind if we do something that involves me not going home tonight?”

“Sure,” Peter responds without blinking an eye. “I could also stand not being around the people I know right now.”

Duke nods in understanding misery. “Family driving you crazy?”

“You could say that,” Peter agrees. “What’s going up with yours?”

“Our brother,” Tim fills in, leaning closer. “He’s truly lost it, methinks.”

Duke coughs. “Methinks he’s been jokerfied while we haven’t paid attention,” he explains. “Somebody online compared his ass to that vigilante’s—Daredevil, you know him?—and you’d think with how much he’s moping that someone just killed a puppy in front of him.”

Peter perks up a little at that. “Hey, we’re kind of in the same boat,” he exclaims. “A friend of mine has also lost it all to the ass show. So far he’s published 4 public defenses of Daredevil’s ass, and he’s drafted 11 more.”

Tim whistles lowly. “The city’s gone to shit, huh.”

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL :

DAREDEVIL: 22,413

NIGHTWING: 20,765

DANNY DEVITO: 483

BATMAN: 2

-

“Mr. Murdock, just one question,” the reporter asks, and Matt stops in his tracks. “You’re by far the most zealous defender of Daredevil’s assets.”

“Of course,” Matt agrees, leaning slightly back. “I stand for the American truth.”

The reporter nods along, almost excitedly. “And you were blinded as a child—rather heroically, I’ve heard—and have had no vision since?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Please clarify for us, Mr. Murdock—if you’re blind, how can you tell which of the two pairs is more… generously endowed?”

A heavy pause. “I—uh—”

“And if you haven’t first-hand found evidence to convince you so assuredly of Daredevil’s supremacy, then why stake your career defending it? This isn’t generally a stance lawyers would care enough to make, Mr. Murdock.”

Matt, for once speechless, pinks.

The reporter clears her throat. There’s some kind of twisted sadism in her eyes—maybe. Peter’s eyes are a little blurry from the tears. “Well, there you have it, folks. Matthew Murdock has no explanation for the proof behind his convictions. How trusted can these papers be? Did Daredevil bribe the judge and jury? Does the vigilante have some private secrets that alter the course of this dilemma?”

“Oh my God,” Peter whispers to himself.

Matt, evidently hearing it, clenches his hand on his cane even harder.

“This has been an interview with Matthew—or should I say Manwhore—Murdock. Back to you, John.”

-

“It’s so much worse now,” Peter bemoans to Duke and Tim who look at him with not-exactly-sympathetic but definitely anguished eyes. “I may need to block this man.”

“I feel you,” Tim mutters. “I don’t need to hear this much about how my brother should widen his sex horizons ever again.”

Peter hums in commiserate agreement before suddenly stopping. “I’m sorry, are we on different pages here?”

“Our brother,” Duke explains. “Dick. Everyone online’s spamming that he should sleep with some lawyer guy to ‘even the field’ with an ‘unbiased observer’. If you ask me, he’d absolutely be biased. That’s how this whole thing even started.”

Oh, God. Oh, God, please, no.

Peter asks, more apprehensive than he’s ever been: “...Dick?”

Duke nods. “Yeah. He got targeted by some stupid internet debate and now he apparently has a moral obligation to sleep with some blind guy because apparently someone who can only go by feel would be the best judge for this kind of thing? But there’s obviously so much bias since Matt Murdock is clearly sleeping with Daredevil, and—”

“Stop,” Peter pants, head spinning. “Just stop. Please.”

More blocking. More people to never speak to again.

-

“Johnny, you’re being ridiculous.”

“No, you’re being ridiculous,” Johnny pouts at him. “I’m being very reasonable.”

“You’re upset because nobody’s talked about your ass yet. That’s ridiculous.”

Peter would believe Johnny’s legitimately distraught by this—based on the crumpled expression etched on his face—if he didn’t already know that Johnny Storm was a skank liar.

And then just as suddenly, Johnny brightens up like a kid by an ice cream truck. “What are you thinking?” Peter asks slowly, but Johnny bats at his shoulder (which, ouch? He’s, like, 2 steps away from being on fire right now.)

“I have an idea,” he sings quietly to himself, and then he bursts into flames and fucking leaves.

“Okay,” Peter mutters. “That’s weird.” He tries not to think of it any more, especially when he gets an instagram notification saying that @TorchGuy69 posted a picture. One that’s doing, like, a disconcerting amount of numbers.

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL:

THE HUMAN TORCH: 12,071

-

A few days later, waters heat once more when some idiot decides to send waves through the already-strife discourse community by insinuating that some vigilantes, apparently, might have a little unnatural help in the dowage department.

“I’m just saying,” Jay Jonah Jameson says. “How can we be even sure if these asses are real or not? Public Enemy Number One Spider-Man—his every bone in his body is disingenuous! I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the muscles were, too.”

Peter Parker, for one, has never been more offended in his life. And that includes the brief stint where he tried to play Call of Duty.

“Aw, don’t listen to that, honey,” May good-naturedly chides him, ruffling his hair before turning off the TV. “As your former diaper-changer, I have it on good authority that you have the cutest little tush—”

“God, May, stop—” Peter jumps to cover his ears with his hands but it’s too late for his brain.

May laughs and winks at him. “Eat your breakfast.”

Sensing a wary safety, Peter uncovers his ears and then reaches for the remote to turn back on. “Why’s JJJ talking about padding anyway? Wouldn’t that be pretty impractical for heroes to—oh. Oh no.”

On Fox News (which is a new low to even begin with), there’s a clip of Johnny flying through the air. He’s on fire.

Scratch that. More than himself’s on fire.

His ass is literally melting down his suit.

“I can explain,” Johnny on-tape is frantically trying to call out to anyone listening. “It’s molecular instability—REED, I think I’m dying, the heat’s finally caught up to me—”

“Oh, Johnny,” Peter sadly remarks as his best friend keeps desperately pleading for everyone to believe him. He grows more frantic and frantic, sold into his charade, until he eventually—stops.

Johnny hangs his head in shame just as May turns off the TV once more. “Enough of that,” she scolds. “That’s your friend.”

“I’m unfortunately aware,” Peter hollowly assures.

A few hours later, a new Youtube apology video hits out. It very quickly becomes one of the most watched videos on the site.

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL:

THE HUMAN TORCH: -72

-

The Johnny Storm Effect unfortunately catches more victims in its web. Specifically, one Matt Murdock, one Nightwing, and also, incredibly, the Punisher?

“How is pew-pew guy beating everyone,” Wade wails at Peter, and man Peter should stop getting in this situation. “I’m clearly the better pew-pew guy. I wear spandex! Frank Castle has the ass of a white guy in the military!”

“Wade, you were a white guy in the military.”

Wade sniffles. “That’s not my point.”

Peter lets out a sigh that could make someone in Russia feel his true disappointment in everyone he knows. “It’s not that he has a particularly notable ass,” he tries to explain. “But rather America’s faith in its heroes has been shaken to the core. Nobody’s trusting of a spandex-clad ass, not since Johnny Storm, and who would be the least likely to pad their ass?”

Wade nods gravely. “In times of peril, humanity turns its face from the righteous and seeks salvation from its cold-blooded killers.”

“Yeah, sure.” Now, Peter’s just glad that it’s only Frank so far and not, like, the Joker or anything. Although he will say, he wouldn’t be surprised if Doc Ock makes an appearance in the absolute worst way possible. “Oh, and the plot thickens.”

“Oh?”

Peter nods absent-mindedly. “Wayne Enterprises recently released a scientific paper on the integrity of ass padding and the visible differences of material. They also claim it’s harder to pass off padding in spandex than armour, tipping the scales in Nightwing’s favour.”

“Oh, dear,” Wade very mildly exclaims. It seems that not being a frontrunner for Gotham’s consideration at all has really driven his apathy and also maybe depression. “And how is our Matthew taking it?”

…

-

Father Lantom is not used to being in the public eye, and even less for associating with Daredevil. Although he does associate with Daredevil. Peter of course knows that.

Father Lantom is, in fact, standing in the middle of Gotham square, seeming rather condemned.

Daredevil, who at least has the dignity to not let the good man suffer alone is beside him. That same reporter is back. Peter thinks her name might be Vicki.

“I have never padded my ass,” Daredevil announces magnanimously. The gravitas in his voice commands the crowd to be silent and listen. “I swear to God.”

Father Lantom stands solemnly despite the emptiness in his eyes. “...He does…”

-

“I’m taking it just fine,” Matt snips at Wade, playing with his cane the way he does when he wants to scream or punch something. “I would be taking it even better if people would just believe me. ”

“Matt,” Peter exasperates. “You’re making an outrageous claim, and you obviously have a bias. You’re pretty unbelievable.”

“I’m telling the truth,” he insists. “When have I ever lied to you, Peter?”

Peter stares at him with dead eyes. “You told me you couldn’t read once.”

“Peter—”

“No, Matt, I’m going to speak my truth. You said that you were colour blind, then illiterate, then lacking depth perception, then just blindfolding yourself for fun. That’s liar shit, Matt. And maybe if you hadn’t, I would believe you when you say the freaking Punisher is padding his ass.”

“His heart skipped! What the hell else does that mean?”

“Maybe he was just trying to kill you.”

“We were specifically talking about ass padding—”

-

As much as Peter tries to forget that Matt had to muster up his shamelessness to ask Frank Castle if he pads his ass so that he can continue being friends with him (and also look the Punisher in the eye), it apparently comes back to haunt him. Matt is fated as Cassandra, he supposes.

Spider-Man teams up with the Punisher (a very rare event) against Kingpin. It’s going well-enough—if by well-enough he means very badly but they’re also not losing—until it isn’t.

Peter gets beat on out of Kingpin’s quarters, into an alley. Not a super busy alley, mind you, but there are some stragglers clearly terrified (and also filming a tutorial on how to make Spider-paste). Frank follows them both leisurely.

Which, yeah, they’re on the same team and all, but—could he maybe be a little faster?

And then it happens.

One of Kingpin’s goons shoots Frank in the ass…

…He doesn’t bleed.

-

WEEKLY BUGLE POLL:

NIGHTWING: 36,544

DAREDEVIL: 34,911

PUNISHER: 21

-

Peter can maybe admit it’s gotten out of hand when Foggy comes to him, bleary with sleep and near tears, because Matt won’t stop asking him to look at every single compilation he finds of Daredevil vs. Nightwing ass pics. All set to some truly terrifying free-use Youtube music.

One’s set to Anaconda by Nicki Minaj. Peter actually thoroughly enjoys that one.

Since the competition has returned to its original frontrunners, the tension between all vigilantes in Gotham have been sky high. Batman has been extra scowly, and Nightwing extra perky (in more than one way), but to be honest, he’s most scared about what this has been doing to Matt’s sanity. He didn’t have much of one to begin with (read: getting knocked around since he was like, ten,) but the unveiling of the true method to his madness…

“Dude,” Tim quietly tells him one morning in English. “You need to stop this.”

“I know,” Peter whispers, half numb, half fearful. “I’ve tried.”

“Try harder. ”

Peter’s about to protest about how it isn’t that easy—and then slumps in defeat. “Yeah, okay,” he mournfully agrees. “How bad do you think it’s gonna go down if I just announce a winner and tell everyone to shut up?”

“Warzone.”

“...Yeah.”

Peter’s about to make the announcement (which is in reality the equivalent of a tweet) when there’s a sharp rap at the door. Then, without waiting for more than a vague noise of confusion from their English teacher, the door opens.

Tony Stark walks in. He looks pissed.

“Peter Parker,” he speaks, and the words are too quiet for how Peter completely and utterly freezes. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I’m sorry,” their teacher says, seeming extremely confused and also in disbelief. “Are you, uh, Tony Stark?”

“No,” Tony snaps at him, not tearing his eyes away from Peter (who is currently shrinking back). “Parker, do you know the absolute mess of PR you’ve made?”

Peter, still frozen, is silent, but then quickly rushes to mumble something incoherent when Tony makes it clear he’s expecting an answer. “No, Mr. Stark.”

“And did you ever think to yourself,” Tony continues slowly. “That maybe, just maybe, you should think things through before you make a national debacle of something as stupid as vigilante asses?”

“No, Mr. Stark.”

“And did it ever once occur to you that, hey, maybe this is something you should run by me?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark.”

The humiliation of everyone watching this all unfold, of Peter’s galaxial chewing out by a billionaire-superhero who shouldn’t even be in Gotham right now? — It’s, well, something all right.

“Get up,” Tony snaps at him, and Peter doesn’t move. “Now. You’re coming with me to deal with this.” At that, Peter scrambles to get off his seat.

With wide eyes, he nervously looks at Tim and Duke, who are staring right back at him in shock. Help me, he desperately pleads at them—and then he’s pulled out from their view.

-

An hour later, the voting closes. All that’s left of the Weekly Bugle is a unanimous message blaring from every page:

The winner is Iron Man. I love Iron Man. Iron Man is better than everyone else.

I am saying this of my own volition.

-

BRUCE

It has been a very long month and Bruce is quite frankly disturbed at how the young boy he’s raised has turned out to be… like this.

“It’s over now, at least,” Tim offers, stacking papers in his office together. “Peter took down the site after the announcement. It’ll start to die down now.”

“Thank God,” Duke mutters under his breath. It’s a sentiment that Bruce shares.

At least it’s over. At least nothing more can happen. “Hn.” Bruce gets up to stretch his muscles, maybe open a window to let some air in.

Tim wrinkles his nose. “You know, this whole thing got me thinking. It’s really revealed the true side of everyone—heroes, villains, everyone in between. Oh—Bruce, you don’t want to open that—”

Before Bruce can process it, the curtains have been drawn back.

He’s not quite sure what he’s looking at.

“Jason wanted to surprise you,” Duke explains sheepishly. “He also says that after being dead, he’s allowed to be extremely petty about FOMO for the rest of his life.”

It’s a digital billboard, deliberately picked because of how visible it is even from Bruce’s office, 15 stories up. The image is of Red Hood—of course—in a rather…unfortunate pose.

Well, unfortunate for Bruce to be looking at anyway.

Then, with what Steph would later call whorish red writing on top: Thick Thighs Save Lives.

“It gets worse,” Duke sympathizes. “I mean, not to us. But to Gotham, I mean. There’s a supervillain fight going on right now—at least, according to the Daily Bugle.”

Tim, who doesn’t seem surprised about the news, says: “Yeah… should we be helping?”

“Who’s attacking?” Bruce asks, a bigger sense of urgency in his voice. “And who’s on scene?”

“Spider-Man,” Duke answers, scrolling through his phone with his brows furrowed. “It’s apparently one of his rogues: a guy calling himself Doc Ock. And, oh man.”

“What is it?”

Duke only plays a news clip.

The fight is in central Gotham, and the camera shakily captures footage of long, metallic—tentacles?

Have they truly reached the point where they have octopus villains?

The tentacles, that’s what they are, are all connected to a man through a corset. He’s slithering around nauseatingly, and the camera can barely catch as Spider-Man valiantly dodges a car thrown at him.

That’s a sign sure as any. Bruce pushes himself up from his seat, fully intending to rush to the batcave, when Tim holds out a thin finger, telling him to wait.

“Forgot about me, Spidey?” Doc Ock roars. “I bet I missed you more.”

“Would you settle for a Christmas card?” Spider-Man quips, crawling up a building wall.

Doc Ock snarls. The footage shakes more, and then it slow adjusts to the scene.

Strange. The corset attachment with the tentacles. Bruce can’t quite put his finger on it.

Another car’s sent flying. Spider-Man is quick to web it before it crashes.

“Spider-Man,” Doc Ock bellows. “Come out and face me! I am your formidable foe.”

The camera finally fully focuses on the villain. It can’t be—

It seems this villain has taken the most recent vigilante and hero scandal, and raised it one bar higher.

“Oh my God,” Tim whimpers. “He padded his tits.”