Chapter Text
Peter “Parker” Yang never had a family of his own. Not in the traditional sense, leastwise. The “holdfast your wives and become one flesh” kind. Never had the kind of self-loathing required to deny himself and for some reason those with a higher pay grade had decided somewhere along the line that pitching for the same team was an offense not only to god but to the state and every pearl-clutching flatfoot working a beat. As if it were any business who Parker wanted to dance the horizontal tango with. As if those politicians weren’t also cruising the parks at night while their pious wives waited at home praising their righteous husbands.
In Parker’s experience, it was the most voracious of cocksuckers that had the loudest voices and spat the most vitriol from the pulpit and the bench.
So, no. Parker didn't have a wife or children because what he wanted wasn’t a woman and this wasn’t the kind of world for what he wanted.
And he’d wanted one: grew up in a big family, only made sense he’d want one himself when he was grown. Parker loved being a big brother: tying shoes, wiping nose, drying tears and patching scrapes…he would have killed for his siblings, practically raised them when his parents worked their long hours.
God, there wasn’t a day that went by he didn’t miss them desperately.
It still haunted him in flashes behind the eyelids those nights when sleep was scarce: his mother, weeping, father red in the face as he’d thrown Parker and his meagre earthly belongings out the apartment door. Parker hadn’t expected it. One last night of peace, of helping the littles get ready for bed, getting hair brushed, homework done and stories read. At least he had that to think back on before everything else.
His aunt had caught him out, the night before. Saw him kissing the butcher’s boy by the tripe bins.
First time Parker had ever kissed a boy: it was perfect and terrifying and the alley was damp and chilled and smelled to high heaven but for the first time since his little hormone addled brain had supplied the concept that maybe he didn’t have to go all gooey for a dame, things had clicked into place to the very core of him, bone deep and sure.
The kiss itself wasn’t a fairytale, or a dream come true: there were no soft focus lenses, no shimmering light or baleful lidded eyes like the pictures showed. But hell, he was no Joan Crawford. The moment was maybe seconds long, two sweaty teens suffocating under the weight of rotting offal and expectations, lips smeared tight and nervous, tentative as they searched for one another in the dark- It wasn’t sparks and magic. It wasn’t love or even a ravenous lust.
No, the magic was that Parker felt like...himself. Like he could breathe, lungs expanded after a lifetime without. And for Parker, a part of his soul slotted into place and so much about himself made more sense as the context shifted into focus.
As a kid on the playground, it never made sense, all of the boys chasing the girls, yanking on pigtails and begging for a kiss like it was some holy rite on the pilgrimage to manhood. Personally, he had never seen the appeal. Kissing the butcher’s boy, though, he was starting to understand. His first kiss, his first foray into the warm press of chaste lips and nervous pawing hands; it was sweet really. Two kids figuring themselves out.
He was pretty sure the butcher’s kid was sent to military school after. He wondered if he’d made it through the war, when he cared to remember.
And Parker: there he was, just like that, out on his ass, a few snatches of clothing and the wailing of little sister, scared and confused, trailing behind him. It killed him, not being there to soothe her. Did their- her- parents know that she needed her bunny doll? Preferred soft words and a gentle hand through her hair until she could find her breath again?
Likely not. He hadn’t even been given a chance to explain himself, and there he was, arms full and walking on numb legs in his sudden and violent departure from childhood.
He’d had to drop out of school, after that; took on dock work and slept in the back booths of 24 hour diners until the next shift or the waitress kicked him out. It was a hard few months, years.
He never got married, never had a family of his own, in the biological sense.
But he made one, nonetheless.
That was the thing about finding yourself: once you knew what your soul felt like whole, it was impossible to shred it back into pieces for anyone else’s comfort. And the thing about queers? They found each other and stuck.
Thinking back on it, Parker was amazed he’d never found himself on the business end of a nightstick. He was a kid, sure, but there were few allowances when it came to a man loving outside the fairer sex. And boy, had Parker been a lover. Hard and fast, that was him, the older gents at the clubs admonishing him fondly for his follies. Silly Parker, forever and always falling for a pretty smile and a set of sad eyes. Always trying to fill the yawning ditch of the past with any snatch of affection he could garner, doomed or otherwise. And yeah, sometimes it ended bad, or he ended up with a handy in a back alley (and wasn’t it always back alleys? What he wouldn’t give for honesty of clean sheets and the sweet domesticity of a held hand in broad daylight) or a bad case of the crabs. Win some, lose some.
And then suddenly, he wasn’t a kid anymore: didn’t have to get payed under the table as a liability for child labor. Years at the docks had crafted Parker from that scared gawky teen to a broadchested man with his own bank account and a roof over his head and a side hustle in the boxing ring. Gone were the sharp edges of Catholic guilt, eroded until he could look at the first communion suit, the one his father had thrown out after him, with kindness and as a reminder of where he had come from and what he would never be again: cloistered, uncomfortable, stuffed up and starched.
He’d come such a long way, had made himself in his own image piece by piece after his world had ended, even walked away with a pretty sweet gig as a PI with a friend closer than any brother could ever be.
And now he was dead.
Parker didn’t regret it, not really. Going out a hero? Saving Arthur Lester? It was… well, not great, exactly. If he’d had his druthers, Parker would have lived well and beyond the age of Methuselah, just long enough to turn every hair on Arthur’s head grey, make the streets of Arkham a little safer, find a man he was head over heels in love with.
He had a list. It was short, but dammit it was his.
But this…it could be worse. At least it was poetic. Cinematic. Better than winding up nameless in a landfill or a loading dock after being caught out with his tongue down the wrong guy’s throat.
Well. He had had his tongue down the wrong guy’s throat, but at least it was for a good cause. He’d had to startle him, throw the man just of center enough that he wouldn’t fight Parker. And he would have, the stubborn bastard; Arthur could never just let a thing be. Parker just hoped it was enough, pushing Lester out that window, that it wasn’t too late to mean something.
In the seconds after, his lips viciously torn from Lester’s as Parker pushed him through the window, there was a hushed suspension, that precipice moment hanging before Arthur plummeted like a well-endowed sack of stones, and funny, Parker always thought that, small as he was, English would just sorta…drift off like a feather- in that split second eternity, Parker saw the realization dawn in Arthur’s eyes, the hurt, the heartbreak, and he hoped to god that Arthur could forgive him trying to save his life. Or at the very least that he wouldn’t spend his days blaming himself with Parker as yet another lodestone around his neck.
Maybe John would help Arthur through it. Yeah, that was a nice thought. Maybe Arthur would survive this, ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after with his mountain of a paramour. It’d be nice, one of them getting a kind life after all of this.
With a breath, Parker clenched his eyes tight and turned away from the window. He’d made his choice, sure, but that didn’t mean he needed to watch his demise as it ricocheted towards him in the form of volatile lead. He’d made a whole lifetime of choices and yeah, this one had him scared shitless, so sue him. If these were the moments before his card got punched, he’d prefer the last thing he saw to be Arthur Lester, alive.
Parker was a sucker like that: he’d do just about anything for his family. He spared a thought for his siblings, wishing they could know whatever came of their big brother, and almost glad that they would never know.
In the end, it hurt just about as much as he thought it would.
Until it didn’t.
—
Being dead, it turned out, came with a pint of piss warm beer and a side of stale oyster crackers.
Parker blinked. Then blinked again as if doing so would resolve his confusion into something more comprehensible. A detective to his bones, Parker attempted mentally retracing his steps to figure out just how the hell he’d gotten here.
Here being a smokey lounge club, the outdated kind populated by every blue haired old lady in the zipcode, filled with shadowy patrons, features ambiguous and obscured from table to table. He tried, desperately, to think but his head felt full to bursting with cotton wool and every thought came up muzzy and indistinct. Something was off, but he couldn’t place it, at odds with the diffuse rattle of live music -where the fuck was the band?- and the low murmur of conversation. He couldn’t even gauge the time, no windows, no-
No door.
Because you didn’t walk in. You can’t retrace your steps if you never took any. Think, Parker. Think.
Through the fog, glimpses: Arthur, lips agape and slightly shiny from a parting kiss and-
And the shock of being forcibly pulled from his flesh by a dozen or so lead projectiles and then-
And then nothing.
No, not quite nothing. An indeterminable darkness, like the press of knuckles against closed eyes, popping bursts of grey and static, a high hysterical laugh careening in the distance and- and-
“Mr Yang?”
Parker hadn’t even realized he had started hyperventilating until he was startled ass backwards on the the floor. Above him stood a man, young, indistinct and clearly unimpressed. Face heating, Parker cleared his throat.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s me.” he kept himself on the floor, determined not to look like even more of an asshole trying to get up on shaking legs. “You the, uh, proprietor of this fine establishment?”
Good. Good, that sounded nearly flippant. Very smooth, Yang.
“Mr Yang, you’re nearly late for your appointment. Follow me.” and the bastard turned on his heel, weaving through the tangle of tables.
“Well fuck me. I can’t even keep an appointment in hell.”