Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you serious?”

Peter Parker was currently staring at Timothy Drake-Wayne, the current heir to Wayne Enterprises, in front of the cash register. Timothy had a polite smile, an aggravating one if Peter had anything to say about it.

Timothy ignores him and makes a show of looking at the menu, “Let me get... a large Americano, extra 5 shots of espresso, and a blueberry lemon cream muffin. Please and thank you.”

Peter’s right eye twitched as he put in the order; he had to put extra effort into not breaking the screen. “Your total is $11.64, Mr. Wayne.”

Timothy goes into his wallet and pulls out a twenty-dollar bill. “I didn’t give a name.”

Peter takes it and opens the register, barely even looking at him. “Did you have to?” He begins to count the change.

“Fair enough, keep the change. A tip, for you…” Timothy squints at his name tag as if he didn't already know his name, “Peter.”

No matter how much Peter would like to decline money from this creep, he needed every dollar he could get his hands on. He pockets the bills immediately. “Thanks.” There is absolutely no sincerity in his voice, and he couldn’t care less. Timothy the creep has been stalking him for almost two weeks now, and Peter has been in this world for two and a half. He’s tired, hungry, and broke, and then here he comes, asking too many questions and showing up where he’s not wanted.

Timothy slinks out of the line and sits in the seat closest to the counter, not even trying to be subtle about it. He scrolls through his phone, glancing up every now and then. A coworker of Peter’s, Myra, calls out his name, and he takes the cup and bag with a press-worthy smile. Timothy sits down in the same spot and takes a sip of the coffee, not even touching the muffin.

Peter tends to the last customer in line for now and goes to clock out for lunch. He walks around the counter to the door, and Tim springs up, grabbing his cup and bag, “Wait for me, Peter!”

Peter does not wait for him and keeps walking, letting the door close right in his face. Timothy takes it in stride and pushes the door open with his shoulder, jogging to catch up with him. He matches Peter’s steps and walks casually as if they know each other. Peter stops suddenly, “Can I help you, Mr. Wayne?”

He has the audacity to look sheepish, “I… I just wanted to hang out with you. I saw you at the library with Barbara a couple weeks ago, and you seemed pretty cool. And please, just Tim.”

Bullshit. Peter heard their entire conversation that day, only a few days after he arrived in Gotham. He remembered that day too well; he looked like hell and probably smelled like it too. It didn’t help that he resembled a twelve-year-old after only a few days without food; a fast metabolism is a curse most of the time, if not all the time. Exhaustion and hunger had riddled his body, but he had to reassure them that he was okay before they called CPS. Although Ms. Barbara was still skeptical, she let him use the computers for some info gathering.

With his super-hearing that they didn’t know about, of course, he listened in. Apparently, Tim here was going to do some digging on the obviously homeless teen and see about his situation. It didn’t help that Peter knew that Tim didn’t get a single piece of information about him. He had no social security, previous jobs, permit, license, etc. Peter could tell it was bugging the creep over the past few days, with him showing up conveniently at the library whenever Peter was there, bumping into him at the park, convenience, and hardware stores; he saw Tim everywhere, and it was grating on his nerves.

Always prying for information, no matter how subtle Tim seemed to think he was, and Peter won’t lie, he was pretty good about it. A normal person wouldn’t be able to see or hear it, the information Tim was digging for, and what he could deduce from any answers he gave. Fortunately, Peter was not your average person; he did his best to keep his answers to one word or outright dodge the question.

So, in conclusion, Tim was full of shit but was lying on a professional level. Peter was only a little impressed. “Yes, well…I don’t want to hang out with you. You’ve been stalking me, and it’s creepy.”

Tim faltered, making a noise of disbelief, “Stalking?”

Peter raised an eyebrow, “Dude, don’t be dumb about it. You really think I believe we ended up at the same tech thrift store by chance? You, the son of a billionaire and the CEO of Wayne Enterprises?” Peter says nothing else as Tim staggers for a response, and he begins to walk away.

Tim thinks fast, “Lunch! You’re going to lunch, right? I’ll buy!” He yells after him.

That stops Peter in his tracks. Tim paying for lunch? That's more money that can go towards buying tech, “...I pick the place.”

Tim nods, “Of course.”

Peter continues walking, and Tim takes that as a sign to follow.
“...So—”

“If your next words are a question about me, then you can stop right here and walk the other way.”

“Noted. Shutting up now.”

Tim sips his coffee as they walk silently for a good five minutes, only a step behind Peter. He takes out his phone, scrolling through the family group chat. Suddenly, he bumps into Peter. He stopped. Tim furrows his brow in confusion, “You good, Peter?”

Peter looks back at him and steps to the side to give him a view, “Isn’t that your big brother across the street?”

Lo and behold, Dick Grayson was indeed across the street. They make eye contact, and a smile erupts on Dick’s face. Tim closes his eyes in resignation, “Shit.”

Peter doesn’t stop staring as Dick comes running across the crosswalk, not even looking both ways, but trusting someone not to hit him with their car. He’s fast. Dick comes barreling toward Tim, squeezing him into what looks more like suffocation than a hug, “Timbo!”

Tim struggles, his face going red as onlookers watch with plainly seen judgment, “Put me down, Dick! We’re in the middle of the sidewalk!’

Dick follows his request and sets him down, but not without one last squeeze and a constant arm on his shoulder, “I missed you.”

Tim scowls, “We saw each other this morning.”

“My statement still stands.” Dick finally notices Tim’s company, “And who is this?”

Peter swallows hard as he’s now up close and personal with Dick. The eyes, the face shape, the skin color, the smile. It was all the same. Not every day you get to see your dead father alive and kickin’. He thought he would be ready whenever he saw him, thought he had a big enough mental breakdown to prepare himself. Guess not because he’s about to cry. Cry over a total stranger that looks and sounds like the man from the too-bright photos and grainy videos that he’s watched over and over again alone in his room. Peter knows he hasn’t answered, knows he’s creating an awkward silence, and knows they’re looking at him a bit weird, but he just…can’t speak.

Thankfully, Tim takes over, “This is a friend of mine, Peter.”

That’s what snaps Peter out of his stupor as he blinks back tears, “Whoa—whoa. Let me stop you right there. Friend?” he repeats back incredulously. He couldn’t believe how bold Tim really was, but then again, CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, confidence had to come with the position, right? But Peter had to clear something up, “We’re not friends. You’re my stalker, and I’m your victim. You’re only going to lunch with me because you offered to pay.”

Tim winces at the admission, his shoulders drawing up. Dick raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look surprised. Wow. Must be a common occurrence.

“You’re stalking a teen? And he knows about it?” Dick smacks Tim on the back of the head, “Don’t you have any sense of shame?”

“Ow!” Tim rubs the back of his head, glaring at the sidewalk. Saying it aloud made it sound a bit worse.

Peter looks at the beat-up watch on his wrist. The face was cracked, and the strap had a few tears. Not enough to be of concern, it worked, it was under three dollars, and that was all that mattered. The time was 2:23. Forty-seven minutes left, he didn’t have any more time to waste. “Yeah, thanks for the big brother defense, Mr. Grayson, but I do have a lunch break I need to take.”

Tim pushes Dick off of him, “Move Dickface.”

Dick may or may not have pouted, and Peter doesn’t particularly want to confirm that, so he begins his walk once more, only a building away from his usual spot. Tim predictably follows behind, Dick unpredictably squeezes himself in the middle of the two boys, wraps an arm around each of them, and smiles wide, much too pleased, “I’ll tag along then.”

Peter is tense, tense enough for his body to start aching. And Peter knows Dick notices the rigid posture, that’s why Dick casually slides his arm off, not saying a word as he sees Peter release a breath. Peter was not in the mood to memorize what it would be like to have his father hug him, kiss him, love him—That’s enough of that. But Peter already knew it was too late, knew that Dick's warmth, his father’s warmth, was in his head. Stuck there forever. He was going to cry. Not here, but soon.

Peter leads them into The Deli Table, a sandwich place. It was Peter’s favorite since it reminded him so much of Delmer’s back in his world. This place so far has been the only familiar thing, and he almost fell to his knees after finding out they can smush them real flat.

The bell rings as they walk in, and the owner of the store, an older African-American man who goes by Sam. He was rough around the edges, clearly seen by the large shotgun propped on the counter, but Peter quickly learned, in Gotham, who wasn’t?

Sam was wiping his hands with a dish towel, “Pete, my boy. Who you with today?” Sam’s voice was gruff, and it always gave Peter shivers with how low it was.

Peter shrugs, “Timothy Drake-Wayne and Richard Grayson. They followed me here.”

Sam furrows his brows as the two sons of Bruce Wayne stand there a bit awkwardly, “They not tryna turn you into a prostitute, is they?”

Peter lets out a snort as Dick chokes on his own spit, and Tim turns red within a second; they couldn’t even say anything to that.

“I don’t think so, Sam. And even if they were looking for a prostitute, a fifteen-year-old boy would not be their first choice, I’m sure.”

Sam begins to make his usual, an Italian foot-long smushed real flat. No pickles. Peter’s spider side has been real weird about vinegar lately, and even the smell of them makes him gag.

Sam shrugs, grabbing a handful of lettuce, “I don’t know Pete, rich people are fuckin’ weird.”

Dick is finally able to get his voice out, “We—” he takes a breath and rubs the bridge of his nose, “The Wayne family does not recruit prostitutes, sir.”

Sam hums noncommitingly as he bags the sandwich with chips and a chocolate-chip cookie; he always throws a free one in there despite the multiple attempts to get him to stop.

“$8.18, Pete.”

Peter steps aside as Tim doesn’t forget his offer, Sam raises an eyebrow, “Rich kid payin’?”

“For today, yeah.” And hopefully never again.

“Good for you, I’ll put three more on the tab then.” The price suddenly increases, “$32.72.”

Peter shakes his head vehemently, “I don't…I don't need that many sandwiches, Sam!”

Sam starts to prepare the other sandwiches anyway while shaking his head with a snort, “Kid, I’ve raised three boys, so I know what a hungry teenager looks like. That one foot-long never does it for you, but you can’t afford more.” He waves a hand at Tim, “Learn to take advantage sometimes, Pete.”

Peter runs a hand down his face in exasperation as Dick looks on in amusement, and Tim is appalled to see Sam talking about him like he’s not standing right in front of the counter.

Sam packs the rest of the sandwiches and pairs the same to each of them, a bag of chips, and a cookie, “Go ahead and swipe the card since rich people are following poor teens around now.”

Tim sputters but takes out his card and swipes it anyway, “I am not following him, Peter said I could come!”

The receipt prints, and Sam tears it to hand it over, “Uh-huh.”

Tim continues to try and convince Sam that not all rich people are weird, while Peter carries the four sandwiches to the table and Dick follows with the chips and cookies in hand. Truthfully, Peter couldn’t thank Sam enough. The one sandwich a day was the only thing he could afford, and the calories had to last him the entire day. By the time 4:00 rolled around, it felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself. If he were lucky, pastries would be left in the case at the cafe at the end of the day, which he was allowed to eat for free.

Peter sits down quickly and digs in; he was starving in a way no one would believe. Tim comes a few moments after, looking disgruntled. He plops down and crosses his arms, “Now he thinks I’m a weirdo who follows children in poverty.”

Dick lets out a laugh, and Peter swallows and opens his mouth, “You are though. Like, that’s literally what you’re doing right now.”

Tim shakes his head, “No, no, I’m going out to lunch with an…acquaintance!" He nods to himself in delusion.

Peter ignores his attempts and opens his mouth wide for another bite, Tim pauses and furrows his brows, “...You have sharp teeth.”

Peter doesn’t stop as his canines are on display, “Ate a lot of meat growing up.” Peter looks at him as he chews, daring him to say anything else about it. They had a deal and Tim is on a thin line.

Dick senses the growing tension and aims to break it up, “So, Peter.”

Peter glances at him briefly as he opens a bag of chips; he’d rather not really look at Dick more than he has to.

“You said this was a lunch break. Where do you work?”

“Cafe down the street.” That was free information since anyone could find that out.

A perfect smile came over Dick’s face; it could be seen as charming, but Peter’s spider sense had turned into a dull ring. The same ring that made itself known every time he was in a conversation with Tim, warning him that they’re prying for information, that a slip-up could result in CPS, no job, and school.

“No school, Peter? And what place is hiring a thirteen-year-old?” He asks these with the same smile, looking playful, like his resulting answer won’t uproot his whole life, like it’s just curiosity. Peter could now see that Tim’s whole family was like this; Tim was just more obvious about it. They all stick their noses into things that don’t concern them, that won’t affect their own rich lives.

“What are you, a cop?” Peter keeps any hostility out of his tone but makes it known that the line of questioning was not appreciated in the slightest.

Dick sniffs, “Yeah, I am actually.”

Peter only pauses briefly, glancing up to see the apprehension on Tim’s face. He must be expecting Peter to run. Peter glances at Dick’s choice of clothing for today, a faded black t-shirt and gray sweats, “You’re not on duty right now, so do us both a favor and stop with the interrogation.”

Dick puts his hands up in surrender and still has that same stupid smile in place, “Just curious about Tim’s new acquaintance.”

“We’re not even that! I told you both where we stand, and it’s not going to be more than that.” Peter looked at his watch and found that it was time to go. He begins to pack up his trash and stuffs it into each other, “I would say thanks for the food, Timothy, but you’ve been stalking me for two weeks, so I think it’s only fair. Now, we’re even.”

Tim purses his lips at the jab but says nothing.

Peter stands, “Stop following me, stop talking to me. I don’t know what this little obsession a billionaire has with me, but it ends here. I don’t want to see you again, dude, seriously.” Peter doesn’t even acknowledge Dick as he walks out of the shop. The bell rings after him.

Chapter Text

“So, Timothy Drake-Wayne, adopted son of Bruce Wayne and ex-son to the Drakes,” his boss, Landon, looks at him with barely concealed disbelief, “joined you on your lunch break?”

Peter holds back a sigh. Landon was nosy, despite Peter’s multiple attempts to be clear about his boundaries with people at work; his boss has pushed and pushed and pushed, and it makes Peter want to break his fu— and all Peter is going to say is that Landon has made these two and a half weeks feel like a million years.

Peter slides his employee card in harder than usual. “How’d you find that out?” He does his best to keep the annoyance out of his voice; the man still pays his bills. Barely, but still.

“Lindsey. Who else?”

Peter lets the sigh loose this time. Lindsey. One of the most annoying people Peter had the absolute pleasure of meeting. She was one of the three baristas at the cafe, but even Landon was having a hard time keeping her on a leash. She had autism, which was a very important part, and she made sure everybody within the vicinity knew that. She used it as an excuse to ignore people’s boundaries, physical and mental. Peter doesn’t hit women, and he never will, but the girl tests the theory every day.

Landon pried, but he at least knew when to stop, specifically when Peter would stop answering altogether. Both he and his boss agreed that Lindsey was on thin ice and soon, she would drown. Plus, Peter did some digging for fun and found out Lindsey doesn’t even have autism. She’s been lying about her disability for years, using it to scam people a few years back, and has a warrant out for her arrest in Metropolis. Peter won’t report her. Not his business.

Peter looked over and saw Lindsey, clearly annoying another customer, as he saw a pocket knife being slid out. She still thinks she’s in Metropolis, where it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Like people in Gotham care whether she has a disability (fake) or not.

Peter looks at his boss urgently, “We’ll finish this later.” He needs to know what information to dispute.

Peter runs right in front of Lindsey, interrupting her and blocking her from the view of the angry woman. He puts on his customer service smile, “Is there a problem, Ma’am?”

Lindsey thinks it’s a perfect time to explain herself, her nasally voice grated on his super-hearing, “Well, I was just telling her—“

Peter looks at her from the corner of his eye, “Be quiet, please. I’m pretty sure I was asking the customer.”

A look of indignation forms on her face instantly, and before she can even get another word out, Landon calls for her, “You can take the rest of the day off.” She tries to speak again, but he holds a hand up, “I don’t want to hear it. Clock out and call it a day.”

Her face is red as she stomps away, muttering under her breath, something about ableism. Peter tunes her out as he continues to eye the small knife in the woman’s hand, “I’m sure we can put that away now, Ma’am. I’ll take care of any problems you may have.”

Slowly and reluctantly, she puts the knife away. And Peter can tell by the look in her eye, she’s looking for a reason to stab someone. Thankfully, she has some sort of sense to be civil in a cafe. Peter now knows that the rest of the day will be a challenge. Is he up for it? Well, he doesn’t really have a choice.

Four hours later, and Peter is half-dead and ready to throw a toaster at something… or someone, whichever comes up first. He clocks out and almost runs out of the cafe until he hears his voice, Landon.

“Pete, wait up!”

Peter totally forgot what he said earlier, and now he wishes he hadn’t said it at all. “Let’s make this quick, if you can, please.”

Landon nods, “Of course, of course. Shortened version is that Lindsey said she saw Drake run after you on your lunch, called your name, and everything. She saw him follow you a few blocks down, and she lost sight of you. She thinks you're getting recruited for weird rich people stuff.”

Peter snorted, like he cared what Lindsey thought. But at least that was all of it. Time to wrap it up. “Yeah, okay.” Peter nods to himself. Damage control is not needed. “Thanks for that. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He moves to walk out the door.

Landon is not satisfied, “Aren’t you gonna explain, even just a little bit? I’m curious about my employees, you know? I barely know anything about you.” He says with a good-natured smile. Peter wants to punch him. He hasn’t even done much, but Peter is not in the best state right now, hasn’t been in months, and was losing it before he even arrived in Gotham. He bites his lip and stretches out the silence, enough for Landon to take the hint. Peter stares and stares until Landon becomes uncomfortable and laughs awkwardly.

Peter scrunches his face up, “Can you, like, stop? You’ve been bugging me since I got the job. You’re a nice dude and all, but just chill out. You don’t know me, and unfortunately for you, it’ll stay that way.” Peter looks him up and down one last time, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Landon doesn’t stop him this time as he walks out the door.

The walk home was not pleasant. The clouds gathered, dark in the sky, and thunder rang in his ears. It was going to rain, and Peter didn’t think he was going to beat it. His place was another twenty-minute walk, and it was already sprinkling. He let out a sigh as he realized he would have to take cover. Running in the rain would not be favorable to his already deteriorating body. Thermoregulation was not available to him after the spider bite, which he found out through a very hard lesson. One he’d rather not repeat.

Peter looks around and sighs once more after another realization. The only place available was the Gotham library, only a few blocks down from the cafe. He purses his lips as he considers his options, and they weren’t looking too great. Peter reluctantly forces his legs to move in the direction of the library. On the way there, Peter prays to whoever’s listening that Ms. Barbara will be alone and that he might actually get some peace and quiet for the first time in days.

He stands at the foot of the library, having to climb a set of stairs to enter. Peter is rethinking; he doesn’t want to risk it. But he doesn’t want to risk getting sick either; his healing factor isn’t good enough right now for recklessness.

He pauses his mental pros and cons list as he hears a mugging a few alleys over. It was the woman from earlier with the pocket knife. And unsurprisingly, she is in fact acting as the mugger. She’s threatening a teen, all his money. The usual. But this was Gotham.

Peter hears the slice of skin and flesh, hears the splatter of blood as the teen stabs the woman. He runs. She falls over, breathing heavy. Now she gasps, a lung collapses. The smell of iron fills his nose.

Peter runs up the stairs and yanks the door open as he listens to the woman bleed out, her heart stopping. Spider-Man didn’t exist here, and Peter was hard-pressed to keep it that way.

Peter chokes on a breath as the worst-case scenario is in play. Ms. Barbara is entertaining the company of both Tim and Dick. Right here. Right now. And they’ve all turned their heads to the little ring of the bell.

Ms. Barbara is delighted, “Peter, I haven’t seen you in a few days!”

Peter gives a sheepish smile with a shrug, “Got caught up with work. Sorry about that.”

Tim avoids eye contact. Good. At least he has some decency to be ashamed. And Dick… Peter doesn’t look at him. He’s repressed the memories of any interaction with him.

Peter doesn’t really want to look bad in front of Ms. Barbara, especially if she’s close to them. “Timothy, Mr.Grayson.” He nods to them sharply.

They both make a face at the formal address.

“Just Dick.”

“I told you to call me Tim.”

They said it at the same time. Brothers are weird.

Peter doesn’t bother to respond to that.

Peter sees that going into the library was the right choice. Lightning flashes every few seconds, and the thunder doesn’t let up. Rain was pouring, pelting against the roof. Ms. Barbara nods at him, “Seems you came just in time.”

Peter lets out a nervous chuckle and wipes his hands on his jeans for no reason. He doesn’t want to talk. Peter is not on his A-game right now for semi-interrogations, particularly due to the dead man walking standing in front of him. “I’m uh… I’m gonna go read up on a couple of books until the storm passes.”

Ms. Barbara wheels her chair out of the way, “Knock yourself out, kid.”

Peter walks past them, giving a wide berth to Dick. They’ve probably noticed how uncomfortable he is with him by now. He practically speed walks to the Science section. He grabs a random textbook and opens it; he doesn’t plan to read it. He tunes his hearing for the whispers.

“—re he’s fifteen?” Dick.

“Of course we’re sure!” Tim hissed, “That’s the only info we’re sure of!”

“Would you calm down?” Peter can hear Ms. Barbara let out a sigh, “He’s just pissy that a teenager is evading his super secret, top-of-the-line stalking—”

“Data collection!”

Barbara scoffs, “Whatever. All in all, there’s nothing on him. He doesn’t exist.”

Well. Peter didn’t know they were looking that hard. He knows what his next task is. Records. Proof of existence. It might be a little suspicious that they just magically showed up, but it was better than nothing. He could do it right now, actually. Doesn’t look like the storm was letting up any time soon.

Peter closes the book and puts it back in its original spot. He slinks over to a computer, far enough not to be noticed but close enough that his hearing was clear. He multitasks, running a fake screen capture through a tiny script. If Ms. Barbara happened to look at the activity on his computer, all that would show was ‘Top 100 Hottest Super Heroes: People’s Choice!’

Now, time to get to work. He starts with breaching state databases, inserting fake information.

“—that, he might be a meta.”

Peter freezes. Meta. Meta. The hell was a meta again? Peter stops his little activity and does a quick search.

In Gotham, what are metas?

He presses enter, still listening.

“And how’d you figure that, Timbo?”

Peter’s scrolling. Enhanced individuals who are not allowed in Gotham. Batman’s rules.

Damn.

“He ate four freaking foot-longs today, dumbass! Along with four bags of chips and four cookies! And-And the teeth, like… come on, Dick. I know you’re not this dense.”

Peter hears Dick huff.

“I didn’t want to assume. He could just be a normal growing boy!”

Thank you! Tim was looking for something that wasn’t there! (Peter is going to ignore that he is, in fact, a meta).

“Enhanced metabolism and fangs?”

“He said he ate a lot of meat.”

Tim scoffs, but Ms. Barbara has heard enough, “Dick is absolutely right, Tim. Your theories might be valid, but we can’t assume. You don’t even know the kid!”

“Then I’ll get to know the kid! I’ll prove to you that he’s a meta and he’s weird and he shouldn’t have a job at fifteen and that we’re not trying to recruit him for prostitution!”

There was a brief silence.

Ms. Barbara broke it, “...What the hell are you talking about?”

Tim was still hung up about that? Wow.

“I… I got carried away, but you know what I meant!”

Peter heard Ms. Barbara mutter under her breath, “Do I?”

He can hear the apprehension in Dick’s voice from here: “I think you need a nap.”

“I am not a freaking baby, and I don’t need a nap! What I need is to expose Peter for not existing and being a meta! Then we can help him and make sure he’s not being trafficked by the underground Mafia! You remember Mr. Hugo Veignero? Yeah, he might still be on the loose, and Peter is his next victim. Yes! That’s it!”

Another bout of silence.

Ms. Barbara breaks it again, “...Do you realize what you sound like right now? Crazy as fuck.”

Peter wholeheartedly agrees.

“Wait, don’t most metas have enhanced senses?”

“Yeah, and what about it?”

“I thought you were supposed to be the smarty-pants, Tim. Super-hearing.”

Once again, more silence.

“Shit.”

That’s Peter’s cue to put on an Oscar-worthy performance and pretend like he didn't just hear their entire conversation. He suppresses a shiver as his spider-sense warns him of their eyes. They're watching him. But Peter continues his task of faking records while looking completely oblivious.

“...It doesn’t look like he heard us?” Dick, ever the optimist.

“Yeah, and it doesn’t look like you can shovel an entire dozen donuts in one sitting into your face, fatass, but looks can be deceiving! Go check him!” Tim hisses.

Peter hears a thump, a curse, and now Dick is walking over here, rubbing his lower back. He was muttering about moody young adults and them being assholes. Peter closes his super illegal activities.

Wait.

Dick was coming over here. Over here. Where Peter was. Dick Grayson was coming toward Peter. Dick Grayson was in front of Peter, and his mouth was moving. Peter couldn’t hear a word. He felt nauseous. He was so not used to this. Yeah, he was going to throw up.

Oh. Look at that. He just emptied his stomach on the shoes of Dick Grayson, his dad.

Peter’s throat burned with stomach acid, he had a sudden headache, and he still couldn’t hear a damn thing. His vision’s blurry with tears, and a sob climbs out of his throat. When did he start crying? He feels Dick grab his shoulders, not even caring about the vomit on his shoes. He cries harder.

A hand against his cheek, and he jerks back, hard. He tumbles out of the chair and scrambles toward the bathroom. Everything went left so fast. Now, he’s locked himself in the bathroom and is trying to stop an oncoming panic attack.

He thought he was okay, that this was okay. That he could handle it. But he miscalculated. Didn’t realize what it would actually be like to see the face from his memories. Blurry and vague, but there all the same. To hear the voice that rambled biochemistry mumbo-jumbo to him when he was four. And to see his smile. The last thing Peter saw before he was just… dead. He wasn’t ready. Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready.

Peter huddles himself into a tight corner and rocks back and forth, trying his best to breathe. It’s not working. A knock on the door.

“Peter, buddy?”

It was Dick. Peter tries to block him out, but his enhanced senses won’t let him. He can hear him, smell him (Peter wishes he could touch him).

“Hey, I’m…I’m sorry if I scared you. Or if I was bothering you and you weren’t feeling well? And I wanted to let you know that I’m not mad about the shoes.”

Peter clenches his jaw.

“Just… take your time. We’ll be here when you’re ready to come out.”

Peter sits with his head in his arms. He sits there and sobs.

The rain hasn’t stopped.

The rain hasn’t stopped.

And exactly thirteen minutes later, Peter is staring at himself in the mirror.

Tear tracks marred his red cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot, and he still had drool stringing from his bottom lip. He was a mess. He was a mess and just lost a shit-load of calories with that little episode.

Dick stayed true to his word; there hasn’t been another knock since then. Peter splashes cold water on his face and rinses out his mouth at least six or seven times. The taste of vomit still lingered. Peter stands there for another moment.

He can do this. He can.

Peter thinks of what’s waiting for him outside this door.

He can’t do this. Not at all.

He slaps his cheeks to hype himself up. He has it.

He takes a breath and unlocks the door, holding the handle. He purses his lips as it opens. He peeks out subtly, seeing Tim and Dick on all fours with gloves on, spraying bleach and scrubbing the burgundy carpet. Peter winces to himself and apologizes to Ms. Barbara in his head.

He walks out slowly, not too eager to be noticed. Naturally, Dick looks up immediately and drops everything, taking his gloves off and flinging them anywhere, which, conveniently, was Tim’s head.

“Are you serious—” Tim cuts himself off as he notices Peter as well.

Dick doesn’t run, but almost. He’s standing in front of Peter again and reaches out, but stops himself. He pulls back. Peter buries the disappointment.

“Are you—” Dick is trying to find words. He’s nervous for some reason. “Are you okay?”

Peter shrugs weakly, doesn’t try for a smile. “Could be worse.” His voice was raspy.

Dick swallows hard, “We could, uh, we could take you to a—”

“No, thank you.” He declines immediately.

Tim takes the gloves off his head and mutters under his breath, “This is a hard watch.”

Peter swallows, “Where’s Ms. Barbara?”

“Had to take a call,” Tim answered.

Peter nods, more so to himself.

Dick is still standing there, awkward for no reason. He wasn’t like this earlier; Peter doesn’t know what changed.

Peter walks around him and finds a nice armchair, next to the computer area, to settle into until the storm passes. Peter could feel the loss of calories, could feel the starting pull of hunger in his stomach. He might blackout before lunch tomorrow, only for a few minutes. He closes his eyes, not sleeping; he still doesn’t trust the self-proclaimed detectives, who are not hiding their watchful eyes on him.

Peter thinks about his machine. The machine he’s building to take him home. He thinks about the scraps he still needs to buy, dumpsters he needs to dive through, and blueprints he needs to draw up. He thinks about a better way to support his body so he doesn’t starve in the next month. He thinks about ways to avoid the Waynes in the future, maybe by forfeiting his usual routes? Get a different job? Travel to a different city? He heard Metropolis was great this time of year. Or maybe Star City? Peter kind of wants to meet the Flash and Superman. Wonder Woman, too. She’s scary. And that makes her cool. She reminds him of MJ. MJ. Ned and MJ. May. Like the month, yeah, the month. Springtime with pretty flowers, green grass, blue skies, and everyone was happy. Where Peter was happy.

May.

Peter is thinking too much.

Chapter Text

“That could’ve gone better.”

“Shut up.”

Tim and Dick hovered near the front desk, doing their best to look like they were just hanging around. They kept Peter in sight—close enough to keep tabs on him, but far enough that he wouldn’t feel watched. They both knew the comfort wasn’t working—not with Peter’s rigid posture and white-knuckled grip on his beat-up flannel.

Dick’s arms were crossed with a scowl on his face, while Tim had his jaw clenched, his foot tapping with irritation.

If Peter were enhanced, if he had super hearing, that would mean he got the best of them. A fifteen-year-old kid had gotten the best of Timothy Drake-Wayne. The best detective in the world, behind Batman (he was trained by Batman!), and he had his entire conversation eavesdropped on by a kid.

Dick still wants to give Peter the benefit of the doubt—and wants Tim to stop being a creepy asshat to the kid. Peter hasn’t even done anything to warrant the suspicion. Okay, sure, he has zero records anywhere on the planet, was undeniably homeless and brand new to Gotham, eats like he’s making up for lost time, and yeah, his canines are a little too sharp—but he hasn’t done anything violent. Not even close. And honestly? Tim’s the only one committing actual crimes right now.

They’re at odds with each other, and Tim won’t even let him speak without giving him a punch to the side; he was completely convinced the kid had super-hearing.

The storm is dying down as Barbara comes out from her office, a grim look on her face.

“Bruce is clocking in late tonight; he needs you two back at the manor to help out.”

Okay then. Code for ‘Bruce needs to debrief us about vigilante stuff’.

Tim heads straight for the door. He would love to have something to distract him right now. Dick follows after him with his arm high up in the air, waving. “Bye, Peter!”

Peter doesn’t open his eyes but flaps a lazy hand in his direction. He’ll take it.

Tim slows to a stop and makes a face at Dick’s run-down blue Camaro. He got it like a million years ago online, sold to him by the sketchiest person imaginable for only twelve hundred. Tim hates the car, and he hates Dick for not taking Bruce’s money and getting himself a decent ride. Hell, a Kia Soul would have been better than this piece of shit!

Dick rolls his eyes and opens the door, the usual squeaking emanating from it, “Get in the damn car, Tim. You do this every time.”

“I don’t wanna hear it when this thing’s brakes stop working and we hydroplane into a tree.”

Dick starts the car up, a few tries before it starts to run properly, “Hurry up and stop being a wuss.”

Tim lets out a huff and gets in the car; it rocks back and forth with the added weight, and his door barely closes. Dick takes off, much faster than recommended for the quality of the car, and addresses the elephant in the room (car).

“He called me dad.”

Tim furrows his brows, “What?”

Dick sighs, “Peter was calling me dad while he was spiraling.”

Tim stays silent as his brain fires up, thinking out every interaction he’s had with Peter and Peter with Dick. They ran into Dick on the way to The Deli Table. It was only a moment, but Peter was staring at Dick, hard—like he saw something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Peter avoided eye contact with Dick the entire time—no, not just that. He didn’t want to look at Dick at all. Kept as much distance as he could, like being near him hurt. Calling for his dad while puking… Peter was fine until Dick started talking to him. Peter was homeless for about a week, until he got himself an apartment from a shady landlord who doesn't do background checks. Homeless means no guardian, no parent. That intense of a reaction…not abandoned. Dead.

Huh.

“You look like Peter’s dead dad.”

The car swerved.

Tim grabbed onto the dashboard frantically, “What is your problem!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry! But you just can’t drop a bomb like that while I’m driving!”

“I didn’t think it was that big of a surprise! The signs were all there!”

The signs, the signs. Dick is doing his best to think of any while he’s driving; he goes through the day, his interactions with Peter, and Tim can see Dick finally come to the same conclusion.

“Well, shit.”

“Exactly.”

Tim jerks his head up, “Is that why you were being unnecessarily awkward with him? Because he called you dad?”

“What do you mean, ‘unnecessarily’? You just wanted me to gloss over it?”

Tim runs his hand down his face, “Act like a normal human dealing with a traumatized teen, you weirdo! You’re not actually his dad!”

Dick clenched his jaw, “Right.”

Tim did not miss that, “... Are you his dad?”

“Oh my gosh, Tim! No, I’m not his dad!”

“Could’ve fooled me! Are you or are you not a deadbeat to some random teen, and haven’t told any of us?”

“I’m not his freaking dad, Tim! I wouldn’t have even been old enough to get someone pregnant!”

“Don’t get mad at me, your answer wasn’t very convincing! And eyes on the road, dumbass!”

If the rest of the car ride was spent with Dick driving the car with his knees, hands on Tim’s throat, and a bow staff in his hip, that was no one’s business but their own.

Dick is going to put Tim down for a nice, long nap when they get home. Nightlife be damned.

Putting Tim to bed was an entirely different demon. Dick would rather go a round with Slade than do this shit. After ten minutes of running a marathon, up and down stairs, mind you, he finally caught him.

“Let me go, I’m not five!”

Dick had his arms wrapped around his middle and was carrying him, barely, to the bed. “Then stop acting like it! You’ve been an asshole to everyone around you, and I’m tired of it!”

Tim was plopped into the bed and held down by his chest. He thrashed around, fighting until he couldn’t fight anymore. And there Dick was, exhausted and over it. Dick was about to tranquillize him. That one wasn’t a joke.

Tim suddenly goes limp. Damn it.

“Are you crying?”

“No, I’m not freaking crying!” But the tremor in his voice and his bowed head are answer enough.

“Just… just let me help with the case tonight, please? I need to help; you guys might need me, right? Let me help, and I’ll sleep for three days straight if you want me to!”

Oh.

Tim was still insecure about his place in the family. Wanted to make sure he was needed, to make sure he wasn’t just a one-off in Bruce’s whims. Dick lets out a sigh and removes his hands from Tim’s chest and allowing him to sit up. Dick sits on the side of the bed as he watches his little brother, looking significantly smaller.

Dick grabs his hand, idly fidgeting with it. Tim doesn’t pull away. For a moment, they sit in silence, the only sound being Tim’s sniffles.

Then Dick says, soft but certain, “You’re someone who shows up when it counts—even when no one asks you to. You go above and beyond, Tim. You’re part of this family. No one’s questioning that but you.”

Tim swallows hard and whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Dick huffs, a bit of humor in it, “Go to sleep, Timbo. I’ll get you in the morning.”

Tim finally lies down, and he’s out like a light.

Dick keeps his steps light as he closes the door behind him and doesn’t startle when he turns to see the youngest Wayne standing in the dark hallway like a creep. He takes too much after his father.

“Dami.”

“Grayson. I heard the commotion.”

“That you did.” Dick knew what the kid was trying to do, and he was not giving him answers for free. This was part of learning to communicate with family.

The silence draws out as they both stand there.

Dick crosses his arms, “I can do this all day. Don’t try it.”

Damian lets out a sound of displeasure, “…Is Drake taken care of?”

Dick raises an eyebrow, “Elaborate.”

Damian is getting frustrated, and Dick couldn't care less. No one said learning was easy.

Damian lets out a breath, “Is Timothy… in good health, mentally and physically?”

An amused chuckle escapes Dick. That's an improvement. “Tim is okay. Just had a little sleep trouble, he’ll be all set in the morning.”

Damian nods sharply, “Father is still expecting us. And there is also a situation in the cave.”

That grabs Dick’s attention immediately, “Situation?”

“Todd has returned. He is in a stand-off right now with Father.”

Dick makes a break for it down the stairs with Damian keeping up easily.

“Are you serious! Why didn’t you say anything earlier!”

“You said an inquiry about the well-being of someone is a way to show the emotion of care.”

Dick makes a hard left, gunning for Bruce’s office, and Damian is only a step behind him.

“You little brat! You just wanted to see them fight!” And the lack of disagreement was answer enough.

Dick adjusted the grandfather clock as fast as his fingers would allow, the hour and minute hand hitting twelve. He doesn’t even wait for the bookshelf to open all the way, squeezing himself into the elevator. Damian follows in after him, and the child suddenly finds himself in the air.

“Release me, Grayson!”

Dick holds him tight as the doors close, “Nope. We don’t have time for the safe way.” Dick pushes the big red emergency exit button, and the elevator drops. Damian holds onto his neck firmly, but he’ll deny it every time.

The elevator shuddered to a halt—then dropped with a bone-rattling boom. The doors slide open with a ding, and Dick still hasn’t put Damian down as he runs to the main part of the cave.

He skids to a stop at the scene.

Jason has two Glock G19s pointed at Bruce, and Dick can tell from here that the safety was not on.

Dick drops Damian like a cat, trusting him to land on his feet. He doesn’t hesitate to put himself in front of the guns. Bruce makes a wounded sound at the action.

Dick looks back at him sharply, “You’re not even trying to de-escalate the situation. I don’t wanna hear it!”

Dick looks to the front of him to see Jason in full Red Hood get-up, helmet and all. His distorted voice rings out through the cave, “Move out of the way Dickface, or I’ll shoot you and then shoot the piece of shit behind you.”

Jason is entirely bluffing… about shooting Dick at least. He would totally shoot Bruce. No doubt about it. That’s why Dick couldn’t step aside. He walks forward casually, like nothing was wrong, and doesn’t stop until the barrels are touching his chest.

Jason keeps them there a bit longer, clearly debating internally. Ultimately, he clicks the safety back on and returns them to his holsters. Dick gives a satisfied smile, “What are you doing here, Jay?”

“None of your fuckin’ business. What are you doing here?”

Dick lets out a sound of amusement, “I live here, Jay.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“I fuckin’ hate you.”

Dick takes it in stride and keeps his voice light, “That’s okay. I love you.” Said as easily as breathing.

Jason lets out a noise of frustration and stomps off to the elevator.

Dick releases a breath of relief, crisis averted.

Damian, who had stayed silent and off to the side, gives a nod of approval, “You are quite adept at dealing with Todd.”

Dick rolls his eyes, “Yeah, well, someone has to be.” He turns his full body toward Bruce and throws his arms in the air, “What the hell was that!”

Bruce stares impassively at his, and with his cowl on, it was pretty aggravating. “Right back at ya’, chum. Why would you step in front of two loaded guns?”

“He was going to shoot you!”

Bruce clears his throat, almost like he’s quoting. “I was… ‘letting him express himself without being overbearing.’”

Dick runs his hands down his face in irritation, “There are other ways of allowing expression, B! But letting yourself be shot full of bullets is not one of them!”

“You were reckless.” Bruce did not mean to say that. Shit.

Dick stares with his mouth open, and Bruce can tell he’s turning red even with his tanned skin.

“You’re an asshole. Emotionally stunted. You keep taking in kids even though you know you’re a shit father. ” That escalated.

Bruce recoils. That hurt. Good.

“It’s not the first time you’ve said that.” Wrong thing again. Goodness.

Bruce can see the eye-twitch, “And I’m going to keep saying it until you clean up your act!”

Bruce lets out a breath, “I’m… I’m trying, Dick.”

“Try harder!” Dick is breathing hard. He’s angry. Has been for a few years now.

The only sound in the cave now was the fluttering wings of bats and the steady beeping of the bat-computer.

Bruce’s throat works around a response that won’t come. Instead, he shifts. “Where’s Red Robin?”

“Asleep. He won’t be on patrol tonight.” Yeah, he didn’t ask permission to take Tim off the route tonight, and yeah, Dick was daring Bruce to say something, say something so he could yell at him some more.

“That’s… that’s okay.”

“I know it’s okay, that’s why I did it.”

Bruce’s lips press into a thin line, “Suit up… please.”

Dick scoffs, “Whatever.” And he makes his way to the changing rooms, not without pressing a kiss to Damian’s head, a silent apology.

Bruce and his youngest son were left.

A wicked grin made its way onto Damian’s face, “That could’ve gone better.”

Bruce rubs the bridge of his nose (cowl), “You’ve been spending too much time with Tim. Go suit up.”

Damian runs away with a laugh.

“What is that?”

Superman was currently off-world, a few billion miles away from Earth. The Deomehsha Sector, planet Uyanis. He received a distress signal while aiding a nearby galaxy under the tyrannical rule of an Alaskan Bull-Worm. Yeah, he doesn’t want to talk about it either.

Anyway, the inhabitants of Uyanis, thankfully, were pleasant to look at and didn’t have anatomies that would churn his stomach with every look (he’s talking about the Neijok Sector, total weirdos over there). They had skin so pale it was almost glowing, and their faces were sharp and perfect—like someone took an Earth-elf and dialed up the eerie. They didn’t walk, either. Just floated a few inches off the ground, like gravity was more of a suggestion to them.

After answering the distress call, a group of them led him deep underground to what he assumed to be the leader; the giant crown made from what looked like pure glass was a pretty good indicator. A monarchy then? Hopefully not a dictatorship, he was tired of those. He could tell the leader’s face to be male-esque? A king then? Lots of questions. Now, back to the matter at hand, Clark.

And, he just realized he didn’t have his translator out. He pulls it out to repeat the question into it, but the leader holds his(?) hand up, “I am not in need of your speaking device, Superman.”

Clark furrows his eyebrows. The heck? Was that a Russian accent?

He puts the translator away, “You know English?”

The alien nods, “Makuwain's intellect is very high. I am the leader. I must take responsibility to have knowledge of all language within two-light-year radius. But, I am expanding responsibility to four light-years.”

“...Wow.” Talk about dedication. “Okay then. Back to my earlier question, Maku. Can I call you Maku?”

Maku nods, “You may refer to me as Maku. Male. Earlier question. You asked ‘What is that?”

That in question was the biggest piece of malevolent material Clark has ever seen and felt. The absolute evil was wafting off of it in waves. It was definitely taller than the Empire State Building and wider than a football field. It resembled a black stone, with strings of energy pulsing from it, like an octopus.

Maku was looking upon it indifferently, but Clark could see the bead of sweat appear and drip down his face. This thing was strong.

“It crash landed in what would be one week ago in Earth time. We are thankful that it landed in one of our deserts. No people there. No death.”

Clark glances at him, “You haven’t contained it? Doesn’t seem friendly.”

“It has not done anything violent or attempted to despite its hostile aura. But caution is still in motion. My people are building containment as we speak. As you can see, we did not have a perfect fit at the moment.”

Clark flies up to get the sheer size of it, and Maku glides right next to him.

“How’d you move this thing?”

“Many people and what Earth would call telekinesis.”

Clark shrugs, “Makes sense.” He touches the ground, “What’d you call me for?”

Maku does not touch the ground. “Word spreads quickly among galaxies. They say Superman is the strongest known entity within twenty light-years. We were under the assumption that you could offer up knowledge about the unknown object.”

The strongest? Clark bows his head and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. He was blushing. “You flatter me. And I would love to help, but you have to give me something to work with.”

Maku is silent for a moment, “I believe my team of scientists was able to obtain transcriptions from it.”

“It can talk?”

“We believe so. We haven’t been able to translate it. It is a language I have not heard. It is from very far away.” He calls over one of his own, a smaller one with a female-esque face. She holds out a hexagonal device to him, silver in color and thick in width. Maku passes it to Clark.

“This is the device that holds Earth days' worth of transcription. Press top of it two times to activate. It should be compatible with Earth technology.”

Clark gives a sincere smile to Maku, “Thank you. I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as I can, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be quick. Or it might be? What’s the rate of time dilation here?”

“About forty-seven Earth years per minute on Uyanis.”

Clark lets out a whistle, “How long have I been here?”

“About twenty-one minutes or so.”

“Well, that sucks to think all my friends are dead.” He says with a pout.

Maku tilted his head, “Are you not saddened?”

Clark shakes his head, “Nope! One of my super-duper smart friends came up with a simple solution so I can go farther and help even more people.”

“Simple…?”

Clark shrugs, “He told me to just fly faster than the speed of light until I get back to my home galaxy when dealing with time dilation. Essentially, time travel. And please don’t ask me to explain, I genuinely have no clue.”

Maku floated there, his mouth open. “... No organism should be able to do that.”

“I don’t know either man.”

Chapter Text

“She got arrested?” he asked flatly.

Peter stood there, employee card in hand, dragging himself through the motions of clocking in for his 6 a.m. Wednesday shift. It was exactly one week ago that he ruined Ms. Barbara’s carpets in the library and apologized a million times before going home for the night. He hadn’t gone to the thrift store that night and still hasn’t been since. He was way behind on his ‘get back home’ machine. Why, you might ask? Because freaking Lindsey hasn’t been clocked in since freaking Wednesday. Peter’s been taking double shifts to make up for her absence, and he can barely complain; more money, but also more time he can’t afford to lose.

Landon, who was only twenty-five and is looking much older these past few days, rubs the bridge of his nose and keeps his eyes shut tight, “Yeah. Metropolis warrant. Government stuff. Feds raided her place two nights ago.”

Peter furrowed his brow. Federal prison—for faking a disability? Bit of an overkill.

“They told me her autism was a fluke and she had been using it to scam officials out of thousands.” Landon rubs his forehead; he’s stressed. “Man, shit was crazy, Pete.”

Ah. Scamming government workers. That’ll do it. “Cool. So I guess I’m stuck covering her shifts forever.”

Landon scoffed, “Be patient. Teenagers never learn to move slow. You gotta be like a rock.”

Peter sniffed with a slight noise of disgust; Landon sounded like he was smoking rock.

Landon had a smug look on his face, “You’re quite lucky, though—all thanks to me. You’re welcome.”

Peter goes to organizing the displays in the case, “Thank you for what, exactly?”

“A new employee obviously! No more double-shifts for you, young man!”

Peter looks at him blankly. “Get to the point. Who is it, Landon?”

Landon pouts and mutters, “You’re no fun, as usual. Her name is Stephanie Brown.”

Stephanie Brown. His new coworker. Okay. She couldn’t possibly be as bad as Lindsey.

She was worse than Lindsey.

All because of her associates. Dick and Tim were sitting at the farthest booth, with Stephanie right next to them on her break. Talking about absolutely nothing, Peter tuned them out once he realized it would be a waste of time.

Peter couldn’t believe this absolute blasphemy. He thought she was decent, a little too preppy and curious, but something he could tolerate with blank looks and short answers. She was nice, though, and he was grateful for that. Having a coworker who wasn’t aggravating for once (Myra did not count since she couldn’t even remember his name).

All was good until noon hit.

The cafe was mainly empty, save for a student or two who were clearly skipping school. Peter was currently making one of the said students another caramel frappe, their fourth one. Insane.

Myra was in the back making a new batch of cinnamon buns, and Stephanie was sitting behind the counter, eating a cookie. Landon was doing whatever managers do, and if that was sitting at one of the tables, scrolling on his phone, then whatever.

As Peter was topping the drink off with a drizzle of caramel, the door opened with a jingle. Peter doesn’t look up as he puts the lid on.

In the corner of his eye, Stephanie jumps up, “Dickie and Timmy!”

He froze. The hell? The names were awfully familiar. Maybe it was another ‘Dickie and Timmy”. Yeah, another one. Because she couldn’t possibly know the Waynes. She couldn’t. No way.

Someone comes into his line of sight, and he still hasn’t looked up.

“Hi, Peter.” Shit.

He takes a breath and looks up, coming face to face with Dick fucking Grayson.

An eye-twitch, “Welcome to the Roasted Spoon. Can I help you?”

Dick lets out a sigh, “Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

Stephanie looks over at him from having Tim in a chokehold… or a hug, Peter would guess. “You know Dickie?”

“No, I don’t. He seems to think that he knows me, though.” Peter was still a little bitter about them seeing him in such a vulnerable state at the library.

Tim finally frees himself from her clutches and is gasping for air. He rubs his neck with a harsh swallow, “What is your problem, Steph!”

“You.”

Tim lunges for her. Dick steps in the middle. It does nothing.

And Peter takes that as his cue to leave the scene and take this drink to the teen. The said teen was gone. Okay then, free caramel frappe for him, yay. He goes and sits a few seats away from Landon, who doesn’t even notice that there are two Waynes and his employee involved in a mini-brawl at the front of the cafe. Peter sips at the drink, doing his best to block them out.

And that brings us to the present, with Tim, Dick, and Stephanie sitting together, talking about bullshit.

Steph throws her hands up in the air, “I’m telling you guys, cereal is a soup!”

“No, the freak it’s not Steph.”

“Prove it. If it’s not a soup, then what is it?”

“Soup is a hot dish! You don’t eat tomato soup with marshmallows!”

“Gazpacho exists Tim.”

“The hell would you know about Gazpacho?”

“Enough to know that it’s cold. And sweet soups exist, look it up.”

“I’m not looking up shit. Dick, tell her that she’s wrong.”

Dick is contemplating, “... I’m okay.”

“Boom! Cereal is now identified as a soup.”

Peter could genuinely say he didn’t catch a word of that conversation—he’d dissociated halfway through. Something about cereal and soup? Whatever. He hated this job.

But what did catch his attention was his name being mentioned just now.

“Peter can fix cars?” Dick said that.

Tim is nodding too eagerly, the sick little shit.

All three pairs of eyes turn toward him, and Stephanie is the first one to jump up and make a break for him. She doesn’t hesitate to grab him, “Peter, can you fix Dick’s car?”

Peter is looking at the hand on his arm, and is still looking. It hasn’t disappeared.

Dick must see what’s happening and must see the look on Peter’s face. Dick comes over and hastily pulls her away, dislodging her arm. Dick knows Stephanie isn’t stupid; she’s Spoiler for goodness sake, she did that on purpose.

Peter takes a sip of his drink, “What?”

Dick lets out a nervous laugh, “Well, I’m… I’m having some car trouble these days.”

Tim mutters, “More than that.”

Dick shoots him a look and emphasizes, “Car trouble. And Tim said you know how to do that kind of stuff?”

“And how does Timothy know that, Mr. Grayson?”

Stephanie mouths, “Timothy and Mr. Grayson?”

Dick ignores her and turns toward Tim, letting him answer for himself.

Tim crosses his arms, “We ran into each other at the hardware store, we had a little convo, and found out he was buying a few parts. We were in the automotive section, so I would assume he knew enough about cars.”

Peter will admit, Tim said it so smoothly, it was hard not to believe him. But Peter was the victim and wouldn’t hesitate to take him down a few pegs. Who lies about stalking right in the stalkee’s face?

“You mean you followed me into the store? And tried to interrogate me and then followed me around the store?” He took another sip of the drink. It was really good.

“No, I mean we had a nice conversation.”

Peter stands up, “I’m not in the mood for bullshit, Timothy. I wasn’t even supposed to be seeing you again, ever.” Peter was getting irritated.

Dick cuts in, “We just came to see Steph at her new job. We didn’t come here to bother you on purpose. Promise.”

“Well, you are, so can you guys, like, leave?” Peter wants to bite all of them, and Landon for not doing shit. Peter sips at his drink again before he notices it’s gone. He moves to throw it away.

“I can do it!” Tim practically trips over his feet to grab the cup from him. Peter snatches it out of his reach.

“No thanks.” Peter walks around him to do it himself and throws it into the trash. He hears Tim let out a pained noise at the action. Freak.

Peter hears Dick sigh, “Peter, can you fix my car or not?”

Peter thinks for a moment, “... I don’t work for free.”

Tim speaks up, “Five hundred an hour.”

“I’m off tomorrow, I’ll be in front of the cafe at ten.” And Peter is already regretting this at the smug look on Tim’s face. But he would most likely make at least fifteen hundred tomorrow; he couldn’t and wouldn’t pass that up.

Landon finally looks up from his phone, insane how that was what got his attention, “Whoa, Pete, you do not have the day off tomorrow.”

Peter shrugs, “I do now.”

Landon makes a face, “Uh, no, ya’ don’t.”

Peter closes his eyes and is about to shift to total asshole, until Dick cuts in with a sultry smile toward Landon, and Peter notices the pitch of his voice goes down just a bit.

“Can you give him the go-ahead just this once, please? I need him to do some work for me tomorrow. You seem so capable, I’m sure you can manage without him, right?”

Now, Landon can say for sure, one hundred percent, that he was not gay. Preferred women, and that wouldn’t change. But this was Dick Grayson. The Dick Grayson, who was looking at him with low, dark eyes and a pretty smile. Dick Grayson was gorgeous, unnecessarily so.

Landon swallows hard, “I… I guess we’ll be fine without him tomorrow.”

Dick gives a wink, “Thank you so very much, sir.”

“N-no problem!”

Dick seals the deal with a sweet laugh and turns out of sight from Landon, who leaves hastily with a red face. The sugary noise dies out as he sees the look of disgust on Tim and Stephanie’s faces.

He huffs, “What?”

Stephanie rolls her eyes, “You know we hate it when you do that.”

Tim makes a noise of agreement, “We don’t exactly like to see our big brother pimping himself out.”

Steph mumbles, “Your brother.”

Tim gives her a sharp look, “Our brother.”

Peter has had enough. He did not like that at all. “Are you serious? I had it handled, you know! Why would doing that even be your first instinct? You didn’t have to go and humiliate yourself over some dumb shit like that!”

Dick is surprised by his outburst and frowns, “I… I was fine. It’s okay.”

Peter throws his hands up, “It’s not okay! I don’t… I don’t know why you would do that.”

Dick is confused, “It’s not a big deal. I’m used to it and I don’t mind. Seriously. Don’t worry about it.”

Peter clenches his jaw visibly and says through gritted teeth, “Just leave, please.”

Tim purses his lips and grabs Dick’s arm, “Come on. We’ll see you later, Steph.”

The light-hearted mood they all shared (besides Peter) was gone; even Stephanie wasn’t smiling anymore. She blew out a slow breath, “Yeah, see ya’ later.”

Tim drags Dick out of the cafe, with the expression on Dick’s face making his confusion known.

Stephanie turns toward him, “You never told me how you guys officially met.”

Peter snorts, “I wasn’t planning to.”

She arched a brow, “You know I could just ask when I see them later today.”

“You do that.”

“You’re closed off,” is what she says out of nowhere.

“Astute observation.”

“It’s nothing wrong with having friends, you know.”

Peter was quick with a retort, “And there’s nothing wrong with leaving people alone. We’re not friends, I don’t want to be friends, and we will never be friends. We’re coworkers. Nothing more, Stephanie.” He didn’t need someone he barely knew trying to randomly enact a therapy session and try to fix all his problems.

She presses her lips into a thin, hard line. “Noted.”

Peter doesn’t say another word as he clocks out for his lunch break.

Peter was standing outside the cafe at 9:58 in the morning, toolbox in hand, and he was already irritated. He wasn’t able to head to the thrift store for some old tech yesterday because Landon made him work the closing shift. His boss was mad that he fell for the Dick Grayson charm and took it out on him, which Peter is one hundred percent sure was outside the jurisdiction of labor laws.

It was extra chilly this morning, and Peter’s seven-dollar jacket was not doing the job. And Peter’s nerves wouldn’t stop acting up, mainly because he was about to come in contact with his father once again. Peter knows that mentally, he was quite okay with being near him most of the time, but his spider-sense was thinking differently.

All in all, Peter is irritated, cold, and antsy. At only ten in the morning.

It was going to be a long day.

A dusty blue Camaro pulls up in front of him, brakes squeaking, and the window rolls down. Dick Grayson.

“Hey, Peter.”

Peter doesn’t greet him, but runs his eyes over the car, and he can tell four things that are wrong with it just by the sound. Well, time to get started. Peter bends to one knee and clicks open his toolbox. “Turn the car off, Mr. Grayson.”

Dick quirked an eyebrow, “Why would I turn the car off? I’m driving us to the manor.”

Peter jerks his head up, “Why the hell would we go to the manor?”

“Um… so you can fix my car? We can’t stay out here the whole time.”

“And why not?”

“Peter, Dick Grayson being in the open for more than twenty minutes would draw too much attention. And I know for a fact that you would hate to end up in a tabloid titled, Dick Grayson’s New Mechanic? So, we’re going to the manor.”

Peter hesitates. Dick was right, but it was still risky. “Where will I be working?”

“Just the garage. You don’t even have to come inside, promise.”

Peter bites his lip. Dick doubles down, “Seven hundred an hour?”

Peter’s decision was made. He closed his toolbox and got in the passenger side.

Dick smiled, “Eight hundred if you call me Dick from now on.”

Peter is learning to take advantage: “Make it a grand.”

Dick’s face is painted with amusement as he takes off, “A grand it is then.”

Peter nods, doing his best to hide his glee, “Nice to meet you, Dick.”

“So where’d you say this came from again?”

Superman lets out a groan at Barry’s inability to listen. Clark was back at the Watch Tower and caught Barry in one of the labs doing who knows what. He invited him to the main meeting room to discuss what he’d seen and received on his interstellar journey. He’d just explained what had happened, and now Barry wants him to say it all over again. Sometimes, Clark swore that dealing with the speedster was worse than fighting Zod.

Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but you get the point.

Clark was holding the transcription device out in front of Barry, “I already told you, Barry, but I’ll tell you again because I know you have a hard time focusing.”

“That last part was not needed.”

Clark spoke over him, “After going off-world to help an enslaved galaxy, I had gotten a distress signal from a nearby planet called Uyanis. That’s where I met an alien leader named Maku, and he said that he needed my help with an unknown object. It was a huge stone, like huge Barry, and it had a bunch of evil energy. His people found out that it can talk, apparently? And he gave me this device with days' worth of transcription from it. They don't know the language and would like some help deciphering it.”

Barry whistles, “That was a lot. But I think I got it. I’ll meet up with J’onn and see what he and I can do with it. If we can’t do it, I might have to get some other members in on it. You good with that?”

Clark waves a dismissive hand, “It’s not a secret, so do whatever you have to do.”

Barry nods, “And this dude… Maku? He’s not expecting any results soon, right? Alien transcription is never a quick job.”

“Nope. The time dilation on that planet was insane. One minute there was forty-seven years here.”

Barry grins, “So you did the time travel thingy again, right?”

Clark has a look of exasperation, “Yes, I did the time travel thingy. I always do the time travel thingy. Still don’t know how it works, by the way.”

Barry rolls his eyes, “I’ve explained multiple times, Clark, why are you still not getting it?”

“Because it doesn’t make any sense!”

“It makes all the sense in the world! The speed of light is constant no matter where you are, past, present, or future; it stays the same. 299,792,458 meters per second. Okay? That means that if you travel faster than that, the space-time continuum would have to recognize you as a light variable, which in turn gives you access to the past, present, and future. Got it?”

Clark is contemplating, “... No. Still makes no sense. Like, how do I make sure I’m going to the past and not the future, or like making my own present?”

Barry throws his hands up, “Because with time dilation, you were already in the future, Clark! And your present was that future, and when you travel back in time, the past is your present. Your present is wherever you’re at in time, Clark. It’s simple!”

“It’s really not.”

Barry huffs, “Whatever. You’re dumb. Just give me the alien thingy.”

Clark hands him the device and lets go completely. Barry instantly drops it—way heavier than he expected. It slams into the metal floor with a loud boom, leaving a deep dent. They both just stare at it in silence.

Clark clears his throat, “Will that be a problem?”

Barry shakes his head, “I’ll just have J’onn deal with it.” He nudges it with his foot. It doesn’t move. “What planet did this come from again?”

“Uyanis. A few billion miles away.”

Barry’s brows knit together, “Wait, wait, back up. What’s a ‘few billion’ miles?”

“Like, I don’t know, sixty-seven, sixty-eight?”

“That is not a few, Clark!”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes! Because your sense of numbers suck! A few are, like, three or four, no more than five! What if aliens need help and you tell them, ‘Oh, yeah. We’re only a few billion miles away!’ and they end up traveling for over eighty billion miles to find us, and then they run out of food, fuel, and oxygen, and now they’re dead! And then their whole civilization has been massacred!”

“... Very specific scenario.”

Barry waves it away, “Off-topic, that’s not what I was trying to get at. Sixty-seven billion miles isn’t nearly enough distance to experience dilation on that scale. The only way that would be possible is if the planet were near a black hole. And that’s not possible.”

"Oh, that’s what that big black void was?"

Barry was wide-eyed, mouth open. “Big black void?”

Clark nods casually, “Yeah, I couldn’t really see it because it was so close. Couldn’t get the full picture, you know, but it definitely had a little pull.”

“A little pull?” Barry shakes himself out of it, “Wait, forget your freakish nature. How is that planet still around? Like, it should’ve been sucked into nothingness!”

“Still don’t know, Barry.”

“Ugh, you don’t know anything!”

Chapter Text

“I know you’re rich and all, but genuinely, what do you need this many cars for?”

Peter was standing in the garage of Bruce Wayne and was thoroughly unimpressed with rich people's bullshit. It was like a damn mall but for cars. Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Rimac Nevera, Apollo, and—holy shit, they have an Aspark. There’s only like three of those in this world right now.

Dick shrugs, “Bruce has always been a car guy.”

Peter gives him a look, “Then why the freak are you driving this piece of shit when you have an Apollo up for grabs?”

Dick makes a noise of offense, “It’s not a piece of shit! It's a special car which has a special place in my heart!”

Peter looks back and forth between the Camero and the Aspark. “Are you okay in the head?”

“Can you just get to work, please? I’m paying you by the hour.”

Peter looks around, “I need more space than this. You’re rich, I know you have a big ass room for this type of stuff.”

Dick snaps his fingers, “That we do. Just follow me.” He starts up the Camaro and drives slowly in the garage, and Peter follows him to a dead-end—a wall. But Peter knows better; rich people like to do unnecessary shit.

A slit appears in the wall, and it slides open. Knew it.

He follows the car and watches as Dick parks it right in the center of the empty room. Peter looks around and goodness. It was like mechanic heaven. Every single tool Peter could think of was on the surrounding walls, along with any and every car part, like ever. All shiny and new. He couldn’t even recognize some of them. Peter gulped.

He was going to have some fun.

Dick steps out of the car and spreads his arms, “Have at it, I give you full rein to the workshop.”

He didn’t have to tell Peter twice.

Peter practically threw his toolbox into the corner and speed-walked, not ran, to the car. He popped open the hood, and he was now completely and utterly baffled. “How the freak is this thing still running?”

He shifts his eyes from one place to the next, “Cracked serpentine belt, failing belt tensioner.” He swipes his finger across the manifold gasket, and it comes back black. He rubs his fingers together absent-mindedly, spreading the soot, “... Exhaust manifold leak.”

He looks to Dick as he takes off his jacket, throwing it somewhere, and rolling his sleeves up. “That’s just under the hood, and that’s not even all of it. I could hear a million things wrong with it while it was running. You haven’t had any maintenance done on this car?”

Dick rubs the back of his head sheepishly, “Afraid not.”

Peter shakes his head and goes to grab a few things off the walls, “Any longer and that thing woulda’ blown up.” He grabs a multitude of things: a toque wrench, a breaker bar, screw drivers, pry bars, etc. He sees in his peripheral that Dick was just standing there watching him. “If you stay here, you have to be my assistant. If not, get out. I can’t work with distractions.”

Dick pouts, “... I can’t just watch? Silently?”

“No! Go grab that bucket and get over here! … Walk faster!”

Peter was now elbow deep in the hood of Dick Grayson’s car. “Pass me the pliers.” He holds his left hand out while adjusting a cap with his right. A pair of pliers appears in his hand.

“Can I talk now?”

Peter doesn’t even glance at him, “No.”

“Please? It’s physically hurting me to not talk, Peter.”

“Use it as endurance training. You never know when you might have to be silent for hours.”

Dick groans, “I’m a cop, Peter! I can already do that!”

“Well, right now, I can’t tell. Be quiet.”

Dick crosses his arms, “You’re no fun.”

Peter holds his hand again, “Wrench, the big one.” The big wrench is put into his hand.

“… So you like cars?”

Peter throws the wrench to the ground, it lands with a loud ring, “What did I just say!”

Dick throws his hands up, “Come on! I’m paying you a grand an hour, the least you could do is let me talk!”

“Thirteen hundred, and you can keep the questions to a minimum. Now pick up that wrench.”

“Deal.” Dick hands him the wrench, and that smug smile makes Peter want to throw it at his crotch.

Dick starts with his earlier question, “So you like cars?”

“Obviously.” Peter wouldn’t have soot past his elbows if he didn’t.

“That’s cool. I was never really able to get into it, but Tim did. Maybe I could bring him down here to help you out some more?”

“I don’t want that freak anywhere near me.”

“He’s a little… odd, but he’s a great guy. Promise.”

Peter throws an entire part from the engine bay to the ground. It was totally trashed. He goes to get another one. “I can’t trust anything you say since you have a brother bias. He follows me around and does weird stuff to get to know me. I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m sorry about that.” Peter can actually hear sincerity in his voice.

“I don’t want an apology from you.”

“I’ll do my best to talk to him.”

Peter hums and sets the new part in the empty spot. “Pass me the torque wrench.”

His spider-sense prickles—someone’s coming. But it doesn’t feel urgent, not life-or-death, just… someone big. Not his business, so he stays where he is, eyes down. Then he hears it—the soft hiss of a wall panel sliding open, followed by the unmistakable weight of heavy footsteps. Male, if he had to guess.

An unknown voice, “What might be going on here? Alfred said you were down here doing god knows what.”

Dick answers, “Getting my car fixed.”

“Finally? … But by a twelve-year-old? I could’ve had someone do it.”

“Fifteen. And no thanks. I wanted him to do it.” Thank you, Dick.

“How much are you paying him?”

And no. Dick is not going to give out his business to some rich rando. He rounds on the unknown male, “None of your fucking—“ Peter cuts himself off.

Wow. It was Bruce Wayne.

Peter finally turning to around to lay eyes on the man is when his spider-sense starts to go haywire. Alarms are ringing in his ears, his head is pounding suddenly, and Peter is struggling to keep his breathing under control. His instincts were telling him that this man was dangerous. But he didn’t know why. Bruce was just some rich dude. A really big, rich dude, but all the same.

Dick doesn’t seem to notice his dilemma and lets out a chuckle at his frozen expression, “This is Bruce, Peter.”

Peter looks down at the hand that Bruce is holding out. He doesn’t take it.

Dick is looking between the two of them.

Bruce retracts his hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Peter.”

Peter swallows and forcefully settles his breathing, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Bruce Wayne. “I wish I could say the same, Mr. Wayne.” Peter really wishes his default setting wasn’t antagonizing.

But all Bruce does is give a little quirk of his lips, “You would rather be somewhere else?”

Peter ignores the abundance of tools, automotive parts, and cars. He’d rather be here than anywhere else. “Big time.”

“Then why are you here?” A genuine question.

Peter tilts his head toward Dick, “Your son is paying me the big bucks to fix his hunk of junk.”

“And what are the ‘big bucks’?”

Peter scoffs and gets back to work, not even looking at Bruce now. Even though his spider-sense hums at the back of his skull—against all logic—not to turn his back on the man.

“Why would I tell you that?” He mutters. Then, over his shoulder, “And Dick, don’t say shit.”

“I shall do as you command, my Prince,” Dick replies, bowing with dramatic flair.

“I don’t find you funny in the slightest.” Peter is dead serious, and a laugh escapes Dick.

”Say shit else and I’ll throw this wrench at your head.” Peter doesn’t think it’s the best idea to threaten Bruce’s son in front of him, but what is he going to do?

… A lot. His spider-sense was saying Bruce could do a lot.

Peter had almost every enhancement under the sun; why were his instincts acting like this?

He could feel Bruce running his eyes up and down his frame, his gaze burning a hole into his back.

“Well, since you’re fixing my son’s car, let me extend my gratitude. Come inside. Take a break and join us for lunch.”

Peter slams the hood closed and chucks the wrench into the bucket, “No thanks. And I think it’s time I wrap up here.” he turns to Dick, who suddenly looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm, “I’ll take my payment now. I’ll come back tomorrow to finish up the rest.”

Bruce waves his hand, “Nonsense, you can finish up today. Just after you eat something. Can’t have teenagers going hungry in my own home.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed, “Do I look hungry, Mr. Wayne?” Peter was quite literally starving right now, but anything to avoid the Waynes when he could.

Bruce doesn’t hesitate, “Yes, you do.”

Dick hits Bruce on the arm. Hard. He doesn’t even budge as his son hisses a reprimand.

Peter doesn’t fold, not this time. He’s already taken too many risks with the Waynes, and Peter is guessing it won’t just be Bruce and Dick at the table. It stops here. He stays silent and holds out his hand for payment.

Bruce makes an offer, “Double whatever Dick is paying you.”

And that’s how Peter found himself sitting at Bruce Wayne’s extravagant wood dining table, along with Dick, Timothy, Damian Wayne, and Duke Thomas.

Damian doesn’t even bother hiding the fact that he’s staring at Peter—suspicion written all over his face.

Peter keeps his head down, stabbing at whatever fancy dish their freaking butler whipped up. He won’t admit it out loud, but he’s grateful for today’s meal—his body had been screaming for real meat, not the sad, thin pieces of meat he usually had on his sandwiches. No offense to Sam.

He tears into the steak, canines sinking in like it's personal. Who even eats steak for lunch? Rich people, obviously. Gotham elite nonsense.

Around him, the Wayne kids chatter away—half watching him, half pretending not to. Peter stays quiet. He’s not supposed to be here. He came to fix a car and get paid, not dine with Gotham royalty.

Then Duke pipes up, cutting through the noise: “Whoa, dude! Your teeth are freakin’ sick.”

Peter pauses mid-bite. All eyes swing toward him. He swallows.

“…Thanks?”

Duke leans in, fascinated. “Did you do that on purpose? Like, get them shaved down?”

“Nope. Natural.” Also: expensive dental work? Yeah, right.

“Can I see them again?”

Peter shifts in his seat. He’d really rather not. He’s used to hiding the weird parts. But Duke seems like a cool Wayne for once—and Peter’s not in the mood to ruin the vibe or risk his check.

With a reluctant sigh, he pulls his lips back, revealing sharper, longer canines than any teenager should naturally have.

Duke lights up. “Dude. That’s awesome.”

Damian disagrees. “Do you use them to kill people?”

Peter doesn’t even flinch. “No, I don’t kill people, Mr. Damian.”

Tim chokes on a laugh. “Mr. Damian?”

Peter shoots him a glare. “Yeah. His dad is Mr. Wayne, so I can’t use that. Obviously, dumbass.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “He’s younger than you. Just call him Damian.”

Damian straightens in his seat. “His form of address is adequate.”

Of course, he’s proud of it.

Duke blinks between them. “Wait—do you guys know each other?”

“Unfortunately,” Peter mutters.

Bruce, finally chiming in, tilts his head. “How did you two meet?”

Tim opens his mouth to explain, but Peter beats him to it.

“He stalked me. For two weeks.”

Bruce doesn’t even blink. Not surprised. Not offended. Peter files that away under this whole family is weird as shit.

Dick grins around a mouthful of steak. “For absolutely no reason at all.”

Tim whips his head toward him. “You know why I was stalking him, Dickhead! You’re really doing this right now?”

Dick shrugs. “I openly disapproved of the stalking. I’ve been very clear about that.”

Damian sniffs. “Anything to say for yourself, Timothy?”

From Duke’s side of the table: “Does he ever have a good reason?”

Tim’s had enough. He slams his hand on the table and points a violent, accusing finger at Peter. “He has no record! None! I can’t even find a last name. You get how nuts that is? Me—and I can’t find a last name on a fifteen-year-old!”

Peter doesn’t look up. “My records are there.”

Tim freezes. “…What?”

“My records,” Peter says casually, stabbing another bite of steak. “They’re on file.”

Tim frowns, already whipping out his phone and typing like a madman.

Meanwhile, Alfred appears like a ghost to top off Peter’s plate. Peter lifts a hand to stop him.

“I’m good, Mr. Pennyworth. I think I’ve overstayed my welcome anyway.”

He stands. Alfred beats him to the plate, whisking it away with the ease of a man used to reading minds. Butlers are insanely efficient.

“I’ll finish up with Dick’s car and call it a day.”

Bruce gives a nod. “Understood. Dick, will you be joining him?”

Dick’s already pushing his chair back. “Yeah. I was his assistant today.”

Damian makes a noise of offense. “This plebian child has you working as an assistant?”

Plebian. That’s a new one.

And now Dick is arguing with Damian about his assistance while Tim makes loud noises of disbelief.

“You didn’t exist a few days ago! It’s not possible, unless you broke into the system. But-But you haven’t shown any knowledge of code!”

“Yeah, because I don’t code. I do mechanics. That’s it, really.” Lying straight through his teeth.

Tim twitches, “You’re a big ass fraud.”

“Prove it.”

Tim looks like he’s about to jump over the table, but Bruce holds up a hand; all arguments and movement stop.

“Tim, that’s enough. Dick, escort Peter down to the garage so he can finish his job. Damian, not another word. And Duke… stop recording. You know your siblings hate that.”

Duke puts the phone down with a pout.

Dick is already walking toward the door, and Peter moves to follow until his spider-sense goes off. He slows his steps down and looks around, eyes cutting through the room until they settle on Tim. Bingo. Alarms go off in his head, loud. He’s stopped moving completely now.

Dick turns, “Peter? You coming?”

Peter stays silent as his eyes narrow on Tim. He looks him up and down, looking for the danger. His pocket. Something is sticking out of his pocket. Peter enhances his eyesight. And… what the—

“Is that a strand of my hair?”

Tim freezes but only for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

Peter gapes. Tim was going to lie to his face. Lie to his face about having a strand of Peter’s hair in his pocket at this very moment. Like he wasn’t a creep. Like Peter was the crazy one.

That’s it.

In a second, faster than even the rest of them could react, Peter jumped over the table and tackled Tim to the ground.

Tim screams like a girl.

“Get off of me!”

“Are you fucking insane! My hair, seriously!” Peter bites the arm that’s smushed into his face.

“Ow! Are you a fucking animal!”

Damian is laughing in the background.

It takes Bruce, Dick, and Duke to get him off Tim.

Peter was now sitting in a chair, arms crossed, and a thunderous expression on his face. Dick was looking at him warily, making sure it didn’t attack again. Dick was right to be worried after fifteen minutes had been spent trying to dislodge him.

Tim was sitting a few seats away, face flushed and breathing hard while cradling his right arm, which had a multitude of reddened bite marks.

Bruce let out a heavy and tired sigh, “Give me the hair, Tim.”

Even injured and exhausted, he was stubborn, “No! You know how long it took me to get this?”

Peter lunges, Tim flinches back, and Dick tackles him back into the chair.

Bruce tries again and holds out his hand, “The hair, or you can take a nice long break from Wayne Enterprises.”

Tim grunts in displeasure and slaps the packaged strand of hair in Bruce’s hand.

Peter snatches it up as it’s handed to him. He hasn’t said anything since they pulled him off.

Dick scratches his head, “Do you… Do you wanna head home—”

“No. I’m going to finish today, so I don’t have to come back, ever.”

He goes to follow Dick, but gives Tim a hard look, “Next time? Not even Superman is getting me off you.”

Tim muttered under his breath, and Peter heard every word of it, “What?”

Tim glares, “You heard me.”

Peter lets mock confusion come over his face, “I don’t think I did. I don’t have super-hearing, you know.”

He doesn’t turn back as Tim gapes.

“What do you mean you lost him! He’s stuck as a giant stone!”

Solaris gulped, “He’s… He’s very cunning, my lord.”

Orionis rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Our most dangerous prisoner has escaped and has laid waste to the lands. The people are in shambles, death surrounds us, and yet you claim that you cannot locate him?”

Solaris looked up at his Lumiarch. Orionis was anything but small—towering at ten feet seven, he had the kind of presence that made silence feel loud. His skin was pitch-black, like deep space itself, scattered with constellations that shimmered faintly as he moved. Each step seemed to stir starlight across his body. His hair, long and violet like a nebula stretched thin, trailed behind him as he paced, drifting slightly.

“We’re trying our best, my lord. But he has masked almost all of his internal energy. We’re only able to see traces of where he may have vanished to.”

Orionis waves his hand, “Do we at least have an idea of what his end goal is?”

Solaris bows his head, “We were able to deduce that the prisoner wants to find a boy.”

“A boy,” Orionis repeats, “A boy… What boy Solaris, where he is, and why does he want him! Give me something, anything!”

“That… we do not know my lord.”

“Useless, you’re all useless to me!”

Solaris winces.

Orionis continues his rant, “There is no doubt that he would want to use the boy for whatever nefarious purposes he has planned! Find him, Solaris! Find him before he finds the boy, or find the boy before him, whichever comes first! Go!”

“As you wish, my lord.” Solaris hastily retreats.

Orionis plops down on his throne with a thud. He closes his eyes and leans his head, letting out a heavy breath. He doesn’t startle as he feels his Seer appear beside him. This would not be great news; it never is when she shows up.

Cloaked in gold, she uses magic to obscure her face. Not even he knows what she looks like. He peeks an eye open, “What do you see, Faerya?”

“... Your people are suffering from his devastation. Mothers crying for their children, children crying for their fathers. An ocean of blood floods the lands as the people scream and cry in anguish and agony. The people look to you; judgment has overcome them. ‘Why has our Lumiarch not stopped this razing? Why do we continue to suffer?’ is what they say.”

He clenches his jaw, and he goes to ask a question, but she already knows.

“Yes, he will return to finish what he started. I cannot see or tell you much about his goals, but I can say without a doubt that if he reaches the boy… dimensions will be annihilated. Ours included.”

She leaves him in deafening silence.

Chapter Text

Peter let out a scream.

Which, to Peter, is ridiculous because he already had an eventful day, from fixing Dick Grayson’s busted up Camaro, to getting paid twenty-six grand for it, having his DNA stolen, and attacking Timothy Drake-Wayne for it; he thought the rest of the night was going to be smooth-sailing from here. Yeah, no.

Peter had Dick drop him off in front of the cafe, despite Dick’s adamant protest about walking home in Gotham, at night… with more than a few bands on him, tucked under his waistband. But Peter didn’t care. At this point, it was just about keeping the Waynes out of his life as much as possible. Dick Grayson didn’t need to know where he lived, didn’t even need to know the area.

He had let out a sigh of relief as he made it to the door of his apartment. He was ready to work on his go-home machine and prepared to pull an all-nighter before work. And that brings him to the now.

Peter had let out a scream.

And the source of his ire was bleeding out on his floor.

Red Hood.

The anti-hero/crime lord (or ex-crime lord in his official statement) of Gotham, who is known to be incredibly violent, was bleeding out on his cheap hardwood floor. But that’s not why Peter screamed. Not at all.

No, his distress came from his ongoing project lying in broken pieces on the bloodied floor. The crime lord groaned in pain and shifted. Peter let out a harsh gasp at the loud cracks of machinery.

“Stop fucking moving!”

Red Hood froze, barely looking up, and with a harsh breath, “Who are you?”

Yeah, Peter was going to kill him. If the loss of blood didn’t, then he’d have Peter to worry about.

Speaking of losing blood, Peter was supposed to help the man. Help the man who was ruining all of his progress to get home. He raked his hands through his hair and pursed his lips, looking at the mess.

Red Hood coughed up blood with a gurgle.

Fine.

Peter, with gritted teeth, rushed to grab his first aid kit and some gloves. He sets the boxes down and bends to one knee, rolling Red Hood over, wincing at the crunch of more tech. It took everything in him not to cry; he’d been working on it for weeks, and now he essentially had to start over.

Hood was a heavy-duty man, so Peter had to use a little more strength to get him on the couch. He plops him down with little to no gentleness, and Hood lets out another moan of pain. Peter ignores it, puts on a pair of gloves, and gets to work. The sooner he patches the man up, the sooner he’ll be out of his apartment.

He starts with ripping off the clothes, disinfecting, and making sure none of his crushed project got stuck in the very prominent bullet and knife wounds. Three stabbings in his abdomen and two bullets to the shoulder. Hood did a good enough job keeping pressure on it so that he could at least make it here without bleeding out.

Hood lets out a hiss as Peter rubs the alcohol along the edges of the wounds. He dazedly tries to bat Peter’s hands away. It does absolutely nothing.

Peter gets the needle ready, working as fast as he can since he could still see blood sluggishly leaking out of the wounds, and Hood is losing consciousness. Damn it.

He sterilizes the needle with a quick flame from a lighter and threads the suture through it. While he’s stitching Hood up, he needs to keep him awake; he can’t fall asleep while losing blood. Peter doesn’t know if he’ll be able to wake up again.

Peter starts with the first suture, “Hood. Hood. Hood. Hood. Wake up. Hood. Wake up. Hood—“

“Fuck! I’m… I’m up!”

“Good. Great. I need you to talk to me. Don’t fall asleep until I say. I’ll stitch you up, then you can sleep as much as you want. Promise.”

Hood lets out a harsh breath at the in and out of the needle, “Y… Yeah, I gotcha’.”

“Okay then. Why’d you come up to an apartment on the fourth floor and not the first?”

Hood shifts with a grunt, and he gets a smack on the leg for that. “I… Yours looked the… the least suspicious.”

Peter tightens the first suture and dodges Hood’s hand at the action. “Elaborate.”

Hood covers the eyes of his helmet with his arm, “First floor… druggies. Second… second floor was a woman… stabbed husband. Bruises all over her.”

Abusive husband. Makes sense. Peter tightens the second suture. “And the third floor?”

“… Couple. Kinky sex.”

Peter almost loses his grip on the needle but recovers quickly. “You were watching them long enough to determine it was kinky sex?”

Hood gains a semblance of energy, “What! No! I… I wasn’t watching them! I was passing through and saw a leash and a blindfold!”

Peter nods, “That’ll do it. So you decided to come to my apartment and ruin a bunch of stuff.”

“Yeah… yeah, sorry about that. But I was… I was bleeding out.”

Peter is a bit cruel with the next tightening, Hood gasps. “You were able to climb four stories while bleeding out; you couldn’t just take a few seconds to be considerate?”

“M’ sorry. I-I’ll help you fix it.”

Now Hood was delusional and talking out of his ass. “You’re not helping me fix shit.”

Peter can tell that even under the helmet, he was pouting. “I can… I can fix it. I’m smart.”

“Never said you weren’t smart. Just not enough. And I just don’t want or need your help.”

Hood didn’t respond to that; his breathing was getting shallow. Peter was almost done, just a little more.

“I need the helmet off, Hood.” Peter goes to reach for the helmet, until Hood enacts a firm grip on his wrist.

“Explosives.”

Peter snatches his hand back, “Are you serious?”

Hood doesn’t answer but takes off the helmet himself. Peter can hear the mechanisms and the explosives deactivating. Wow. Hood had issues, clearly.

Hood uses up the last of his remaining strength to drop the helmet to the floor, and Peter fumbles to catch it. No way is he having his cheap ass apartment blow up while he’s in it.

Peter sets the helmet down with a gentleness he hasn’t used in a while and gets a good look at the face under it. Sort of. A mask and a helmet. He’s not hot under there?

Peter’s almost finished with the last bullet wound and multitasks with the stitching and looking at his face. He was young. Peter could tell that easily, but what really interested him was the white tuft of hair settled in the front of his head. A fashion choice? It could be; it looks good on him.

“All done. You can pass out now.” Peter didn’t even get his whole sentence out before Hood was slumped on his couch.

And despite this whole ordeal, in the back of Peter’s mind was the feeling of familiarity. Hood reminded him of someone, and he didn’t know who or why.

“You up now?”

Jason woke up with an intense ache in his shoulder and stomach. His vision was spotty, and he had no idea where he was or who this twelve-year-old in front of him was. He tried to sit up, with immense pain, mind you, but the kid had a surprising amount of strength, keeping him lying on the couch.

“Don’t move. You’ll undo all my hard work, and my ruined tech will mean nothing.”

Jason squinted, “What?”

The kid rolled his eyes, “Go back to sleep, Hood.”

Jason’s vision went black.

The next time Jason woke up, he felt good enough to stay awake longer than a few minutes. He looked around the dingy apartment and heard a rustling noise to the right of him. He sat up just a little bit to look over the couch. It was the kid tinkering around with some tech. He had a… blowtorch in his hand with some scraps.

Oh. The kid was welding.

Jason furrowed his brow. How did a twelve-year-old know how to weld?

Jason doesn’t dwell on it and shifts around as silently as he can, moving to get up. He froze as he heard the kid’s voice.

“Stay still, please. You’re still healing.”

Jason looks down, finally noticing the lack of clothes. His stomach and shoulder were wrapped with bloodied bandages. He touched his face, no helmet. He doesn’t remember taking it off.

He hears the kid walk towards the couch, “Your bandages need to be changed again.”

Jason eventually got a good look at the kid. And he looks even younger than he thought. He was small. And skinny, the shirt practically hanging off his frame. Jason asked his burning question, “You did this?” Gesturing to his bandaged injuries.

“No, actually. I let Batman into my place and let him stitch yo—Yes, it was me, you idiot. Do you see anyone else in this apartment?”

“Yeah, okay. Very funny. Where’s your parents, kid?”

“Where’s yours?”

“Dead.”

“You’re not special.”

Jason blinked, “Okay then. You’re twelve and you live in an apartment by yourself. And you know how to treat stabbings and bullet wounds.”

Peter crosses his arms, “Fifteen.”

“Three years doesn’t make it any better.”

“I’m not trying to make it better, I couldn't care less if it’s better or worse. But I am trying to get you the fuck out of my apartment.”

Jason sits up with a wince, “Can I get a name before you kick me out?”

Peter kicks his shin, “No. I’ve been changing bandages and feeding a grown man apple sauce for two days. And fixing the shit that you broke. I want you out.”

Jason stands up slowly, holding his abdomen.

The kid bites his lip and sighs, “… I do genuinely want you out of my life, but I can’t in good conscience send you out if you're not at least eighty percent. Are you okay?”

At the admission, Jason slumps back onto the couch. He wasn’t even okay enough to lie about his condition. But he agreed with the kid; he didn’t want to be around a civilian longer than necessary.

“You said it’s been two days?”

The kid nods.

Jason swallows, “Two more days… please.”

The kid blows out a breath, “Not the answer I was hoping for. Two more days then.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Peter.”

There’s a pause.

“… Jones? Peter Allen? Williams?”

“Peter.”

Jason sniffs, “Okay then. Peter. Just Peter.”

Peter nods, “Yeah.”

Jason opens his mouth to say something else, but his eyes travel to a corner of the ceiling, and he sucks in a breath. “Peter, what the fuck is that?”

Peter wears a look of confusion and turns to the same corner. His eyes widen, and he chokes on a breath. Right. Jason would hope the kid would have a normal reaction to the giant fucking spider web in the corner of his ceiling.

Jason can literally see the kid start to panic internally. There’s a visible swallow before Peter says something.

“I… I have a pet.”

Jason looks at him blankly, “Peter. That web is human-sized.”

Jason can see another swallow.

“It’s a… a really big spider. Goliath. One of the biggest spiders in the world. Got him from a busted exotic animal trafficking ring.”

Jason blinks. “And where is he now? Because he’s not in the fucking web.”

Jason watches Peter’s eyes roam over the walls and the floor.

“He’s around here somewhere.”

And yeah. Jason freaks out. And he has a right to freak out because apparently, there’s a big ass spider roaming around this small ass apartment, and he can’t find it.

“You what?”

Bruce lifts a small bag, a lone strand of hair inside, just like the one he’d handed Peter earlier. “Peter wanted his hair back, so I switched its place with another strand of hair. He was too angry to notice.”

Dick looks at him with his mouth open, and Tim has stars in his eyes.

Dick shakes his head, “Absolutely not.”

Tim makes a grab for the hair in Bruce’s hand, and Dick intercepts him mid-lunge. The two collide, and a moment later, Tim has his face pressed to the floor, grunting in frustration, while Dick plants himself squarely on his back.

Bruce looks at his two sons on the floor of the Bat Cave. Tim seems occupied, so Bruce turns to walk to the lab. He’ll run the DNA himself.

That’s what he thinks until he stumbles from Dick’s running start onto his back. Bruce gains his footing back, “Really?”

Dick snatches the hair and jumps off, “Yes, really!”

Tim stands up with a quickness and lunges once again, “Give me the hair! This’ll prove everything!”

Dick dodges with a spin, “Bruce! You’re encouraging this?”

Bruce does a subtle shrug, “Peter is clearly a meta.”

Tim lets out a noise of triumph, “Hah! Take that Dickface!”

“Okay, if you know he’s a meta, why do you need his DNA to prove it!”

Silence.

Bruce spoke, “… I need to check something.”

“You’re not checking shit, Bruce. And neither are you, Tim.”

Tim runs his hands through his hair, stressed, “That’s the last piece of DNA I have, Dick, and I won’t be able to get another one!”

“No, and you know you’re wrong because even Alfie doesn’t approve this time!”

“Alfred getting water on my arm was a complete accident!”

“No, it wasn’t! He walked over and threw a glass of water on the arm Peter bit you on!”

“So that it wouldn’t get infected!”

“That’s still not an accident, dumbass! And where’d that delusion come from? It was so that you wouldn’t take his DNA from fucking bite marks!”

“That’s what Alfred told me!”

“He lied!”

“You’re lying!”

“That’s enough.”

Dick and Tim’s mouths shut.

Bruce looks at Tim, “Go suit up.”

Tim grits his teeth and storms past the two, and they hear the slam of a door.

Dick stands there with his arms crossed, looking anywhere but at Bruce.

Bruce was going to try a new tactic. One that won’t end in a shouting match. That’s what Alfred said, at least. Bruce took a breath.

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

Dick froze, but Bruce continued on.

“I’m sorry for taking Peter’s DNA without his permission. I didn’t know he meant that much to you and that it bothered you. You can get rid of the hair, and I'll talk to Tim.”

Dick’s eyes got glossy, and he still hadn’t looked at Bruce.

“I know… I know my paranoia can aggravate you. And Peter is a meta, but he hasn’t done anything wrong. I won’t look into him anymore because you asked, and I…I value your opinion as my son.”

Dick tongued his cheek and blinked away tears. He said nothing as he walked past Bruce.

Bruce stood there alone, and he let out a sigh of relief.

He did it. Improvement.

“Peter! Find the fucking spider!”

“He’s harmless, just a bit on the bigger side! Now, would you please get down from my couch! You’re injured!”

“I’m not getting off this couch until that big ass spider’s location is known!”

Peter had to commit, “His name is Tony!”

“You named a fucking spider Tony?”

That was the first name that came to his head. Sue him.

“He doesn’t bite! Will you just get your dirty boots off my couch!”

“No!”

“I thought you were a crime lord! How are you afraid of a spider!”

“Ex-Crime lord! And it’s not just a spider! Based on the size of that web, it’s a mammoth!”

Peter throws his hands up, “Fine, stay there then! Tony hasn’t done anything wrong, and I’m not going to invade his privacy because you’re a coward!” Peter says nothing more and storms over to his welding project, resuming his work.

Hood stands on the couch, petrified, for another good thirty minutes until he sits slowly, wincing at his now aggravated wounds. Another thirty minutes passed in silence; the only noise being Peter’s blowtorch.

“You know your apartment isn’t that big?”

Peter rolls his eyes, “Gee, I haven’t noticed.”

Hood releases a heavy sigh, “… There’s no giant spider named Tony, is there?”

Peter doesn’t stop welding, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tony’s roaming around this apartment right now. Maybe he went out for a walk to like… go hunting or something.”

“I’m not going to judge you if you have freaky spider powers, Peter.”

“I couldn't care less about you judging me. You’re Red Hood.”

“… So you do have freaky spider powers?”

“… Yes.”

“Is that why your teeth are really sharp?”

“… Yeah.”

“So, the web is yours?”

“I thought we established this.”

“Just checking.”

Peter can’t focus now. The Red Hood just found out that he’s a fifteen-year-old living by himself with freaky spider powers. He sets down the blow torch and runs his hands through his hair. “Look, dude, I… I really need you to keep this between us.”

Hood snorts, “I’m not an asshole. I’m not gonna put a target on your back.”

“Good. Great. Thanks. You hungry?”

Hood tilts his head, “I could eat.”

Thirty minutes later, both Peter and Hood were side by side on the couch, eating sandwiches from Sam’s place. Peter has a total of four sandwiches in front of him.

Hood takes a bite, “Fast metabolism?”

“Bingo.”

“I have a lot of questions.”

“Can’t say I’ll answer all of them, but you can try. Shoot.”

“Where does a kid get professional-grade sutures and bandages?”

“Stole them from a hospital in upper Gotham, where else? They won’t be missing it.”

“Okay, how does a kid know how to use professional-grade sutures?”

“No comment.”

“Fair. How’d you get your powers? Meta gene?”

“Thought I was classified as a meta with some last-minute research, but I looked more into it, I don’t have the meta gene, so I’m not a meta technically. Just a dude with powers.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

“How do you pay rent?”

“With money.”

Hood rolled his eyes under the mask, “I know that smartass. How do you get money?”

Peter shrugs, “I have a job that gets me by.”

“What place is hiring a kid your age?”

“No comment.”

Hood clicks his tongue. “You go to school?”

“I’ll let you answer that question for yourself.”

“Touché. What powers do you have?”

“Sharp teeth, webs, sticking to things, super strength, speed, hearing, and sight. Enhanced metabolism and agility.” Peter leaves out just a few things.

“So you don’t just have spider powers, you have spider habits too?” Hood gestures to the giant web in the corner.

“I mean, yeah. I retain some behaviors.”

Suddenly, and Peter doesn’t even know where he got it from, Hood pulls out a peppermint and shoves it into his face.

Peter drops his second sandwich and jerks away with a hiss. He covers his mouth and nose with both hands.

Hood jerks the peppermint away and puts it back wherever he got it from. “Sorry, I just wanted to test it.”

Peter’s words are muffled, but Hood hears them quite clearly: “I’m going to bite you.”

“Please, don’t. I’m injured.”

Peter goes for the neck.

Red Hood and Tim scream the exact same. Good to know.

“So you just keep a backup piece of hair on you at all times?”

Bruce rubs the bridge of his nose, “I thought we were past this, Dick.”

“We are, we are! But I just thought about it, and it’s weird that you had a strand of hair to switch on hand.”

“It’s weird that you were going to eat the hair.”

“That was a contingency in case you and Tim didn’t stop.”

“Doesn’t make it any less weird, chum.”

“What’s weird is you reading that fuckass book. I hate even being near it.”

Bruce flips the left side of his book to look at the cover and read the title out loud, “Comprehensive Guide to Mid-20th Century Paperclip Manufacturing Standards. What’s wrong with it?”

Dick had a very prominent look of disgust.

“What? It’s actually very interesting. Did you know that paperclips originally had a standard length of 3.35 centimeters, but the manufacturers extended it because it severely limited its capabilities concerning stacks of paper? With the 3.35-centimeter paperclip, it had a limit of only twenty-five pieces of paper. But with the extensions, we can now hold up to one hundred pieces of paper. It was revolutionary.”

“… I did not know that. I don’t think I needed to know that.”

“Well… knowledge is power.”

“That was just some bullshit, Bruce.”

“You can leave now.”

“Gladly.”

Chapter Text

“I thought you said you had a job?”

Hood and Peter were centered on the floor of the apartment, playing a thrifted game of Reaction, a game Peter had found when he first arrived and couldn’t resist. It was a chemistry game where you had to guess the chemical reaction between two elements. And Peter finally has someone to play it with.

“I do have a job.” Peter reads from his card, “Sodium plus Chlorine? Easy one, Hood.”

“Sodium Chloride.” Hood takes the card from him. “Three days and you haven’t gone to work. Some people would come back to find that they don’t have a job.” Hood reads his card, “Potassium plus Oxygen?”

“Potassium Peroxide.” Peter takes the card from him. “My boss can’t really afford to fire me. He’ll be fine. Hydrogen plus Oxygen?”

“Water. Don’t you have to pay rent? Iron-56 plus high-energy particle?”

“Why am I getting the hard ones? … Cobalt-57. I have some money saved up. Aluminum plus Iodine?”

“They’re obviously not hard for you. Aluminum Iodide. Can you afford to save on your paycheck? Hydrogen-1 plus Hydrogen-1?”

“Deuterium. You don't even know how much I make. Calcium plus Oxygen?”

“Calcium Oxide. And I don’t need to. Look at your apartment. Uranium-238 plus neutron?”

“Neptunium-239. You’re rude. I could just be living below my means, you know. Potassium plus Bromine?”

“Potassium Bromide. It seems you’re living at your means, and it’s not very much. Silicon-28 plus Helium-4?”

“Sulfur. I’ll kick you out right now if I hear another word about my apartment. Bismuth-209 plus Calcium-48?”

“Absolutely not. I’m done. You win.”

“Nihonium-278 dumbass.”

“Dumbass? Who the fuck knows that off the top of their head, Peter!”

“Me. And since we’re the only two people here, there’s no frame of reference. Therefore, you’re a dumbass.”

Hood immediately tries to resort to violence, pulling out his gun and pointing it at him. Peter rolls his eyes. Hood’s done this at least a dozen times now.

“I’m going to shoot you, like… right now.”

“You’re not shooting shit. The safety’s not even off.”

“You want me to turn it off?”

“Do it. See what happens.”

They both stand there for a few moments. Peter doesn’t wait anymore; he tackles Hood, taking care to be gentle with his still-healing wounds. Hood ends up with his back to the floor and his gun a few feet away. Peter is sitting on his chest with a smug look on him.

Hood tries to push him off, “Get your butt out of my face!”

Peter uses a bit of super strength to brace himself; he doesn’t budge when Hood shoves him. “What’s the magic wor—“ Peter jerks forward, a violent reaction to the fingers now moving across his sides. The hell? Hood was… tickling him?

Absolutely not.

Peter jumps to the ceiling, putting a protective shield around his body with his arms, and a glare directed at the now grinning Red Hood.

Hood sits up with a grunt and a grin, “I didn’t think that was gonna work for real.”

Peter scoffed, “It didn’t work. I got off on my own to show you mercy. Since you’re like… not enhanced and stuff.”

“Yeah. Great comeback.”

“I know it is. That’s why I said it.”

Hood raised his eyebrows, “You sound just like somebody I know.”

Peter jumps down from the ceiling, “Doubt it. There’s only one me.”

“Now, you really sound like him.”

“If you’re trying to entice me into asking, it’s not working.”

“Why would I try to entice you about some shit like that?”

Peter raises the pitch of his voice, mocking, “Oh, Peter! Ask about my super secret vigilante friends so you can inquire about my super secret identity, but I won’t tell you because I’m the Red Hood and I can brag about how super secret my super secret identity is—”

“I don’t sound like that.”

“You absolutely sound like that. A whiny little brat.”

“I’m older than you.”

“I can’t tell.”

“I’m going to shoot you for real this time.”

“Be my guest. I’d love to see it happen after the last thirteen times.”

Before Hood could reach for his gun, again, there was a knock at the door. They both freeze because one: Peter’s not expecting anyone, like ever, and two: no one can know Red Hood is here. They stay silent.

“Peter, it’s Dick! Are you in there?”

Peter’s eyes widened, and he could hear Hood suck in a breath.

Shit.

Two Hours Earlier.

“Hey, Steph—“

She cuts Landon off, “Stephanie.”

Landon swallows at the sharp smile directed at him and corrects himself, “Stephanie. Have you… have you seen Peter around lately?”

Her brows furrow, “Now that you mention it, no, I haven’t. He didn’t have any more days off, right?”

He runs his hand through his hair, “Exactly. He worked overtime for that little stunt he pulled the other day, but it wasn’t enough for another break.”

Steph shrugged, “Okay, he’s skipped a few days of work. What’s got you so worried?”

He bites his lip, “Peter may be an asshole at times, but he’s a great worker. He wouldn’t just up and disappear like this.”

She purses her lips, “... I’ll admit, you’re right about that. I’ll see what I can find out. Dick and Tim might know something.”

Landon blows out a breath, “Totally forgot you’re friends with Gotham elites. Take some time getting used to.” He checks the time on his phone, “I appreciate it, though. Take the rest of the day off and do what you need to do. I’m gonna close up early today.”

She nods, “I’ll see about Peter. But I’m sure he’s fine. Try not to worry so much.”

Landon kept licking his lips, like they'd gone dry. “I..I know, I try not to get too attached to my workers, but… but he’s the youngest on the team and the youngest employee ever, and he doesn’t go to school or have any visible guardian, not even a made up one, so technically I’m responsible for him and I’ve never had to be responsible for a kid before—”

Steph interrupts, “Landon, breathe.”

Landon inhales and exhales a shuddering breath. “I just… He’s a kid. A good kid. I want—No, I need him to be okay.”

She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, “I’ll do some digging like you asked, find him, and bring him back to this cafe perfectly safe. Promise.”

Landon says nothing but gives a sharp nod. He leaves Steph and tells Myra to clock out for the day.

Steph clocks out and hangs up her apron, pulling out her phone as she walks through the door. The ideal scenario with this investigation would be to call Peter directly first, but she’s one hundred percent sure he hasn’t given out his phone number to anyone, and two hundred percent sure he doesn’t have a phone. Bummer.

So, she settles for the next best thing and starts by calling Dick, the oldest and wisest of them all.

“I have absolutely no idea where he is, Steph. And to be honest, I didn’t know he was missing. Haven’t had time to visit you at the cafe.”

Well, would you look at that. She was on the phone with the oldest and wisest brother, and he didn’t have a clue about anything.

Useless.

“What do you mean, you ‘have no idea’? Weren’t you and Tim stalking him for weeks? What suddenly changed!”

“Okay, first of all, Tim was the only one stalking Peter, not me. Second of all, Peter checked him pretty good, so I think the kid is in the clear for now.”

Steph rolled her eyes, “Why would he stop, now! I actually need his skills at the moment!”

“I’m sure Tim has something on him from his earlier weeks of invading privacy. Ask him and you might find out something.”

She huffs, “Whatever, that nerd better give me something or I'll kick his ass and then I’ll kick your ass for lying to me.”

All Dick did was laugh; they both knew she could barely land a kick on him, but it was nice to pretend.

“Good luck with that, and keep me posted. I got some business to handle real quick, but I can join the investigation later today.”

“I gotcha’. I’ll see you later then.”

“I love you. Be careful.”

Steph was so glad this was over the phone because she blushed hard. Dick Grayson, Nightwing, her hero, told her he loved her. It’s not the first time, and definitely won’t be the last, but she still hasn’t gotten used to it.

“I… I love you too.”

She can hear the smile in his voice, “Bye, Steph.”

He hung up first, and she stood there stunned. But no time to waste! She smacks her face, her cheeks reddening, and has a determined look in her eye. She needed to head to the manor for an in-person interrogation. Tim wouldn’t take her seriously without a little bodily harm.

(He would. She just always found an excuse to rough him up a bit.)

“Tim? Can I come in?”

Bruce had just knocked on Tim’s locked door. He was still upset about the failed DNA test a few days ago.

“No. I’m working right now. Maybe later.”

Bruce sighs, “We can’t not talk about this forever, Tim. You’ve never been so upset about something like this. Tell me what’s really going on.”

“I’m good. Go away.”

“Don’t make me pick the lock.”

Bruce could hear a pause and then a reluctant shuffle. The doorknob was unlocked with a click and opened with a slight squeak. Tim was there, with a frown and downturned eyebrows. He steps aside without a word, and Bruce walks in, sitting on the edge of his bed. Tim doesn’t sit.

It’s silent for a moment. Bruce was doing his best to gather his thoughts and what he was going to say. He was still new to this feelings thing and he didn’t want to mess it up.

Start with an opener, something simple like Alfred said. “How.. How do you feel about Peter?”

Tim’s face scrunches up. Oh no. Was that too strong? Bruce backpedals, “I meant… how do you feel—No, no. Why does Peter upset you?” Yes, that was better, at least in Bruce’s opinion.

Tim purses his lips and looks at the floor, “... He doesn’t upset me, I guess. He just…maybe he’s—I don’t know!” Tim throws his arms up into the air. “I’ve just never met anyone like him, or maybe I have! But I don’t know that without running his DNA, Bruce!”

Bingo.

“So, Peter reminds you of Dick, too, huh?”

Tim shakes his head, “I should’ve guessed you already suspected it.”

Bruce agrees.

Tim starts pacing, thinking out loud for once, “We already know Peter’s a meta, no doubt about it. But that’s not why I wanted to run the DNA. That's not why you wanted to run the DNA. We wanted to run it to confirm if that was Dick’s kid or clone.”

Bruce goes along with him, “But, we’re both leaning towards the clone theory. Dick would have been too young for how old Peter is.”

“Peter looks like Dick—”

“Talks like Dick—”

“Walks like Dick—”

“They’re twins.” They said at the same time.

Tim ruffles his hair, still pacing, “I thought Dick just looked like Peter’s dead dad, but the similarities between those two are uncanny. Peter might not know he’s a clone and could be confused about who Dick is, or he could know that he’s a clone and is upset about it. Maybe a Kon and Superman situation. Could explain Peter’s hostility to the family.”

Bruce can’t help a small smile watching Tim speculate; his son was so smart.

Tim doesn’t notice and continues, “But that begs the question, who cloned him and why? Did Peter escape, or did they let him out to be on his own?”

Bruce loved doing this with his son, and he was glad they were mainly on the same page, but there was one thing he needed to address. "You're asking the right questions, Tim. But I also came here to talk about being better as a family.”

“W… What?”

“You’ve… I hate to admit it, but you’ve picked up on some of my… less desirable traits. And now I want you to pick up on a good one. Trust.”

Tim quirked a brow, “You and… trust? Batman and trust? Those two don’t even go together.”

Damnit. Way to rub salt on the wound. “I know, I know, but I want to be better. For you, for your brothers and your sisters. I need to. So, I am going to… trust Dick’s judgement on Peter. I’m going to leave him alone, clone or not, and let him live his life. And so will you.”

Tim gaped, “Okay, cloning aside, he’s fifteen and living alone! We can’t just let that go! Our job is to help people, whether they like it or not!”

Tim was right about that one, but for once, Peter gave Bruce a different feeling. “Peter will be the exception. I have a feeling that putting him in CPS or forcing him into school will be a lot worse for everyone.”

Tim chewed on his thumb, “... I-I trust you, Bruce.”

“I know you do, but for once, I need you to show it. No more investigating, no more stalking. And who knows? Peter might come to us on his own, or he might not. And either one is okay.”

Tim shrugs weakly. Bruce will take it.

Tim opens his mouth, then shuts it.

Bruce waits.

“... I know I can’t investigate Peter anymore, but could I at least look at—”

The door slams open.

“Nerd! I need everything you know about—Oh.” Steph looks at the scene of Bruce sitting on the edge of Tim’s bed and Tim standing there, tense. “Did I just interrupt a father-son bonding moment?”

Bruce stands, “No, no. We were just about finished. What do you need?”

Steph doesn’t waste another moment and points a finger at Tim, “ I need everything you know about Peter, where he lives, where he shops, or hangs out. Everything.”

Tim darts his eyes uncertainly between Bruce and Stephanie. “Why?”

She doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Peter’s missing.”

“Where are you, Jay?” Dick mumbles to himself. He was down in the Bat Cave. This was the business he mentioned to Steph. Jason had been missing for a few days now. No hostile visits to the manor and no word or sightings of Red Hood in the streets. He didn’t have a tracker on him since he always found them with ease and never hesitated to crush it under his boot.

Dick was just looking at any footage he could scrounge up where Red Hood was last seen or even possibly seen. Jay only missed a day or two of patrol, max, if it was due to injuries or larger busts. Three, almost four days, was pushing it.

Wait.

Did Steph say how long Peter had been missing?

And that brings us back to the present.

“Peter, it’s Dick! Are you in there?”

Another knock, harder this time. “We just wanted to check on you! You haven't been to work in a few days!”

Peter multitasks, “I’m fine! Go away!” He jumps to the ceiling and tears the web down. He tries not to think about how long he spent on his precious space.

“Can we come in, please?”

Peter is pushing a frozen Red Hood toward his closet. Peter knew he wouldn’t fit, but it was worth a shot.

And too late.

Damian kicked the door down.

Dick hisses a reprimand, “Damian!”

Peter froze and realized how incriminating this must look. You know, with him trying to stuff a seemingly immobilized Red Hood into his closet.

Peter dodges a punch from the youngest Wayne easily.

Dick scoops the child up before he could dish out another attack. Tim and Stephanie walk in after the two, doing a quick look around.

Hood seems to finally snap out of it, draws both his guns, and steps in front of Peter. “The fuck are you doing here?”

Dick tilts his head. “I could ask you the same thing. You went missing.”

“I didn’t ask you to look for me.”

Tim snaps, “We didn’t come looking for you, asshole. We were looking for the kid behind you.”

Hood whips his head to Peter. “You know them?”

Peter gives him an incredulous look. “Do you know them?”

“What!”

“Don’t ‘What’ me, jackass! You know them, don’t you!”

Dick cuts in, “A family frie—”

“The hell I am!”

Steph butts in, pouting. “So this is where you’ve been the past three days? Taking care of an injured Hood? Landon was worried, you know?”

“Who gives a fuck about Landon, Stephanie!”

Hood’s guns dip slightly. “Landon? Landon Williams? You work at that dingy coffee shop down the street?”

Peter blinks, confused and outraged. “How the hell do you know Landon?”

“Saved his sorry ass from armed robbery a few months back. Remember him because he gave me free coffee for life.”

Tim is aghast. “You had a lifetime of free coffee and you didn’t tell me!”

“Why would I tell your greedy ass!”

Peter squints. “You two, like brothers or something? Wait… don't tell me Red Hood is part of the Wayne family!”

“I didn’t say shit! I am not with the Waynes!” Hood holsters his guns.

“I invite you into my home for days, and you tell me you’re connected to my biggest enemies!”

Dick raises a brow. “Enemies?”

Hood cuts him off. “How was I supposed to know you were beefing with them!”

“This plebeian is nowhere near worthy enough to claim to have the Waynes as enemies.”

Peter jabs a finger. “And you broke my damn door! Straight off the hinges!”

“And?”

Peter snaps. He lunges for a ten-year-old. He blames it on stress.

Hood snatches him up like a toddler, holding him firmly.

Damian glares, muscles tensed, ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Dick throws up his hands. “Okay, maybe we should all calm down a bit?”

Peter’s eye twitches. “You showed up at my place and kicked my fucking door down!”

“A lack of restraint on our side. I apologize.”

“I don’t want an apology. I want you out.”

Dick settles slightly. “We’ll leave. But we need the vigilante you have there.”

“I’m not going with any of you asshats.”

Peter hesitates as a hint of concern gnaws at him. “… If you guys are acquaintances or whatever, could you get those wounds checked out? I did what I could, but it’s not professional.”

“I’m perfectly fine with what you did!”

Peter frowns. He’s actually taken a liking to Hood and doesn’t want him getting hurt. “… Will you go if I go with you?”

Hood looks down through the mask, then away. He scoffs, “Whatever.”

The Wayne kids go slack-jawed.

“Boss?”

Sparks danced across the workbench as Tony Stark adjusted the plating on one of his suits—just another night in the lab. He spoke without really paying attention to his AI. “What’s up, sweetheart?”

“I think you might want to see this.”

Tony finally looked up when FRIDAY plastered the air with half a dozen holo-screens displaying Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, all screaming the same thing: #WhereIsSpidey?

“Tell me what I’m looking at here, Fri.”

“Spider-Man hasn’t been seen around Queens in almost a month.”

Tony blinked and began swiping through the posts. “What was he doing before?”

“Spotty sightings around Queens for a few months, not as consistent as he previously was.”

“And you’re telling me this, why? I barely know the kid, Fri. I’m sure he’s fine—probably just sulking over some family drama or whatever. You know, the usual teenage bullshit.” He picks up his tool and gets back to work. He was almost finished with the minor calibration issue in the right thruster for Mark 58.

“May Parker was found dead six months ago in a house fire.”

Tony doesn’t drop his tool, but almost. He takes a breath. “Okay, then. Where has he been for the past five months?”

“Records indicate: in and out of foster care for the first three months. Two months prior to his disappearance, he was placed with a couple willing to provide a long-term arrangement despite his supposed issues.”

Tony threw his tool down with care and rubbed a hand over his tired face. “Shit. Show me the documents, Fri.” He swipes through CPS files and notes.

“You mentioned issues. Tell me what issues. They’re talking in circles in these files.”

“Previous foster homes documented Peter Parker as a rebellious child with anger management problems. He was known to leave the premises whenever he had the opportunity and did not return until the early morning.”

Tony muttered to himself, “Well, that explains the spotty sightings.”

“Correct, Boss. Now there have been no sightings. Peter Parker is gone.”

Tony closes the files with a pinch of his fingers. “Show me his last known location.” He watches as FRIDAY dials in on a red dot, Main Street in Queens. Tony can see that Main Street was a busy place during the day. He could barely see the kid while he was rushing between strangers. Tony squinted.

Peter wasn’t there anymore.

“Run it back and slow it down for me, sweetheart.”

She does as he asks. He watches closely as Peter is weaving and dodging, and then the next second, he just… wasn’t there. Gone.

“Run a full scan of Main Street—particles, energy signatures, any anomalous readings. If there’s residual activity of any kind, I want to know about it.”

“It’ll take some time, Boss.”

“Put any remaining power you have into the scans. I want it as fast as possible.”

“On it. I’ll let you know when the scans are complete.”

Tony doesn’t say anything as he closes the lab for the night and grabs himself a drink.

Damnit. Enhanced teenagers and their enhanced super shit. Great.

Chapter Text

“Are you having a good time, little birdy?”

Another rack of pain exploded on the back of his head as his body jerked in the metal chair. Jason couldn’t even open his eyes anymore; the blood hadn’t stopped. He doesn’t think it’ll ever stop.

Batman could stop it.

But Batman wasn’t here.

Batman didn’t love him.

Jason gurgled as blood dripped like water from his mouth.

Jason could hear the pout in his voice, “You’re no fun. The last Robin was way more entertaining. The real Robin, I should say.”

He was the real Robin.

Dick let him—his big brother.

He wasn’t Dick, he’ll never be Dick. Won’t ever be as good as him.

But that was okay. Dick said he could be Robin, that he was a good Robin.

His big brother wasn’t here to save him.

No one was coming for him. He was going to die.

Someone save him. Please.

Jason wakes up with a harsh gasp. He could barely breathe, and his vision was blurry. He sits up roughly and runs his hand over his face. He was trembling. Damnit. He thought he was over that little period in his life. Well… not really, but he thought he’d buried the trauma deep enough not to think about it. Ever.

“What’d you dream about?”

He jumped and let out a few curses. Right beside his bed was Peter sitting on a stool. His knees were bunched up to his chest, and his arms were on top as he balanced effortlessly on the tiny area. He was unreasonably still and wasn’t blinking. Creepy.

Suddenly, Jason panicked and rushed to touch his face, and was relieved. He still had his mask on.

Peter asked again since he didn’t seem to get the message. “What’d you dream about?”

Jason let out a large breath, “If I don’t answer the first time, that means I don’t want to talk about it.”

Peter rolls his eyes, “I know what it means. I do it all the time.” Peter shrugged, “Maybe it’ll be better if you talk about it with someone you don’t really know.”

Jason scoffed, “Like you’re so big on sharing feelings. Plus, I know you plenty.”

Peter gives a deadpan look, “What's my favorite color?”

“... Yellow.”

“I applaud your confidence.”

“So it is yellow.”

“It’s red, dipshit.”

“Yeah, well… yellow’s a close second?”

“No. I actually hate the color yellow.”

“Tragic. Yellow is such a fun color, and you’re such a fun person! It would be absolutely perfe—”

“Stop trying to distract me. Are you going to tell me what’s got you so spooked or what?”

Jason looks down at his hands and purses his lips. Peter waits, quiet and patient.

Jason wrings his hands together and doesn’t look at Peter. “... A couple of years ago, I was kidnapped by a man. He… he wasn’t a nice man.” Short and sweet. Don’t give anything away.

Peter snorted, “Are kidnappers ever nice?”

There was something in his voice that Jason had to ask about: “You speaking from experience?”

“Yeah.”

And at the admission, they both stayed silent, knowing that they understood each other. Even just a little bit.

Peter is the one to break it: “You know, you remind me of someone.”

Jason doesn’t ask who; he knows not to.

Peter buries half of his face into his arms, but Jason can still hear the muffled words, “I still have nightmares about him.”

Jason swallows. “Was he a good man?”

Peter looks away, “Too good.”

“We can’t be that similar then.”

“That’s what you think about yourself?”

“That’s what I know about myself.”

“Way to be an optimist.”

“Optimism gets you killed.”

Peter doesn’t agree or disagree.

Jason decides that the self-depreciation party is over. “What time is it?”

“Three in the morning.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed just a little, “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed? Don’t teens need like ten hours of sleep or something?”

“I mean… yeah? Typically, but my spider powers take care of that for me.”

Jason gives a slow blink, not that Peter could see it, but his confusion was clear. Peter elaborates.

“Spiders take multiple rest cycles throughout the day instead of eight-hour block periods like humans do. I don’t need as much sleep as a regular person. Two to three hours is more than enough rest for me to go throughout the day or even pull an all-nighter.”

“... Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t blinked the entire time we’ve been talking.”

“My powers do that too.”

“So, you don’t just have spider-themed powers, you’re literally part spider?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Jason throws the covers off of him and stands suddenly. He stretches as much as he can with the still-healing wounds. He walks past Peter and starts to search for hidden bugs, grabbing a chair from the wall and placing it as he goes. He feels Peter watching him, and he’ll admit, it’s creepier when the kid does it for some reason. Like he’s being… hunted or something. Some weird shit.

“I had Mr. Pennyworth put you in a bug-proof room and checked myself while you were asleep.”

Jason doesn’t stop. “Double-checking is never a bad thing. I could find something that you missed.”

“If I missed something, you sure as hell couldn’t find it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Confidence is overrated.”

Jason finishes going over the last corner and steps down from the chair.

He turns.

And he screams.

Peter isn’t fazed in the slightest as he’s standing less than a foot in front of him. And he’s standing like a statue, still hasn’t fucking moved, still hasn’t blinked. He didn’t even hear Peter get up and walk over here. And mind you, he’s the Red Hood; no one just sneaks up on the Red Hood.

Jason was breathing hard, clutching his chest.

“Do I need to put a fucking bell on you!”

Peter doesn’t answer, and that’s when Jason starts to worry. The kid was just staring and standing there… menacingly. Jason notices his pupils, and they’re dilated to the max. He couldn’t even see the brown of the iris anymore.

And to be honest, the kid is kind of scary.

Jason swallows and shuffles slowly to the side. And Peter’s eyes just follow him.

Jason does his best to go around Peter, giving him a wide berth. And he makes it halfway to the bed before Peter shows any sign of being aware. He twitches, opens his mouth wide, and his canines seem a bit longer than usual.

He isn’t panicking yet, but he’s almost there, especially when Peter starts to shake.

Jason stays still in the middle of the room and lets whatever the hell’s going on run its course. He can easily guess that it's got something to do with his freaky spider powers.

Peter's mouth finally shuts with an audible click, and his pupils fluctuate before going back to normal. He breathes out of his nose harshly and gives his head a little shake.

Jason thinks it’s safe to speak up now.

“You good?”

Peter’s head snaps over to him like he forgot he was there. His voice was hoarse, “... What?”

Jason runs his eyes over the kid, and right now, he looks nothing like the angry and stand-offish kid he’d gotten used to these past few days. He was hunched over and did his best to avoid eye contact. Like he was ashamed.

And Jason couldn’t have that.

Jason rocks on his heels, carefree, like everything was normal, and makes sure to keep his body loose.

“Wanna tell me what that was about?” He kept his tone casual, no matter how freaked out he was.

Peter gives a shaky exhale and licks his lips. “Ah… you want… You want an honest answer or something that’s not fucking scary?”

Yeah. Jason was definitely scared, but that wouldn’t make the kid feel any better. “Honest answer, kid. I promise I won’t get freaked out and kick you out for any spidery habits that you may have.” Good job, Jason. Reassurance was never his strong suit, but that was pretty good if he said so himself.

Peter licks his lips again. “I was… I was trying not to attack you and rip out a chunk of your flesh.”

Jason had opened his mouth automatically to say something like, ‘That’s really cool’ or ‘That’s not that weird’. But that wasn’t cool at all, and it was really weird. He closed his mouth fast and blinked, quite a bit too.

Peter’s nervous eyes glazed over, and his mouth downturned into a full-on frown at his silence. Jason panicked.

“No, no, no, no, don’t cry—please don’t cry! I don’t know what to do when you start crying!”

Peter rubs at his eyes frantically, “I’m not gonna cry, asshole!”

Jason would beg to differ, but Peter doesn’t need to be antagonized right now. “Okay, okay, you’re not gonna cry. Great.”

Peter sniffs, “Nothing’s great. Now you think I’m a freak.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak, Peter. Everyone with powers has their thing. And if yours is eating a few people here and there, who am I to judge?”

“I don’t eat people!”

Wrong thing to say. Damnit. He assumed. Now the kid was even more upset.

Jason held his hands up in a placating manner, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Peter threw his hands in the air, “What else could you have meant?”

“I thought you like… ate people to satisfy the urges? I don’t know! What else would you do?”

“Control the urges, you psycho! I didn’t bite you, did I!”

“I thought it was because you liked me a little bit!”

“Ugh! You’re so stupid! I can feel my brain shrinking just being near you!”

“Rude.” But in reality, Jason was relieved. Peter seemed to be in a better mood already. He genuinely couldn’t deal with an extremely distressed teenager unless they were on the edge of a building. Plus, Peter seemed like the type to quite literally kill him if Jason saw him crying.

Now, time to be proactive. “Okay, okay. So, you control your urges for human meat?”

Peter makes a so-so gesture with his hand, “I only have to control my urges to attack people when I haven’t consumed enough red meat. But, I can sort of get by with processed red meats.”

Jason kind of got that. “Explain.”

Peter shrugged, “Those sandwiches we had a few days ago? They have salami, pepperoni, and prosciutto. Processed red meats.”

“Those slices are really thin. That’s not nearly enough, is it?”

Peter shakes his head, “Like I said, it gets me by, and then from there, I don’t completely black out like I did here. It’s been a little over a day since I’ve had any red meat.”

Jason bites his lip, thinking. He looks at the clock on the wall, finally coherent enough to tell time himself, 3:32 am. Alfred and the kids would be asleep, while Bruce and Dick would be on patrol for another hour. He could get away with it.

And now, his mind was made up.

Jason could tell the kid didn’t want anyone getting hurt. That little slip said more than all his usual half-truths and no truths put together.

Jason goes and puts a loose arm around Peter’s shoulders and starts to guide him to the door. “You hungry?”

“I’m always hungry.”

“Fair enough. That’s why we’re going to get you some good, quality, red meat.”

Instead of Peter falling down and worshipping at his feet, he shrugs off Jason’s arm and says some bullshit that makes him want to suplex the kid.

“I don’t know how with this long ass hallway, you fraud.”

“Fraud?” Jason is genuinely appalled.

They make a turn.

“Yes, fraud! I thought you were poor too, but turns out you're like the prodigal son of the Wayne family. A fraud!”

Jason is actually struck speechless until they make it to the kitchen, with Peter having this smug look on his face the entire time.

And all Jason can do is let out a sigh and go to the fridge to take out four, no, five angus beef steaks. He reaches for a blender, but stops to look at the kid. Better to ask than offend with assumptions… again.

“Do you eat liquified meat?”

Peter rolls his eyes, “No, I’m still human and have teeth. I don’t need to break down my food before consumption.”

“No need to get technical.”

“Consumption? What are you, a toddler?”

Jason looks for a good pan hung above the kitchen island, “It’s a big word for so early in the morning.” He finally picks one.

“You’re dumb. And I prefer to eat it raw.”

Jason pauses. He puts his arm down and looks for a cutting board instead. “Okay then.”

He grabs a butcher knife and his favorite wooden cutting board, “Chunks or slices?”

“Chunks, definitely chunks.”

Jason tries not to focus on the implications of that.

He makes quick work of cutting up all five steaks into large chunks and sliding the board across the counter to the kid, who again hasn’t blinked since they got here, and has visible drool on his chin.

Jason watches in morbid fascination as Peter puts a chunk of raw beef, blood, fat, and all, into his mouth and chews. Very enthusiastically at that. His eyes light up. Wow. He actually likes raw meat.

Peter glances at him as he throws another chunk back, “You can look away if it’s hard to watch.”

Jason doesn’t hesitate, “Your powers don’t bother me, kid. Eat.” He might actually be good at this whole emotions thing.

Peter freezes in the middle of stuffing his face, head cocked like he’s listening to something no one else can hear. “…Uh, heads up—someone is coming.” Jason sees his face twitch. “Make it two.”

Shit. Bruce and Dick.

They weren’t supposed to be at the manor for at least another thirty minutes.

Peter darts his eyes from the spread of meat to the doorway, no doubt hearing the footsteps make their way here. “How are we going to explain eating raw meat at four in the morning!”

Jason may not frequent the manor anymore, but he still knows his ex-dad and sort of brother. “Don’t make a big deal about it, and they won’t say anything. Simple.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Keep eating.”

He watches as Peter hesitantly picks up another chunk of meat, and his eyes haven’t left the doorway. “They’re here.” He says with a mouth full.

And just as he said, Bruce and Dick walk in with normal attire, thankfully. Dick, in his usual sweats and shirt; Bruce with his usual black turtle neck. Jason always wondered how he could walk around the manor comfortably in a fucking turtle neck.

They both faltered in the doorway as Peter sank his fangs into the red meat. They looked between Jason and Peter.

Bruce takes it in stride and goes to the cabinets, not even giving a second look at the raw meat being devoured. “We didn’t know you guys were up.”

Dick gives that confused little squint he always does, but sits at the island, right next to Peter. He looks Dick up and down, wrinkling his nose. They all notice, but don’t point it out.

And then Bruce pulls out that fuckass blackstrap molasses. Jason threw up when he took it for the first and the last time. It’s a smelly and disgusting thing that Bruce drinks in its natural state. Ugh. Great for bone and gut health, but Jason didn’t give a shit.

And now Jason wants to shoot him for even having to look at it. But he doesn’t want to set a bad example for Peter, so he refrains.

Bruce can see the look on his face, even under the mask. He keeps eye contact with Jason as he grabs a spoon and pours a tablespoon. He puts the whole thing in his mouth, not mixing it with water, and no chaser. Fucking disgusting.

Even Peter agrees with his nose scrunched up. Huh. Peter would be able to smell it ten times worse with his enhanced smell. Jason winces to himself as he thinks about Peter’s enhanced hearing. He has to hear Dick’s irritating ass in HD.

“Whatch’a doing?”

Peter side-eyes Dick, “What does it look like?”

“Can I have some?”

“No.”

“Please?”

Peter lets out a frustrated sigh, “The hell do you want?”

Dick jumps up, “Well, since you asked so nicely! Brucie here has a proposition for you.”

Peter doesn’t even entertain that. “No.”

Dick pouts, “You don’t even know what he’s gonna say!”

Jason looks on in silence. He’d hate to start an argument in front of Peter, plus, the kid would be mad at him if he tried to intervene.

Peter swallows. “I don’t need to know. You all are always on some shit.”

Bruce decides to cut in with something that would get Peter’s attention: “Twenty-six hundred dollars an hour.”

Peter swallows again, “Doing what?”

Bruce had gotten a glass of water and took a sip, “I saw your work on Dick’s car. Very impressive, Peter.”

“Get to the point.”

“Twenty-six hundred dollars an hour to be the personal mechanic of the Wayne family.” Another sip. “I’m sure you saw plenty of the cars in the garage. I need to keep maintenance on them all. Along with a few motorcycles. You work eight hours a day, five days a week.”

Mental math had never been Jason’s strength, but apparently, it was Peter’s. He didn’t hesitate to evaluate the number aloud.

“A little over a hundred thousand a week… you’ve got to be joking.”

Dick is a bit too excited. “Afraid not!”

Peter narrows his eyes, “And what about the hours I won’t be working? Not every car is going to need extensive maintenance.”

Bruce is prepared, “Paid.”

“... You’re serious.”

“Very.”

“Deal.”

Damnit. They really just bribed a kid with off-the-record pay. He tries a bit of damage control. “Peter, think about this decision for just a moment—”

“It’s six figures a week, Hood. I’m not thinking about shit.”

Jason glares at a brightly smiling Dick and a stoic Bruce. But he could tell the bastard was just as smug.

Bruce sets his glass down, “You start tomorrow, 9 o’clock.”

Dick somehow smiles even brighter, “I’ll pick you up!”

Peter wrinkles his nose. Same. Jason hates that Camaro, too.

Dick switches tactics, “I’ll bring the Owl.”

Jason panics as he watches Peter almost choke on a piece of meat.

Peter agrees through a wheeze, “Fucking deal.”

Jason runs a hand down his face. The kid was too easy. He can’t watch anymore.

He walks past them and grumbles, “I’m going back to bed.”

“Wait for me!” Peter shoves the rest of the meat in his mouth and quickly rinses his hands, running after him.

Peter matches his stride easily. “... Guess I’ll be seeing you again.”

“I don’t usually stay around too often.”

“... Can you stay around more often?”

Fuck.

“... Whatever.”

“Scans complete, Boss.”

Tony basically slammed down his cup of coffee on his work table. “Finally. Sure took your sweet time there, Fri.”

He could practically feel the eye-roll from a freaking machine. She’s growing up so fast.

“You advised me to use all remaining power to complete the scans, which I did.”

“Then why’d it take that long?”

“Ms. Potts has been utilizing my systems for an ongoing investigation into a team lead within Environmental R&D—a department you were, until now, unaware existed. At the same time, I’ve been overseeing full security coverage for the tower, along with several additional tasks. Altogether, it’s been rather taxing on my resources.”

“Okay, then. Sorry, I spoke out of turn.” Tony won’t deny that the way he said that was very sarcastic. Always sarcastic because FRIDAY has been giving him a lot of sass lately.

“Ugh.”

“Did you just make a noise of disgust?”

“No, sir.”

“... Pull up the scans.”

“Of course, Boss.”

Tony swipes through the reports. “Give me a summary. Everything.”

“Peter Parker was last registered on November 11th, along Main Street. My scans of the surrounding environment reveal lingering traces of dark matter. The particles are impossibly small—smaller than atoms themselves—yet their presence is undeniable.”

Tony squints at the holo-screens, “You have something?”

“If you’ve noticed, the structure of these particles closely mirrors the trillions of residuals left in the aftermath of the Battle of New York.”

Tony swallows, “Not exactly.”

“Correct, Boss. Not exactly, but close enough. What I am trying to say is that the only reason the structure is even a little bit different is because the particles are significantly stronger.”

He blows out a breath, “Dimensional travel.”

“Correct again, Boss. The residuals from the Battle of New York weren’t sourced from another dimension, but from well beyond Earth. At sufficient distance in space, time itself begins to shift—a minor form of dimensional travel, if you will. The traces linked to Peter’s disappearance align with that exact pattern.”

He runs his hands down his face. Goodness.

“The data suggests Peter isn’t in this world at all.”

Well then.

Time to get to work.

Chapter Text

“This is actually insane.”

Peter was just hanging out in front of the Aspark Owl, though “hanging out” didn’t quite cover how ridiculous it felt. The sky-blue paint was so shiny it kept zapping him in the eyes every time the sun caught it, like the car was messing with him on purpose. The engine purred in this smug, buttery way, gears sliding into place like they’d been greased with silk. It was so smooth it almost made him dizzy. Honestly, he half-expected to keel over, which would’ve been embarrassing considering he hadn’t even touched the car yet.

And then Dick opened his big mouth.

“You just gonna stand there or—”

“This isn’t some cliche rom-com. Shut up.”

Dick pouted. He does that a lot.

“But you’re just standing there! I wanna get you to your new job already!”

Peter rolls his eyes, “Never thought you’d be so eager for child labor.”

Dick is appalled, “Are you serious?”

Peter runs his hand over the hood of the car as he strides to the passenger side. “Dead serious.”

Dick breathes out, “I’m just excited that you can start a new chapter in your life and can get out of that dingy apartment and dingy clothes—”

“Not too much.”

“Apologies.”

“Not accepted.”

“Tragic.”

Peter hops into the car and closes the door as gently as he can, and barely holds back a contented purr at the feel of the leather seat.

Dick doesn’t waste any more time and starts the car up. The engine roars, and Peter is a hundred percent sure he wants to fuse with the vehicle.

He lets his eyes roam over the interior. There was tech involved with every inch of the car, from the calm blue LED lights that ran along the door to the push of a button gear switches.

Dick lets him touch anything and everything, and doesn’t even get mad when he accidentally puts the car in reverse while they're on the road.

And now, Peter is looking out the window like nothing happened, and Dick is gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles.

“You wanna drive?”

Peter whips his head around. “Seriously?”

Dick shrugs, “Seriously. You’re a smart kid, it wouldn’t hurt.”

Peter would make it hurt.

“Can’t you slow down just a little bit!”

Peter floored it as soon as he had his seatbelt on. The road was mainly empty so early in the morning, so he had no trouble deciding to go at least one-seventy on the road. Peter had never driven a car, but as a mechanic, he felt that he had a good grasp on how to navigate it.

Just keep the wheel straight and your foot steady. Easy.

“Peter!”

“Would you relax? It’s fine.”

“Relax!”

Peter watches in the corner of his eye as Dick looks incredulously at him, and Peter won’t blame him. This is a bit risky on his part. Peter has never driven a regular car, much less a sports car, and he’s low in his seat, with one hand on the wheel, going… he takes a look at the speedometer… one-ninety. Huh. Doesn’t feel that fast.

And he forgot Dick was a cop. Would he report him or write him a ticket? Probably not, since he wasn’t supposed to be driving without a permit anyway. Blackmail. Sweet.

Dick was clutching the dashboard, and his feet were pressed into the floor of the car like he was pressing some imaginary brake.

Funny. Peter sped up until he was going two-ten.

They were off the expressway now. Peter slowed to about one-forty.

“Left, right, straight? Better hurry up or we’re gonna miss it.” Peter was not slowing down any more than that until he got an answer.

“Right!”

Peter flattens the brake and spins the wheel a good three hundred and sixty degrees to make that turn. He can see the smoke rising from the corner of his eye. He was drifting. Sick.

He straightens the wheel back out and floors the gas pedal once again. This is how the rest of the drive goes. What was supposed to be at least an hour drive was cut down to a little under thirty minutes.

Dick almost falls onto the ground, scrambling out of the car. He goes to lean against the wall of the garage, and Peter snorts.

“Aren’t you the son of a billionaire? Don’t you take joyrides or something?”

“That doesn’t matter! Not when a fifteen-year-old is behind the wheel!”

“Semantics.”

Peter takes a look at his watch; he has thirty-two minutes before his shift starts. What should he do? He doesn’t want to start looking at the cars because he won’t get paid for it, which will leave him with less work for his actual hours.

Dick takes gulps of air and has finally calmed down. “I am never doing that again.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious, Peter.”

“I know you are, that’s why I said sure.”

Dick’s eye twitched. “... Are you hungry?”

“I don’t have time to come up and eat, I’ll be late.”

Dick clicked his tongue, “I know that, Peter. I’m asking if you want a snack. I brought it with me for you.”

Peter raised an eyebrow, “For me?”

And Peter’s suspicion definitely grew when Dick didn’t answer, but instead opened the trunk of the car and pulled out a cooler.

Peter made a face, “This a cookout or something? You look like a football dad of four.”

“Don’t you ever have anything nice to say?”

Peter can hear him digging around in some ice.

“Especially since I brought you …this!”

Peter won’t even deny it; yes, he used his speed to snatch the tupperware full of fresh and raw Angus beef. He can smell it, taste it even. He’d been craving meat extra hard since yesterday, and he was antsy.

Dick jerks back slightly and blinks.

And Peter can see him do this thing with his face; he wants to say something. But Dick won’t, Peter knows he won’t.

Peter isn’t exactly sure how concrete they are in their theory that he’s a meta-human, but he won’t confirm it for them, and he’ll deny it with every turn.

Peter watches Dick physically swallow his words with a gulp and busies himself with pulling out another container of meat. Meanwhile, Peter has no qualms and is stuffing his face once again with the premium Angus beef. Rich people are literally gold … when they’re not terrorizing the societal classes under them, obviously.

Peter doesn’t realize he blanked out; he hears a clearing of the throat. He swallows. “What?”

“I asked if it really tastes that good?”

“To me, yeah.”

“So you know that your tastes aren’t normal?”

Peter doesn’t fumble, “Yeah. Like someone who eats pickle slices with goldfish on top. That’s not normal.”

Dick opens the second container of meat and grimaces at the smell, “Real specific. You’ve done that before?”

“Yeah, when I was pregnant.”

“Funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Peter finally knows what Dick is doing as he hesitantly picks up a piece of meat.

Absolutely not.

“I don’t think you should eat that.”

“You’re eating it.”

“Because my body’s used to it.” His body was made for it, actually.

“Then I could get used to it as well, and we can do raw meat Mondays or something, like a club!”

He’s so fucking dumb, it’s insane.

But he can’t even refute it. If he admits that Dick will get sick from eating raw meat and Peter doesn’t, that’s the same as saying outright that he’s enhanced. Dick is smart when he wants to be. Peter will give him that.

Whatever. Not his body or his choice. He shrugs, “Go ahead then.”

And Peter realized Dick’s resolve when he put the entire chunk of meat into his mouth, no bite or anything, and started chewing. No hesitation. Peter, in real time, is watching as Dick goes through the motions of chewing cold, fatty, and bloody raw meat. The taste and texture are settling in. And it is quite easy to say that he does not like it. Expected.

Dick’s face scrunches up, and his skin visibly loses its color. His jaw moves like the muscles are disconnected, slow and uncoordinated. A hard watch as usual when it comes to Dick Grayson.

“You can spit it out, you know?” Peter holds out his already empty container.

Dick pushes it away with a head shake and holds a fist over his mouth. He shuts his eyes tightly and taps his foot. Peter hears the audible gulp and winces at how painful it sounds.

And then he hears it come back up.

Peter shivers and shoves the empty tupperware back at him, “Bro. Absolutely disgusting.”

It’s still not over. Dick doesn’t accept defeat and just let his body reject the meat, but he catches it in his mouth and forces another swallow, throw-up, raw meat, and all.

Dick doubles over at that one and is dry heaving. Peter himself had to look away because what the fuck.

“... You’re mentally ill, Dick.”

Dick sucks in a harsh breath through his nose and props himself upright. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Peter snatches away the second tupperware still filled with the delicious-smelling delicacy. “‘Wasn’t that bad’ my ass. Don’t ever do that shit again.”

“I’m definitely doing that again so we can be lunch buddies.”

“I don’t wanna be lunch buddies with you, asshole.”

Dick mocks a pout, “Too bad, so sad.” He says it like he won something. Like eating raw meat with a teenager was an accomplishment. Freak.

“You’re not an adult.”

“Well, let's see.” Dick starts counting his fingers. “I pay taxes, bills, have a job, and a car, and went through a bunch of trauma. Sounds like an adult to me.”

“I do all those things too, minus the car. I’m still fifteen.”

Dick huffs, “I’m twenty-five at least. That makes me an adult.”

“Two things can be true at once. You’re twenty-five but still a child.”

“Gotta agree with kid on that one, Dickface.”

Peter whips his head around like he didn’t hear the vigilante approaching. “Hood!”

Red Hood strides languidly, mask on, of course, but he’s in a compression shirt and sweats instead of the usual get-up. Peter could still make out the outline of a gun and a knife, along with… a grenade? Sure.

“Sup, kid.” His eyes roam over the cooler filled with ice and containers of meat to the still-colorless face of Dick. He’s putting the pieces together rather quickly. Not surprising since he is an anti-hero.

Hood looks at him, “Dickie here was stupid enough to eat raw meat?”

“You guessed it.”

“Not surprising in the least.”

“It was actually pretty good if I do say so myself.”

“No one asked you, Dickface.” Hood looks down at his phone, “Fifteen minutes till his shift starts. Scram so the kid can finish eating.”

At this, Dick gets a smug look on his face, “I’m actually his assistant. I’ll be staying around to help him out. You can leave, though.”

Peter jerks his head up with wide eyes, shaking it vehemently. “No, you’re not. Not this time, and probably never again, to be honest.”

Hood snorts, and Dick slumps, “Why!”

Hood offers. “Because I’ll be his assistant going forward.”

Peter likes that alternative a whole lot more. He nods, “Right.”

Hood wraps an arm around his shoulders, “See? Even the kid agrees. So scram.”

Peter was wholeheartedly in agreement with Hood, but then Dick opened his big mouth, again.

His eyebrows furrowed and his ears turned pink, “... You really don’t want me as your assistant anymore?”

Hood lets out a groan, “Don’t tell me you’re actually hurt from being rejected by a teenager.”

Dick gets defensive, “I’m not! I just—I thought we had an okay time, and that we could like, do it again sometime.”

Peter doesn’t believe it. Dick was genuinely affected by his rejection. He could see it in his posture and eyes. And yeah, Peter felt the tiniest bit bad about it. He didn’t like that.

Dick sniffs, “But, like, whatever. You guys have fun and stuff.”

Hood either doesn’t see it or doesn’t care. Probably the latter. “Yeah, we will. Get out.”

Dick looks like he’s about to cry. Goodness.

“See you later, Peter.” And now he’s walking away with this pathetic little stride.

Peter was trying his hardest not to care, really, he was. But at the end of the day, the man-child was still his dad. And he didn’t like seeing his dad sad. Especially if he was the cause.

He tilted his head toward the ceiling and blew off a puff of air. “… We can be lunch buddies.”

Dick froze in his tracks and whipped around. “What?”

Was he deaf? Peter hated repeating this shit. “Lunch buddies at twelve when I’m at work. If you don’t show, I’m not waiting. And you eat cooked meat.”

Dick’s mood did a one-eighty as his eyes lit up. “Deal! I won’t be late. Ever.”

Peter is already regretting his decision, but he will admit, something in his chest got all fuzzy seeing his dad so happy. He doesn’t think he minds Dick’s happy-go-lucky personality as much this time around.

Dick is already gone, practically skipping away, and Peter blinks hard, annoyed. He’s getting soft.

Hood is not at all impressed with his arms crossed, “You really let him get you like that?”

Peter opens the container and shoves a piece of beef into his mouth. “Shut up and get me any and every tool you can think of or find.”

Hood throws his hands up in surrender, “Sure thing, boss.”

“I’m not paying you for this.”

“I don’t need money from a kid.”

“I think you do. For someone who’s a fraudulent poor person, I can’t tell that you’re not broke.”

“I could literally kill you right now.”

“You won’t and you can’t.”

“Wanna test that?”

“You can if you want.”

Hood did, in fact, test that.

And he failed.

“...I think he’s down, Nightwing.”

“I know.”

Red Robin looks at him warily. Nightwing was terrifying when he was pissed off. Especially with the unconscious ring leader in his clenched fist. His face was bloody and his eyes rolled back, but Nightwing was still punching. Red Robin heard a crack; he winced. Facial fracture plus a broken nose for sure.

He just stayed quiet; the man in question deserved it, but Batman wouldn’t approve. But Tim will admit that this method was effective in other ways. He didn’t even have to apprehend the rest of the goons. They stayed in a perfect little group and surrendered their weapons willingly once they saw the grim expression on Nightwing's face.

He wasn’t smiling this time.

Dick throws down the nearly dead man with a purposeful harshness, giving a wicked smile as he hears his head thump against the concrete floor of the warehouse. Skull fracture.

He turns to the obedient goons huddled together, looking anywhere but him. He pulls out his knife for special occasions, a recent development in the last few months, and points it at the group. “I’m not in a good mood. First one to move gets to lose their vocal cords.” He wasn’t bluffing; anyone could tell that from his tone.

There was an audible gulp from somewhere in the huddle.

“Nightwing. That’s enough.”

Dick doesn’t put the knife away as Batman strolls in.

“Nightwing. The kids are safe. Go help the police with them. Red Robin and I will finish up here.”

For a second, Tim doesn’t think Dick will listen, not until he angrily shoves the knife back into his thigh holster. He stomps by Batman without another word, and just cause he can, he deals a hard kick to the kneecap of the closest goon, breaking it with an echoing crack. He doesn’t stop walking as the man collapses with a horrific scream.

Tim flinches, and Batman clenches his jaw. Yeah. Tim’s preparing for a tension-filled conversation when they get back. Maybe some screaming.

Definitely some screaming.

Nightwing is fucking pissed, and even the police were wary.

A cop coughs and clears his throat, “Uh… Maybe you should—I don’t know, take a breather, Nightwing. We can take it from here.”

Dick tongues his cheek. “... That ring leader, Maxwell Williams, and his crew were trafficking kids as young as three years old. Selling them into sexual slavery and manual labor. We’re talking about toddlers here. Physically and sexually abused babies and children.”

One of the cops nods with a huff, “We’re well aware of the delicacy this case requires—”

“I’m not done talking. Shut up.”

His jaw clicks shut.

“I’m sure you guys are more than aware of the reputation Gotham Police have, with the corruption and all. I don’t really care if you’re one of the good ones; handle this case with sensitivity and make sure none of them get off. Not one. I find any one of them roaming the streets? I’ll just assume you wanted to take their place. Equal exchange and all that.”

Dick makes eye contact through the mask with every single one of them. “Are we clear?”

Some of them are sweating, but the leader of the squad isn’t deterred. “More than clear. Thank you for your help, Nightwing.”

Dick doesn’t respond; his gait is still tense, ready to pounce. He needed to let off some steam. He walks far enough away and points his grappling hook at the nearest building. He pulls the trigger, and it catches on the edge of the nearest building.

Before he slams into the side of the brick wall, he uses his momentum and pulls upward. He pulls the trigger again to release the hook, and he flies through the air. He closes his eyes at the downward fall, the air whipping through his hair and whistling in his ears.

These moments remind him of his roots, of what he lost. He always wonders if the circus misses him. He certainly misses the circus. The practices, the injuries, the thrill.

His parents.

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t miss them.

Between the case tonight, the memories, and the grief.

His tears get lost in the wind.

His pity party gets cut short when he sees Peter sitting on the edge of a building. His eyes are blank, and he’s looking down at the street from where his legs are dangling dangerously.

Yeah, Dick doesn’t like the look of that at all.

He launches himself over to the building and lands loudly, making sure Peter knew he was there to not startle him off the edge.

Dick has to be careful with this. He’s seen Peter around in his alter ego, but has never approached him before. This interaction has to be new and unfamiliar.

Peter tilts his head toward him, “... Nightwing?”

He puts on a good-natured grin, “The one and only.”

Peter’s eyebrows furrow, and his shoulders draw up. Shit. Damage control already.

Dick keeps his posture relaxed and open as he strides to the ledge, at least six feet away from Peter. He avoids eye contact and lets Peter look at him instead. “I don’t mean any harm. Seriously.” He says nothing else and will let Peter decide when he’s ready to talk.

Five minutes go by. Peter is still staring at him, and he's pretty sure the kid hasn’t blinked. It’s freaking him out a little bit, but he pretends not to notice as he stares at a lit-up Gotham City skyline. Hm. Gotham had its moments.

Peter clears his throat. Dick takes that as his cue to look at him finally, and he can see something like resolve in the kid’s eyes, for what he doesn’t know.

And then, something miraculous happens.

Peter smiles.

Like a full smile. Not one of the little smirks he does when he one-ups someone in an argument. But like a friendly smile. A bright one, and it makes his heart hurt. He can’t help but give one back. The brightest one he can manage, and he can’t wait to brag to Jay about this.

And then it’s gone. A shame, really.

Peter’s face is now in its usual expression, nonchalant and a little pissed off. He mumbles something under his breath that Dick can’t hear, but at least he wasn’t tense anymore.

“What do you want, Nightwing?”

Straight to the point. He shouldn’t have expected anything else. “Why do I need to want something? Can’t I just hang out, make a new friend?”

“No. And why would you want to be friends with a teenager?”

“I’m a vigilante. I’m friends with like a thousand four-year-olds.”

“That’s real.”

‘That’s real.’ Like he knew what Dick was talking about. Teenagers are weird.

“Look. Can you just… get down from the edge, please?”

Peter snorts, “You thought I was gonna jump?”

“Did I have any reason to believe otherwise?”

Peter scarily spins his body around, like he was on a human-sized turntable and not the edge of a brick wall. He jumps down and lands lightly on his feet, hands in his pockets.

“I guess not.” Peter is walking toward the fire escape on the other side of the building.

“You going home?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“Do whatever you want.”

Score. Peter was so much more open when Dick was dressed as a vigilante. Maybe that was Jay’s secret.

He follows Peter down the fire escape. “What’s your name?”

“Benjamin.”

Peter’s a great liar. “Nice to meet you, Benjamin.”

Dick Grayson was Nightwing.

Peter could recognize that voice, that walk, that fucking smile from anywhere.

His dad was Nightwing.

… Okay.

His dad was kind of cool.

Chapter Text

“My liege… Years have passed since the traitor fled, and we still have found nothing. We must commit every resource to finding him.”

The court surrounded Orionis, comprising the seventeen factions of Eryndral. The factions were each an essential part of the land and carried out specializations that contributed to Eryndral as a whole. The representatives of these factions were known as the Veylords and Veyladies. Positions such as these were passed down through inheritance.

It was Veylord Orren who made that stupid comment, per usual. He was the Paved Seat on the council, in charge of infrastructure like bridges and roads in Eryndral. Despite the important role, Orionis could say easily that Orren was quite irritating.

Orionis rubbed the bridge of his nose as he sat at the round table. “We have been doing all we can regarding the traitor, Orren. You sit here and state something even the blind can see. What other resources could you want on this matter?”

Orren purses his lips, “... We assign more of the Veiled to the search. What I have continually suggested all this time. This would speed it up exponentially, and you know that my liege.”

Orionis doesn’t even need to say anything to that. That comment was for Kaelor, the Veylord to the Veiled faction. They were responsible for gathering intelligence and taking care of unforeseen dangers. They take their roles seriously, so suggesting that they be taken away from their main duties was a dilemma.

Kaelor sits up, “Absolutely not. It is and will be the same response.”

“I was speaking to our Luminarch—”

“It is my faction, you oaf. I have already dedicated an entire flight of them to the cause. Any more, and it will take protection away from the people.”

“This is to protect the people! It will just be a little while until the traitor is back in custody.”

“No. I will risk the safety of Eryndral’s citizens for nothing. With the traitor running loose, who knows what he’s sent to us?”

“They are already dead with him running loose! Why not prevent a tragedy! With him in custody, a few lives will mean nothing!”

“Starting with you?”

“You insolent—”

Orionis has been thoroughly entertained. “That is enough.”

Kaelor doesn’t miss a beat as Orren sputters. “And what would you have us do, my liege?”

Orionis sighs, “Veylord Kaelor has made it quite clear that no more of the Veiled is to be utilized, and frankly, I agree. The people need protection. What right do we have to deprive them of it?”

Orren throws his hands up, “You are the Lumiarch! You have all the—”

“I said enough. Stop speaking.”

Orren shuts his jaw with a click and slumps into his seat.

Orionis looks to Veylady Isyrae, who was the head of the Astral Seat in the council. Her faction was the Seers of the society and the predictions of the land, citizens, and all. The same faction Faeyra came from, his personal Seer.

“I want your best Seers searching for his whereabouts. No students this time. This is not an assignment that should be taken lightly, but I’m sure you know that. I want the professionals and the elders. Find something, anything. I’ll even lend Faeyra back to you for the cause.”

Isyrae nods sharply, “As you wish, my liege.”

“And Aelric,” Orionis looks to his advisor, his desk in the back of the room, taking notes.

The young man looks up at the address. “Yes?”

“Begin recording in the scribes.”

Aelric nods, “As you wish.”

Orionis looks around the room. “... Dismissed.”

“Are you kidding me!”

Barry kicks over a stool, and it clatters loudly against the wall. “There’s no pattern! I don’t even know if it’s even a language at this point!”

“Barry—”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Clark! I’m doing this shit because you asked, and I’m literally going crazy!”

Clark pursed his lips and thought wisely before he spoke. “... I thought J’onn was helping you on the case?”

Barry is pacing now. “He is, he is. We were able to transfer a few pages of transcription onto another device, and he’s going to nearby planets and galaxies to see if anyone or anything can help. He hasn’t been able to crack it either, and it's J’onn!”

Clark gulps. “You want me to… uh… want me to tell them that we can’t do it?”

Barry whips his head around. “Absolutely not!”

Clark puts his hands up in surrender. “Just making sure.”

“It’s barely been a nanosecond to them; we still have more than enough time. It just—this freaking language doesn’t make any sense!”

“Can I take a looksie?”

Barry rolls his eyes, “Dude. If J’onn and I haven’t figured it out, there’s literally nothing you could do at this point. No offense.”

“Offense taken. Let me see it.” That last part may have tapered off into a whine. Like a child.

“No. I’m definitely gatekeeping.”

Clark puffs his chest out. “I’m one of the founders of the Justice League. I demand to see the transcript.”

Barry raises an eyebrow with a snort.

Clark slumps. “... Please.”

Barry walks over to the monitors, “Sure, Boss. Take a looksie.”

Clark beams, “Thank ya’.”

Clark does indeed take a looksie and instantly regrets it because he’s genuinely looking at some bullshit.

The so-called language is just rows and rows of centimeter-long lines, all the same length and width.

He recoils. “The freak?”

“Right.”

Okay. He can’t back out now. He closes in on the monitor once more and looks slowly over every single line, scrolling up and down. He squints and tilts his head.

“Clark, I told you. We’re not gonna have a breakthrough anytime soon, so jus—”

“There’s something engraved on each of these lines.”

And yeah. Barry is not afraid to admit that he basically scrambled onto the lap of Superman to see the screen.

“What!”

Clark doesn’t even flinch and reiterates, “There's a symbol engraved on every one of these lines. A very small symbol that I had to enhance my eyesight, like six or seven times, to see.”

Barry scrolls through the transcript. “Would J’onn be able to see these? I don’t know how close both your microscopic visions are.”

“I mean… I think so?”

Barry waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. If J’onn can’t do it, I’ll just bring you back here, and you can draw each symbol out by hand.”

Clark prays to god that J’onn can do it.

“Tony, take a nap at least. Please.”

He sniffs and wipes some dust on his shirt. He gets back to hacking at a thin piece of metal. “No can do, Pep.”

“Tony, you’re not gonna get the kid back in a few days!”

“I can certainly try.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I do love to impress.”

“Can you at least explain to me why this is so important?”

Tony furrows his brows, “Didn’t I tell you this already? You’re a terrible listener.”

She crosses her arms, “No. You haven’t told me, Tony. All you said was that the Spider-Boy was missing and you needed to get him back, and then you just started building shit. I don’t know what that means.”

He has a look of suspicion on his face. “Mmm… No, I definitely told you, but I’ll tell you again since you weren’t listening.”

“I’m gonna strangle you.”

“Uh-huh. Lefty, Righty, get over here.” His cute little robot arms that help him around the lab. Lefty was the left arm, and Righty was the right arm. You know. In case it wasn’t obvious.

He hands the robots the piece of metal. “I want the edge melted down. Nice and slow.”

He leaves the task to them and steps back as the plasma lasers power up. Don’t worry. They’re low power right now. Very safe.

He turns to Pepper. “The Spider-kid, Peter, got sucked into another dimension a little over a month ago. And now I have to build a machine that opens portals so that I can get him back.”

She blows out a breath. “And he’s only fourteen?”

“Fifteen now.”

“Yeah. Right, right. He was fourteen when you brought him to Germany.”

Tony groans. “I know, I know. Not my best moment.”

“One of your lowest, actually. And you haven’t talked with him since?”

“Okay, well, I can dwell on bad choices and guilt while I’m building the machine to get him home. That’ll cancel it out. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

He feels a small impact on his chest and a thump to the floor. He looks down. She threw a granola bar at him.

“Eat something.”

He does a mock salute, “Yes, ma’am.”

Pepper rolls her eyes, “One more thing, since I have to do all the thinking for you. You’re building a machine that can travel through dimensions or whatever. Do you have all the necessary materials for that? Stark Industries is advanced, but not that advanced.”

Tony opens the granola bar and takes a bite, “Nope. But Wakanda does.”

She squints, “Wakanda?”

“Princess Shuri specifically. She’ll have something, I’m sure.”

Pepper’s still squinting. She speaks slowly, like he’s a toddler. “You want to ask for help from King T’Challa? A man who specifically said that their resources are off limits to anything the country hasn’t established outside of it?”

“Yep.”

She nods. “Okay, then. Try not to cause any international scandals or conflicts.”

“No promises.”

“I’m serious, Tony.”

“I’m very serious as well, Pepper.”

A ping sounded from her phone. She sighs. “Well, while you’re in here rescuing a super-powered teenager from another dimension, I have to deal with the Board of Communications. Much worse.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Pepper looks at her watch, “You have four hours, Tony. I want to see you in bed after that.”

Tony purses his lips. “Six.”

“Four.”

“Five.”

“We can take it down to three if you want.”

Tony slumps. “Four it is.”

Pepper nods, satisfied. “Yep. Four hours to take care of that little mess.”

Tony shoots the wrapper toward the trash can and airballs. “I wouldn’t refer to this as a ‘little’ mess, Pep.”

She points behind him. “No, I mean your robots.”

Tony whips around and finds Lefty and Righty just lasering holes into the metal. Just blasting it anywhere. Goodness. He should really name them Dumbass and Dumbasserer.

“Damnit!”

Pepper lets out an absolutely beautiful laugh at his expense.

Peter’s eyes narrow, and he grits his teeth. There were a little over a dozen stories on his back right now. His left knee was digging into the ground painfully, while his eyes burned from the sweat and blood riveting down his face. He could barely take a breath without coughing from the dust. He was blacking out every two minutes or so, only for a few seconds, obviously. And his arms weren’t even burning anymore; they were just numb with the occasional stabbing pain.

Yeah, so getting into this situation was in no way intentional. Joker just sucks.

He decided that it was the perfect day to terrorize Peter’s area. He blew up the freaking apartment building. Right when Peter was about to leave it behind for good. Tragic.

He was getting ready to turn in his keys to the landlord when an explosion knocked him off his feet. And then another one had his ears ringing, and his head leaking blood. He only had a second to react when he looked up and saw the ceiling heading straight for him.

The impact had him feeling like his teeth were shattered. And he almost crumpled under the weight until he felt a large shard of a steel pipe, a little above his hip-bone, digging into it. If he let himself go down any further, the pipe would penetrate.

Peter hasn’t thought about Spider-Man much. He tries not to. He can’t be Spider-Man in this world, not with the thousand other vigilantes in this city; he’s not needed.

—Is what he’s trying to convince himself of. Pretty hard to do when he can hear heartbeats fading out from the explosion itself or debris raining down. He can hear the screams; someone is choking on their blood. A steel pipe, just like the one digging into his side, pierced a lung. That person is dead. Spider-Man could have saved them.

He’s just Peter Parker right now.

A gas pipe explodes and shakes the building, only a little bit, but it’s enough for his back to cave in.

He lets out a scream of his own as the pipe penetrates.

He looks down with spots in his vision and what looks like a gallon of blood dripping from him and the pipe. He could feel the pain initially, but now it's just an uncomfortable pressure in his side; sharp pain every time he shifts.

He doesn’t think that’s a good thing.

Okay, okay. Two options.

Option One: He could stand up, very hard by the way, and tip this thing on its side. Everyone is already dead anyway. And he means that literally. He can’t hear anyone’s heartbeat.

Option Two: Use his speed to sprint and let the building drop straight down without getting crushed—also a sucky option.

Now, why would he even have alternative two as an option? For the surrounding area, of course. Everyone might not have cleared out, and tipping it would most likely cause another crisis.

And people might find out he’s enhanced.

Option two it is.

But no matter which one he chooses, the hardest part wouldn’t be removing himself.

No.

The hardest part would be getting the pipe out of his side before he moved anywhere else. The lower half of it was stuck under some debris, so if he moved forward or back, it’d just tear straight through. Even worse for healing, as you could imagine.

So, the plan was to hold this building with one hand for a few seconds while he broke the pipe down the middle, leaving it in to staunch as much bleeding as possible. After the pipe broke, he needed to get into a running position, sort of like running track. He’d need to push off from his back foot and have roughly less than a second to clear twenty feet. Easy peasy.

Peter does his best to take a breath, preparing his mind to do some impossible shit. He’s not ready to die yet, especially when it’s not from him saving people.

He blinks hard to clear the spots in his eyes and redirect the dripping blood. Okay. Pipe first, of course.

He looks down and almost cries at the amount of dust on the pipe, along with it being metal; he’ll have to clean out his system so that an infection wouldn’t spread.

He takes another two or three shaky breaths and tenses up his numb right arm as much as he can to take this weight. A few seconds. That’s all he needs. He can do it.

He doesn’t think about it anymore and just moves his left arm, and he lets out another scream. A tendon or two tore, and finally, relaxing his left arm had him feeling knives throughout it.

No time to think about the pain. He breaks the pipe with a squeeze and twist of his hand. He returns his arm to its initial position, but at this point, he can’t even feel the relief.

Now, the hard part is over. Sort of. The hardest part is over. He needs to muster up enough strength to lift his knee just a few inches. This would be the tiniest bit easier because he has to push up with his legs and not his arms.

He grunts and wheezes as he can feel the strain in his glutes, quads, calves, etc. His whole lower body basically. But he got the building where it needed to be. And once again, he can’t think about it; he won’t be able to hold this position for long.

Less than a second, he needs enough force accumulated to clear the space before this thing squashes him like a bug.

Peter digs the tip of his foot into the ground, and he feels the ground cave in from the force.

Okay. On three. One. Two—and he’s off. Even surprised himself there.

Peter feels the building come down immediately, the brick scraping his back, forcing him to crouch even lower. A few more feet, but the exit was shrinking fast. Peter gives himself one last push, ignoring that searing pain in his side and the stabbing pain in his legs.

The building lands with a boom, along with a plume of dust and smoke. And there he is, laid out like a fucking pancake on his back. He’s breathing heavy, can barely breathe, actually, and his entire body is on fire.

No time to waste, though. He can hear the sirens of police cars and fire trucks. Yeah, realistically, he was under that building for only five or six minutes. They’re right on time. Well, not really, but you get the idea.

Peter pushes himself to his feet and almost stumbles back to the ground. He catches himself and limps away as fast as he can to the alley of the next building. He’ll go the back way, and at least he has a more than decent place to go back to this time.

Peter is so out of it, he doesn’t even notice the trail of blood he was leaving behind.

“Isn’t that Peter’s apartment building?”

Stephanie was looking at the GPS once again as they ran to the scene of the crime. They had split up; Bruce, Dick, and Duke went after the Joker and his goons while she, Tim, and Damian went to help civilians.

Tim looks at his own and furrows his brows. “Yeah. But he moved to a new building a few days ago, so there shouldn’t be any concern there.”

Damian speaks up. “Except the potentially dead civilians.”

Tim glares. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Bruce is on comms and hears enough. “Would you three focus?”

“Sorry, Batman,” they chorus.

“Just deal with the civilians first, please. We can worry about Peter later. Though I’m sure he’s fine.”

The three skid to a stop and see the looks on the faces of the police officers, firefighters, and the bodies being carried out.

Stephanie bites her lip. “I don’t think there are any civilians to worry about.” She looks over and sees Tim already speaking with the police and walking back over with a shake of his head.

She can tell his teeth are gritted when he speaks. “Dead. Every single one.”

Damian's eyes are locked onto something. “You’re sure they checked the building thoroughly?”

“Of course I am. They said they did multiple sweeps, and there were no signs of life. But we’ll still be conducting our—what are you looking at?”

Domain’s eyes don’t move. “The trail of blood leading to the back alley.”

Tim and Stephanie’s eyes whip to the same spot and follow it.

“Someone made it out alive?”

“I’m not trying to be a downer, but there’s no way a normal person made it out.”

Their brains all click at the same time. They were all sure only a meta could make it out of something like this.

“Peter,” they chorus.

Damian takes the lead. “Red Robin stays here to perform an accurate sweep for survivors. Spoiler and I will follow the trail and find him.”

Stephanie and Damian waste no time and head off. Tim yells after them, “Who gave you authority over anything!”

Damian yells over his shoulder. “Peter doesn’t even like you! Get to work, loser!

Yeah. Tim was going to skin the kid when they got home.

Chapter Text

“You’re awake.”

Peter groans. His entire body hurt. “No shit.”

He goes to roll over, but he feels a sharp pinch on his side and a stiff feeling in his right arm. He gives up and lifts his arm. “The hell is this?”

“A splint.”

Peter massages the bridge of his nose. “... I know it’s a splint, dumbass. I mean, why is it on me?”

There’s a snort of amusement. “You had three torn tendons. Completely torn.”

Huh. Three? Peter thought it was two.

He pokes his side and hisses. “And this?”

“Stab wound from a pipe.”

Peter sort of remembers that. He can’t recall the events all that clearly, but he definitely remembers the pain—his side twinges with a phantom throbbing at the memory.

His vision was blurry, and he couldn’t exactly see who he was talking to at his bedside. Didn’t even know where he was, actually. He should probably resolve that inquiry.

He squints at the figure. “Who are you?”

“Bruce. Your boss.”

Peter freezes. Shit. And despite the ache deep in his bones, the numbness in his lower body, and his limited vision, along with the biggest headache known to man, Peter runs.

He rips the IV out of his arm and scrambles from the bed and dashes to where he’s vaguely sure the door is. He's going to worry about how to open it in a bit. And by a bit, he means one second.

And no. Change of plans. He got caught before he could even touch the doorknob. Damnit. His body was not in great shape right now. He should’ve been able to clear the space between the bed and the door, easy.

He was being held above the ground with two arms wrapped around his sternum, and Peter didn’t even fight it. His body was still under extreme fatigue, so he just let it relax until he was practically dangling from Bruce’s arms.

“I would suggest not trying to over-exert yourself, Peter.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not going to get me to go away by being mean.”

“Worth a shot.”

Bruce lays Peter back in the bed and tucks him in like he’s a fucking baby.

Alfred walks in a second later, his gloved hands carrying a multitude of medical supplies. He strides stiffly to Peter’s bedside, “Good evening, Master Peter.”

Peter furrows his brows. “Just Peter, please.”

Alfred ignores him and instead clicks his tongue at the IV that is now nowhere near his arm. “I suspected that your IV would be removed. That’s why I brought another one to insert.”

Peter groans. “Mr. Pennyworth, I appreciate the care, but I don’t need another one, really.”

“Nonsense, now hold still.”

Peter pouts but does as the butler says as he inserts another IV. “I will also need to change out your bandages and readjust your splint.”

Peter doesn’t even try to explain why the ripped tendons are nearly healed as Alfred raises a brow while fiddling with the splint. He notices the lack of bruising but doesn’t comment. Thank you.

Alfred changes his bandages and once again does not acknowledge the semi-closed stab wound.

Bruce doesn’t take the hint. “You heal fast, Peter.”

Peter blinks hard to get his eyes adjusted to the light. “Genetics.”

“Special ones?”

“I guess. Same as yours.”

Bruce froze so imperceptibly that Peter wouldn’t have noticed without his enhanced eyesight, and the man breathed out the same.

“I assume you’re talking about the Wayne name? Special genes, as the people would say.”

Peter waves a lazy hand with his free arm, partly because of the pain, “Yeah, right.”

Peter’s figured it out. Wasn’t hard, really. Dick’s literally Nightwing—the smile on the rooftop was a dead giveaway. His weird brother, the CEO, knows how to stalk people, and they all consider Red Hood as some sort of wayward son. Damian’s “practiced” punch after kicking down Peter’s door didn’t help either. And Bruce? Nobody that rich and “clueless” should be that terrifying.

Oh, and let's not forget the most obvious one: How that fuck would he end up with the Waynes if vigilantes picked him up?

He’s thought about it a lot, and there were too many variables to ignore.

The whole family was a bunch of nighttime vigilantes, and Bruce was most definitely Batman—no doubt about it.

Peter doesn’t think before he speaks, “Do you use echolocation, like a real one?”

Bruce isn’t fazed. “That depends. Did you lift that building off yourself?”

“No. That’s not possible for a regular human. Which I am. Obviously.”

Bruce leans back. “Okay then. No, I don’t use echolocation. A weird question.”

They’ve come to an understanding. Mutual secrets. Peter can work with that.

Except for the fact that the whole family probably knows. That’s not really fair. He could attack Tim to make it fair. Yeah. He’ll do that.

Peter hisses a bit as Alfred puts the bandage as tight as he can on the wound.

“Apologies. But lucky for you, I’m all finished up.”

Peter blows out a breath, “Thank you, Mr. Pennyworth.”

Alfred doesn’t look at him as he collects his things, “Not a problem, my boy. Any special request for supper?”

Peter is still a bit loose with his tongue, so he’ll indulge. “Do you have lamb or shrimp?”

“We have both, which I’ll prepare to your liking. Raw, I presume?

Peter won’t even ask how he knows that, but sure. “That’ll do, Mr. Pennyworth.”

“And are you satisfied with the lamb being topped with a pomegranate-molasses gastrique and the shrimp with a Yuzu-Kosho emulsion?”

Peter puckers his lips and furrows his brows, “... I guess?”

Alfred nods. “Perfect. Dinner will be ready within the next three hours.”

Bruce stands up. “Noted. Thank you, Alfred. I’ll make sure the kids are on time.”

Alfred wastes no more time and leaves without another word. He has eight children to feed.

Peter lifts his gaze to Bruce, and his eyes light up, “You’re leaving?” Surprising that they would leave him awake and alone, but hey, he’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

Bruce gives an amused smile. “Why of course. I don’t have the whole day to watch over an injured teen.” He shakes his head.

Peter can hear them coming.

“That’s what my sons are for.”

Suddenly, the door bursts open with a hyperactive Dick and a grumbling Tim.

Dick holds and waves a familiar container in the air. “I brought a pregame snack for you!”

Despite Peter’s favorite snack, he still groans at his previous stalker, “The fuck is he doing here! I thought I told you to keep him away from me?”

Tim rolls his eyes, “Trust me, I don’t want to be here either.”

“I don’t trust you. Why are you here?”

Even with Peter’s ever-returning sight, he can clearly see Dick elbowing Tim in the side with a practiced smile on his face. Tim grunts and rubs at it with a wince. He reaches into his pocket, digging for something. He pulls out a flashcard, and Peter watches his face drop as he begins reading it aloud.

What the hell is he on about?

“Dear Peter, I am extremely apologetic about my actions toward you over the past couple of weeks. I am sorry about invading your privacy and making you uncomfortable, and the multiple attempts at stealing your DNA.”

He flips it over.

“I hope that one day you can forgive me for my lack of boundaries and consent issues, and I want you to know that I am truly sorry for getting off on the wrong foot. I hope that we can start anew and become friends.”

He drops his hands, standing there as an awkward teen forced to give a presentation instead of one of the youngest CEO’s in America.

Bruce and Dick start clapping lightly at the same time.

Peter couldn’t believe it. “You people are ridiculous.”

Tim throws the card down, even though it fluttered in the air before actually touching the ground. “Look, do you accept my apology or not?”

Peter pressed his lips together. “... Did you write it yourself?”

Tim’s eyes darted to Dick. “I had help.”

“Was it your idea?”

That one stumps Tim. No comment.

“Unbelievable. Get out.”

Tim panics and raises his hands in a placating gesture, “Wait, wait, wait, wait—”

Dick, always trying to play mediator. “If I may interject—”

“No, you may not.”

“It was sort of my idea!” Tim swallows, and it’s easy to see that he has to force the words out of his throat. “I—I saw the … wrong, I guess, in some of my actions.”

“You guess?”

“Alright, I was wrong!”

“... Apology accepted, I guess.”

Bruce has this stupid fond smile on his face, and Peter wants to smack him. And Dick is being dumb as usual. He lets out a whoop and bounces to his bedside.

“We’re all friends now!”

Peter scrunches his face up, “I wouldn’t say all—”

“We’re all friends now!”

Peter’s eye twitches. “... No—”

Dick cuts him off, again, and opens the container of raw meat. “Eat up!”

Peter can see Tim gagging in the corner. “You were actually serious about him eating raw meat?”

“Why would I lie about that, Timbo?”

Peter takes a piece. “I’m going to bite both of you.”

Tim eyes his canines. “I would prefer you not.”

Bruce took up space near the door, preparing to leave. “Red Hood should be here soon to see you, Peter.”

Now Peter could get behind that.

Bruce looks at Tim. “You’re with me.”

Peter watches the young adult give a relieved smile and basically bounce to Bruce’s side. For what, Peter doesn’t know.

“We’ll see you all at dinner. Don’t be late, please.”

Peter does a double-take. “All?”

Bruce doubles down. “Yes, all, including you, Peter.”

“But, why! Can’t I just eat by myself?”

“Alfred requested that you be there.”

Damnit. Alfred was the only decent person in this family, and he was an old man. His refusal would make him an asshole by default.

Bruce takes his silence in stride and says nothing more as Tim follows him out with a ‘Ciao’ and mock salute to the two of them.

Now, Peter was a thinker. He had too many thoughts, whether he liked it or not. And right now, Peter wanted to think. Think about how his time is being wasted inside Wayne Manor, injured, and how he’s not in his apartment working on his machine.

He wanted to work through a couple of equations in his head, just so that he would have a little less to do when he went home. It wasn’t much, but it would save a few minutes.

But of course, that was too much to ask as Dick slinks into the previously occupied chair.

“So… How ya’ feeling?”

Peter’s eyes slide over to his father, to Nightwing, and while he would usually make some smartass comment, Dick kind of has his respect this time around.

“Better.”

“What does that mean?”

Yeah, it didn’t take much for him to lose patience these days.

“I’m not in a crumbling building with a steel pipe embedded in my hip. What else could it mean, Dick?”

“I mean, mentally, Peter. Being in a crumbling building with a steel pipe embedded in your hip couldn’t have been good for your head.”

Peter blinks. No one has even asked about his mental health, no one except Aunt May. And that was every blue moon, with her extra shifts and his Spider-Man gig.

He’s not sure he wanted to talk about it with anyone who wasn’t May.

So, he settles on, “I’ll be fine.”

Dick sighs, “That’s not what I asked.”

“Well, that’s all you're getting.”

A groan. “Peter—”

“Look, dude, you’re not my freaking… whatever you think you are to me. So stop acting like it. I don’t need an impromptu therapy session after shit went down. I don’t have to tell you shit, and I won’t, so drop it.”

Dick clenches his jaw and leans back in the chair. “... You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I don’t need you to be sorry, I need you to stop doing it.”

“I’m trying to be nice here, Peter!”

“Well, I wish that you wouldn’t!”

“You’re impossible.”

“Whoopty-fucking-doo.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

Peter’s attitude does a complete one-eighty as Red Hood makes his entrance. He perks up as much as his body would allow, making himself look better than he feels.

“Hey, Hoody.”

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“I don’t wanna.”

Dick throws an angry hand in Hood’s direction, “Why does he get special treatment?”

Hood gives the obvious answer, “Because I’m not fucking annoying.”

Peter sees Hood throw something, and it lands in his lap. He looks down, and it’s a freaking bag of grapes.

He looks up and sees Hood not even looking at him, but at the wall with a hand rubbing at the back of his head.

“Grapes?”

“They’re supposed to be one of your favorite fruits.”

“Huh?”

“Your favorite fruit is grapes.”

Dick is looking between the two of them with darting eyes and is very visibly confused. And so is Peter.

“When did I tell you my favorite fruit is grapes?”

Hood groans. “... Tony.”

Peter squints his eyes.

Tony. Tony. Tony.

He told Hood that Tony was his big ass pet spider to hide his powers.

Oh.

Apparently, grapes are one of a spider’s favorite fruits. He never thought about that before. Very considerate of him to do research.

Peter snaps his free hand in recognition. “Yes, grapes are my favorite fruit, maybe. So, thanks.”

Dick decides to intercede, “I’m lost. Are grapes your favorite fruit or not?”

“They are, probably.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, it does. They might be his favorite fruit.”

“So they might be his favorite fruit or might not?”

Hood shakes his head. “I’m quite sure they’re his favorite fruit.”

“I’ve never tested it before.”

“Tested whether or not your favorite fruit is grapes? How would you not know that?”

“I do know. They’re probably my favorite fruit.”

Dick’s mouth is open, and he genuinely cannot comprehend what they’re talking about. “And who the hell is Tony?”

Peter says with full confidence, “Tony is the grapes.”

Dick squints. “... Are you high?”

“Eat the grapes and take a nap, Pete.”

Peter pops one into his mouth. “Kay-kay.”

Dick makes an appalled sound. “What the hell?”

Hood looks at him with a smug smile. “You lack the charm, Dickface.”

Peter pays their bantering no mind and thoroughly enjoys his grapes, which taste absolutely divine. He shoves two or three into his mouth at a time, savoring the crunch of every single one. Hood pulled a good bunch.

And maybe Hood was right, he was getting tired again. The ache in his body hadn’t dulled away yet, but instead became more insistent, begging for just a little more rest. His vision swayed, blinking once, twice, thrice. The voices of Hood and Dick became a distant sound, fading into the background.

A nap before dinner wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he’ll wake up without this freaking headache.

“He’s going to choke on the grapes you idi—!”

“You’re jealous?”

Tim doesn’t lose his pace as Bruce hits it on the bullseye. No surprise there.

“I’m… disgruntled.”

“About Jason and Peter.”

Tim rolls his shoulders back with agitation. “It was… unexpected.”

“Because he’s taken a liking to Peter?”

Tim is harsh with his next words. “Because he’s treated Peter better than he’s ever treated me. Someone he met not even a month ago.”

Bruce thinks carefully about his next words. “... You can’t blame Peter for this.”

“I don’t blame him. I don’t hate him.”

“You just find him difficult.”

Tim doesn’t confirm or disagree, but instead, gives a little head shake of disbelief. “What does one have to do for Jason Todd to like them? What did he do, Dad? And what can I do? Why doesn’t he like me?” His voice splintered off in the end.

Bruce swallows hard. His son was hurting and confused. Confused about why his big brother doesn’t want anything to do with him and why he likes a strange kid so much more than him. It’s a hard thing to consider and a fragile thing to address.

“… This is a talk that you need to have with Jason yourself, Tim.”

The teen winced at the suggestion, but Bruce pushed on. “I can’t dictate how to feel about this, and I can’t tell you what’s going on in Jason’s head, so I’m not even going to try.”

Tim was walking faster. He wasn’t trying to hear anything, but once again, Bruce pushed on. He put a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him in his tracks.

Tim was biting the inside of his cheek, and his stance was rigid, but Bruce made it so that Tim couldn’t escape his eyes.

“But one thing I do know… You and Jason are smart young men who can work through it. I trust you two to talk and not kill each other over this.”

Tim throws his hands up, dislodging the hand on his shoulder. “That’s the problem, Dad! He doesn’t want to talk to me. He doesn’t want anything to do with me! He’s still mad about me taking Robin and won’t even look at me!”

Bruce purses his lips. He knows for a fact that’s wrong, but he’ll let them figure that out for themselves. “All I can say is to talk to him. He’ll be willing to hear you out, bud. I’m sure of it.”

“… I trust you.”

“I know you do.”

“… I’ll talk to him.”

“Good.”

“… I want an espresso shot.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Right now? You know Alfred wouldn’t approve.”

“Alfie doesn’t have to know.”

“… Sneak it before dinner, and if you get caught, I’m denying everything.”

Bruce and Tim shake on it. “Deal.”

Bruce decides to take advantage. “In exchange, I need you to do something for the company.”

They make it to his office door.

Tim snorts, “I’m the CEO. I do everything for the company.”

Bruce corrects him, “You’re the heir.”

“Heir with CEO duties. I’m the CEO, even the papers know it.”

“Well, I’m glad you clarified that.”

Tim pushes the wooden door open and pauses as he sees what’s piled on the desk, and Bruce elaborates on the assignment behind him.

“The CFO is having a bit of tax trouble. A discrepancy that no one can seem to find.”

Stacks of papers upon papers, on the desk, on the floor, in the chair.

Bruce relays the task, and Tim can hear a rare grin in his voice. “Find it.”

Tim’s eye twitches. “Why the fuck are these not on a digital file?”

Bruce slides past him and gives a subtle shrug. “Ask the CFO. You're the CEO.”

“Did Lucius even try anything? Hallmark always needed supervision anyway.”

“Lucius has taken two months off for some vacation time with his wife.”

Yeah. Great. Tim’s going to have to give a personal audit to Hallmark’s work (and competence) himself—again.