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Peter didn’t mean to say he was an alien. Really, it just slipped out. See what had happened was he had been researching the heroes of this new world he got dropped into, a major player being Superman (should be Super-Man obviously the hyphen is superior). Since Peter was clearly too socialized to have been living under a rock the only quickly available excuse for why he didn’t know who Batman was is that he is an alien. If Peter had more time he was sure he could have come up with literally anything else. In hindsight he could have just claimed to be from a foreign country or something. Although with his all-American accent that may have been equally as far fetched. At least being an alien explains why he isn’t caught up on the culture. All of that was to say this is how Peter found himself standing in a cave surrounded by a small squadron of vigilantes. Drats.
“So, if you’re an alien, what planet did you come from?” The brick shithouse with the red helmet said. Peter would have thought him to be a straight up supervillain if he hadn't bought him a burger. Now the red helmet man is his favorite.
“Queens, New York” Peter’s just grateful the first thing he found out is that New York isn’t a real place here, he’s crossing his fingers that they don’t have a super high tech way of finding fake planets hidden in this cave somewhere.
“Why are you here?” and suddenly Peter isn’t so fond of the big black furry interrogating him.
“Do you mean Earth or Gotham specifically?” Maybe he shouldn’t be sassing the people trying to help him but he’s been reverted to somewhere around nine and his brain isn’t working the way he’s used to. Peter had his moment of panic over his general situation, dying, ending up in a strange universe, being a literal child again, and being homeless once more (as if the battle of Manhattan wasn’t enough). Unfortunately that panic led him up to a rooftop where he was promptly found by the Boy Wonder himself. Now Peter has to stuff it all down until a more convenient opportunity for a total mental breakdown arises.
“Either is good, but I have a feeling B is more concerned about why you’re in Gotham” Nightwing would probably make a more intimidating figure if he wasn’t currently twirling around in his chair like a hyperactive toddler.
“Gotham was by accident, I guess Earth was too but I had to end up somewhere” at least he hopes he did, Peter doesn’t want to think about what could have happened during his impromptu multiversal space traveling incident.
Batman lets out a grunt that Peter takes to mean “your answer displeases me, but I will accept it” or something along those lines. He shifts around from foot to foot uncomfortable with having no shoes on in a cold cave. As a spider thermoregulation isn’t one of his strong suits, so the cold Gotham chill wasn’t doing him any favors. On the other hand, his instincts are elated at being in this big ass cave. Peter wonders if Batman would ever allow him to crawl around on his ceiling. Probably not. He lets out a big jaw cracking yawn that must’ve been a tad too wide if the wince from some of the more silent members of the group was any indication.
“We can continue this in the morning, we’ll get you set up down here for the night” Nightwing had stopped his theatrics with the chair in order to start guiding Peter towards a room on the upper left wing of the cave. Which means Peter misses the glare from the youngest Robin of the group. His stomach lets out a loud rumble as if to scold him for not eating since the red helmet man gave him the burger. If his metabolism were not so fast this wouldn’t be an issue but alas, here he is, hungry once again. Peter sends a sheepish glance towards Nightwing who raises an eyebrow but redirects them to a breakroom looking space. Nightwing rifles around the cabinets and makes a quick PB&J without question. Peter gives it a quick sniff to make double sure that it is safe before scarfing it down. Another sandwich is in his hands before he can even think to ask for more. After the quick snack break they resume the journey to what Peter is calling the guest room in his head. It’s probably got a more fitting name like “the bat-room or the bat-bed” if any of the gadgets Peter had already heard about set up any kind of trend.
The Bat-clan, as Peter had taken to calling them, had kept him in the cave for somewhere around four days. He lost track and nobody can blame him because there wasn’t anything for him to tell time with. The best he had was the amount of meals they gave him and that was still more than the average person usually had. He can’t complain about their treatment of him, the Bat-clan were actually pretty hospitable if you think about it. They gave him things to fiddle with (Peter refuses to call it playing), they supervised him in the gym (that was more jungle gym than anything), gave him enough food for his stomach to stop screaming, and talked to him outside of the interrogation style questioning they liked to do. Peter gets it, he does. He claimed to be an alien so now they have to do the hero thing and make sure he isn’t a threat. Understanding that does not mean Peter didn’t fuck around with them. It’s not like the bats will figure out that Peter’s planet doesn’t really have ritualistic courting dances that involve eating live spiders. He mostly told the truth as to why he couldn’t return, large scale destruction meaning the world no longer exists. Peter just didn’t mention that he was at fault for said destruction and that it was fixed with his banishment. Hey, there had to be a reason they won’t find his “home planet”.
Now Peter can’t claim to be truly surprised that he was taken in by another billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, superhero. It’s just really fucking weird that it happened twice. Honestly Peter’s life is so strange it only makes sense that stuff would start repeating. As long as he doesn’t die again Peter can power through it. But what he can’t put up with is all these people talking to him like he’s a child. Okay maybe he is a child but his memories are those of someone significantly older and more experienced.
“Peter, would you like to play outside or have a snack first?” and here comes the biggest culprit, Dick motherfucking Grayson. He sees the baby face and just completely forgets the intelligence that goes with it. Before Peter can sass the way he wants to, his stomach betrays him with a growl. He shoots an annoyed glare at it but Dick just chuckles and guides him by the shoulder to the kitchen area.
“Alfred! It’s snack time for growing spiders!” if Dick’s smile got any bigger it might be in actual danger of cutting his face in half. Peter wonders if he would behave this way if he knew the truth about him. That he isn’t just some displaced alien child, but in reality an almost adult vigilante from a universe he is responsible for nearly destroying.
“Young master Peter, what would you like to eat today: a sandwich or some quiche?” Alfred’s suggestion snaps Peter out of his thoughts. Again with the child-speak… he really wants some quiche though. Alright Alfred gets a free pass because he’s in charge of the food.
“Quiche please!” sue Peter for being excited about food. Alfred just gives a gentle smile and sets about plating the food.
“So, Peter, what do you usually do for fun?” Dick asks just as the food was set in front of Peter.
He ignores him for a moment just to take an obnoxiously large bite of quiche, unfortunately he could only chew for so long. “I read or build stuff” Peter would love to talk about building legos with Ned or reading poetry with MJ but the wound is too fresh so instead he keeps his answers short but true.
“What did you like to build?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” Jason, the red helmet man, asks as he steps over the threshold into the kitchen “He only just got here and learned who we are, give him a break”
Did Peter mention that he absolutely loves Jason? Because he does. Jason gave him a burger that one time and saved him from questioning. Peter would die for him.
“I’m only trying to get to know him a little better little wing” Dick replies softly
“It’s okay, I liked to read anything I could get my hands on really” Peter left out what he enjoyed building as he didn’t want to get into the depths of his engineering knowledge over a snack break.
“Well then I’ll pick out some books for you, then you’ll be able to understand some of our references” Jason smiled over at him. Peter understood most of their literary references, the Brontё sisters were popular in both universes it seems. The true tragedy is that they didn’t have Star Wars here, but maybe this Star Trek they told him about is close enough.
By the end of the day Peter had a reading list a mile long and a pinky promise from Tim to watch Star Trek together.
Peter has made a decision. It had been a week since he began staying in the manor and the Bat-clan is starting to get suspicious of how human he behaves. So Peter is going to start leaning in to his more spidery traits. He thinks it will be more than a little strange to act this way out of his Spider-man costume, but it will be necessary to keep his accidental cover of alien heritage. He’s going to start slow and let the family “catch him in the act” to make it seem like he’d been trying to act more human than he is. He picked some of his more tame powers to start with, the wall crawling and web making. Usually when Peter was patrolling he’d use his web slingers but when he’s making a web to nest in he uses his organic spinnerets. Having those took some getting used to. So now Peter is crawling around the room the bats gave him, making one of the biggest webs he’s made to date. This was how Tim found him when he walked in to collect Peter for dinner.
“Wh- umm. What’s going on?” Tim eyed the massive web nervously, it probably didn’t help that Peter was contorted into impossible positions in the center while he was finishing up his nest.
“...It’s my bed” whelp just shoot Peter now. Why was he incapable of being smooth? At least Wade wasn’t here to see this; he'd never hear the end of it.
“Uh okay, it’s time for breakfast?” he didn’t think the web would throw Tim off this much but at least he was trying to hide his discomfort. Tim’s slightly elevated pulse gave away his emotions, but that could also be attributed to the obscene amount of energy drinks he consumes on a daily basis. Peter thinks the rest of the family should be more concerned about his sleeping habits because there is no way Tim gets more than 10 hours total a week. Those eye bags are truly designer at this point. He moves down from his web, joints moving like water and Tim’s pulse picks up a slight bit more. Peter decides to put on a little bit of a show and really exaggerate his movements for the short journey down. Once Tim was sure that Peter was ready to follow he turned on his heel already pretending that nothing had happened.
On the way to the dining room Peter had the bright idea to crawl down the wall instead of using the stairs, which did not react well with Jason who was standing near the base of the stairs.
“...No, don’t like that” Is all Jason says before he does an about face and walks right back into the dining room.
Peter giggles to himself before following closely behind him. Alfred is just putting the finishing touches on the table as he walks in and takes his seat between Duke and Damian. Dinner tonight is steak, potatoes, and a vegetable medley. Duke slides over an extra roll as they are being passed around and Damian tries to pretend he didn’t add an extra scoop of vegetables to Peter's plate.
Conversation is flowing around the room Dick and Jason are arguing about a case on the Crime Alley border, Duke and Steph are trying to have a covert food fight for some reason or another, Tim is antagonizing Damian by slowly adding salt onto his veggie burger, Bruce is watching all of them with a gleam in his eyes that Peter sometimes saw in Tony when he looked at him. That just leaves Cass, Peter looks towards where she’s sitting opposite of Duke and finds her quietly observing him. She raises her hands to sign, pauses and sets her hands back down. It confuses Peter until he realizes that they have no way of knowing that he learned sign language to communicate with Ned when he went nonverbal, and as a bonus it helped with patrolling as Spider-man. He thinks for a moment if he could get away with knowing the language already since they bought his excuse for why he knows English and decides that he wants to communicate more than he wants to pretend to be an alien, so he signs to her “Don’t worry I know sign” and watches surprise and pleasure blooms across her face. Well as much as Cass is willing to show emotions anyway.
“Where did you learn?” Peter thinks for a moment and decides to use the same excuse that he used for knowing English.
“I learn very quickly. I didn’t know if more people spoke English or sign language here, so I picked both.” That answer seems to satisfy her and next thing he knows they’re having a lively conversation about gardening. He doesn’t notice the fond looks this garners from Bruce and Dick.
“I can’t grow anything; I have whatever the opposite of a green thumb is.” Peter may be over-dramatizing his non-existent plant growing ability but there was an incident where he and Aunt May tried to grow marigolds and somehow burnt them into a crisp. He thinks back fondly about the days he had nothing to worry about other than homework and terribly mistimed gardening projects. He catches himself before he starts to tear up and make a scene at the dinner table.
“So-” Tim starts with a strange gleam in his eyes “Damian, did you know that Peter makes webs to sleep in?” why that would be of any interest to the youngest Wayne is beyond Peter.
“I was unaware that Parker participated in such activities” That didn’t seem to get the reaction that Tim wanted until Steph bursts out-
“You make webs?! That’s so cool! Can I see?” and with such big pleading eyes thrown his way Peter finds it hard not to squirm a little. At least they can mistake his discomfort at being thrown into the spotlight as discomfort at being considered inhuman. Tim looks satisfied so maybe he was lobbying for a supportive reaction to Peter’s little sleeping habit. How unexpectedly considerate of Tim. Peter would have thought that Dick or Duke would be more likely to try and make him comfortable like that, not that he knows any of these people that well.
“Uh okay I guess” and Peter really didn’t have anything against them seeing his web, in fact he made it so that they would see it on purpose. It just didn’t really hit him until it was actually happening that this family of really powerful people will be seeing just how much more spider he is than human. It makes him think a little of the Church of Humanity that Peter had been studiously avoiding as a civilian and became unfortunately familiar with as Spider-man. Not that the Bat-clan has indicated that they would harm him in any way because he is a non-human entity. Since the table was already finished eating Steph rushed to put her plate away and waited impatiently for the rest to follow. After cleaning up Peter was ready to guide her up to his not so little nest and faltered at the sight of almost the entire household, Alfred was washing up in the kitchen, standing with Steph presumably to also see his web. Peter just gave a little shrug and started moving up to where he remembered his room to be.
The roughhousing that Dick and Jason had gotten into abruptly stopped when they entered the room and took in the web. It spanned from one end of the room to another and anchored itself on the corners of the ceiling and floor. Peter felt his extra eyes pop open and had a split second of panic before he decided to just roll with it. He starts climbing his way into the center of his nest using his most spidery movements. Some vibrations echo its way up towards where he’s crouched. Without really thinking too much about it some primal hunting instinct comes up from Peter’s hind brain and has him skittering excitedly towards where his prey is caught in his trap.
There is a vaguely distressed sound that comes from his little peanut gallery and Peter twists his head around in a way that would have broken his neck if he were anyone else. Dick looks like he’s trying very valiantly to pretend that everything is normal and fine and that Peter hadn’t just tried to catch some giant prey. Damian on the other hand looks very intrigued and like he’s holding back from asking a million questions. Peter feels his cheeks heat up in a blush and crawls his way back towards the center of his nest.
“That looks comfortable” Jason very bravely breaks the silence
“Waaaay cooler than I thought it would be!” Peter watched as Steph reached her hand out to pluck a string and had to hold back the instinct to hunt down what was in his web. She got herself stuck and had to pull with most of her strength to break free from the sticky substance.
“Thanks” Peter may or may not have been preening.
“Do you think he knows that humans don’t have eight eyes?” Duke whispers over to Bruce
“Just ignore it for now and don’t make him uncomfortable” was the equally hushed reply Bruce gave back
Since the webs, wall crawling and the accidental reveal of his extra eyes Peter has taken to upping the ante. He’s started hissing when they pop out and startle him or when they just start getting on his nerves. That didn’t seem to bother them, so he added in growling and chirping at them. Now that they’ve heard him use some of these noises Peter thinks it’s time for the crown jewel of his powers. Talking to spiders. Now spiders can’t understand the human language, and because they aren’t people spiders are incapable of emoting in a human manner. What that means is that Peter has to get on their level and communicate with body language and a series of chirps, growls, hisses, and chittering that culminate in a whole new language. Over the course of the last few weeks that Peter has taken up residence in the Wayne manor he has found quite the collection of spiders roaming about. His favorite is a rabid wolf spider (Rabidosa rabida) that he’s named Cheddar in honor of a house spider that lived in the corner of his Queens apartment. There’s a particularly nasty cave spider (Meta menardi) that bullies him down in Bruce's study. Peter has been found by various members of the Wayne family hissing into seemingly random corners of whatever room he’s currently in. What they don’t know is that Asshole the cave spider has decided that Peter is intruding on his space and is trying to get him to leave. Well shows what Asshole knows Peter is much bigger and smarter than him and will be staying however long the Waynes will allow him.
Peter has heard rumors about prank wars around the manor but has yet to actually see one in action. That all changes when Duke charges into the dining room one morning all puffed up and ready to throw hands that are absolutely doused in honey.
“STEPH WHAT THE HELL?!” Duke launches himself across the table to tackle an uncontrollably laughing Steph out of her chair.
“I didn’t do it, I swear!” was all she could get out through her hair being smothered in Duke's honey covered hands.
“I know it was you-” the argument continues on and Peter catches Cass slinking out of the room with a smirk across her features. She must’ve been getting Duke back for insulting The Rite of Spring as a ballet. If Peter has learned anything about this family, it’s that vengeance is swift and terrible. He’ll keep that and his spider communication in his back pocket until someone annoys him again.
It did not take long for someone to annoy him again. He and Dick were sitting in the TV room trying to find something to watch for the night. The others were all out on patrol or in Duke’s case hanging out with friends.
‘“Peter I really think Halloween isn’t an appropriate movie for you to watch, what about Brother Bear?” Dick, to his credit, really did look concerned about poor Peter’s mental state. It isn’t Dick’s fault that he doesn’t know Peter has already seen the whole franchise with Ned and it became a sort of comfort movie for him.
“It can’t possibly be that bad, the plot line is so basic!” Peter was really trying not to give away that he had already watched it. He probably wouldn’t have pressed so hard if it were any other movie but damn it, it’s the principle of the thing.
“You’re too young for all that gore, I don’t want to be responsible for any nightmares you have.” Dick was putting his foot down pretty hard, but no one can out stubborn Peter Parker. Uncle Ben used to have a hell of a time getting him in the dentist chair, and it was only by bribing him with all he could eat at Delmar’s that he managed to “win” those arguments at all.
“I am not too young; besides I’ve seen worse” and didn’t that just break Dick’s heart. Peter watched as Dick thought about it for a few minutes, emotions at war on his face. Finally, he heaves a sigh and relents.
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you” Dick puts the movie into the DVD player and lets it play. It’s when the climax of the movie starts coming up that Peter has a stroke of genius. The earlier prank floated through the forefront of his mind and an only slightly evil smirk took over his face. Peter sends a quick glance over to make sure that Dick is still engrossed in the movie. Dick looks like he’s on the verge of sleep, but his eyes are open and vaguely focused on the TV. Perfect. Peter reaches up into his hair where he keeps Cheddar the spider and softly clicks a couple of orders to him. Cheddar sends a small chitter back and takes a flying leap off of his palm. Another glance to Dick to make sure the interaction went unnoticed, and Peter settled in to wait.
You see the thing about building a house over a cave the way the Wayne’s did is that it leaves the house open to a spider infestation. All over the manor spiders came creeping and crawling forward. They dropped out of webs in the attic and skittered out of holes in the wall. Cave spiders poured out from behind the grandfather clock in the hallway, and Dick remained blissfully unaware of what was happening. Peter had to smother his grin when he saw the crawling black mass the spiders made over the ceiling on their way to the wall with the TV. Ever so slowly the wave of spiders started to encroach onto the wall space. Dick straightened up and Peter knew that he had caught sight of his little prank. Peter watched as he stiffened up and sent the signal for the spiders to swarm. Suddenly movement exploded into the room as hundreds of spiders dropped from the walls and ceiling, Dick leapt up onto the couch with a startled shout and the spiders just kept coming. Peter watched as the spiders left no space on the floor and Dick well and truly started to panic before he sent out a cease-and-desist call to them. Dick turned his head around so fast Peter was afraid he may have gotten whiplash.
“You did this?!” it was higher pitched than Peter had ever heard Dick sound. He burst into loud and unabashed laughter and sent the spiders packing. All but Cheddar fled the room now that they were no longer needed. Cheddar crawled up onto Peter’s outstretched hand over his face and into his hair. Dick had never looked so horrified out of costume. Peter couldn’t stop laughing long enough to reply to him, so Dick got out his phone and told everyone in the bat-chat what just happened.
“You- you looked so-” Peter just couldn’t contain himself. Dick, now that he was calming down from the prank, had started to look a little proud. It was a nice look on him, Peter thought he’d make a great dad or uncle to somebody someday.
“You didn’t tell us you could talk to spiders” Peter’s laughter had quieted down by now, and he gave a crooked grin to Dick.
“You guys never asked. Seriously, days of interrogation and the full extent of my powers never came up? How?”
“We didn’t want to press you on something that was bound to come up naturally” Dick ran a hand through his hair “Besides we figured there were more important things to get answers on at the time, sure wish this came up though.”
Peter shrugged and that was all there was to it. He was a little disappointed that the joke was over so fast but if he didn’t want Dick to get bitten then that was the best place for things to stop. The night was over pretty quickly after that. Dick led him back up to his room and tried to pretend that he wasn’t trying to tuck Peter into his web as best as he could. Peter just let him have it because he was also pretending that he didn’t love having someone care about him so much. It brought up memories of faceless parents and warm hugs, of Uncle Ben and Aunt May and bedtime stories. This time it was Richard Grayson and a soft goodnight as he closed the bedroom door. Maybe being here wasn’t so bad, maybe there was family waiting here for Peter after all.