Chapter Text
I dunno Ned . . .
The three little dots only blinked for a moment; Peter imagined his friend’s thumb rapidly flicking over the keys in their group chat.
U can totally think about it!! No pressure!
Peter hummed, leaning back on the rooftop as he took another bite of his sandwich. Could be interesting. Could be a disaster.
And you know which one it usually is with our luck, MJ responded, sarcasm leaking through the words.
I dunno. Id say weve been pretty lucky lately.
MJ sent back an emoji rolling its eyes. That was super cheesy you dork.
Aw, come on MJ! Ned replied. You cant act like it isnt pretty cool how things turned out.
The three little dots returned for a longer time before MJ’s reply appeared.
Things could be worse.
Peter snorted slightly; that was about as optimistic as MJ would usually let herself get, at least verbally. She’d been getting better at letting herself hope for the best, before he’d had to come to Gotham, but even with how lucky they’d gotten with the universe Peter had ended up in, he unfortunately could see her losing some of that optimism.
He dodged, sudden and swift, as a blue and black blur flipped up from behind him, making a grab for his sandwich.
“Go get your own Paula’s sandwich, you parasite.”
Nightwing shrugged, flipping into a handstand, unfazed. He lifted a hand and shifted his balance, gesturing to Peter’s phone. “Texting your friends? I thought B would make you leave civilian stuff at home.”
“It’s in patrol mode. B approved.” Something Peter had worked on for days, putting a coded patrol mode into his phone along with a camouflaged cover. While probably not perfect–he already had in mind ways to upgrade it–it worked well for brief moments of downtime like this, updating his friends on patrol or hearing more about their days. The time dilation between their universes wasn’t so drastic to make it so that the hours were flipped day and night, but Peter could still often talk to them during at least part of patrol.
Nightwing flipped back to his feet, balancing along the edge of the rooftop in a way Peter knew would have Batman itching with nerves, no matter how long Dick had been flipping from rooftops as a vigilante.
“Where is the big bad Bat anyway?” Nightwing asked, as if he could hear Peter’s thoughts.
“Finishing up talking with Gordon.” Peter one-handedly texted his friends goodbye for now, sending a quick shot of the Gotham skyline.
“Ah–and so you grabbed a sandwich in the meantime.”
“Quick metabolism. We were nearby.” He took another bite. “Where’ve you been?”
Batman and Spiderman–with the help of Jason’s eyes from the Batcomputer–had untangled an operation by Falcone before a laced drug shipment could make its way out of the city. They’d recovered all of the product, and even gotten Falcone behind bars. Hopefully for a good long while.
“Around.” Nightwing did another flip–and people used to call Spiderman restless. “Tracking the shipment from Blud, decided I’d stop in early.”
“Mhm.” It was a Thursday, Dick supposed to come back to the manor for the weekend anyway.
Peter tensed as something shifted behind him, whipping around. Nothing was there but silence, though.
“Spiderman?”
“Sorry.” He turned back around. “It was probably nothing.”
For all that Dick insisted he and Bruce were nothing alike, they had the same I’ll bring this up again later face; Peter resigned himself to trying to explain the feeling back in the Cave later.
A second later, they both turned at the not-quite-silent telltale signs of Batman’s reappearance: the soft swishing of a cape, the carefully timed padded footfalls.
“Everything’s cleared with Gordon. We’re good to head back.” He nodded to Dick. “Welcome back to the city, Nightwing.”
Nightwing saluted. “Here to serve, Big B. Come on, Spidey–last one back to the Batmobile’s a rotten spider’s egg.” He launched himself backwards off the roof, Batman sighing under his breath before grappling after him.
Despite the challenge, Peter paused, trying to listen to what his spidersense might have been telling him earlier now that his teammates weren’t there to distract him.
It wasn’t the usual spike of adrenaline he usually got before danger hit, prompting him into quick action. This was more subtle, more consistent. A warning about something–but something that wasn’t dangerous? Or something that he wouldn’t need to worry about until later, but his sense wanted him to be aware of now?
He flexed his fingers. He didn’t like not knowing. Even though he’d settled contentedly into Gotham, he knew there was still a staggering amount about this world he didn’t know about yet, and being unaware was dangerous in this city. Hopefully this was something he could figure out quickly.
Whatever his sixth sense was trying to warn him about, it wouldn’t do to be out alone with it unnecessarily. Resigned to the title of a rotten spider’s egg, he swung down after Batman and Nightwing.
/*/*/*/*/
The feeling went away almost as soon as the Batmobile started driving.
Two minutes after he’d sat on that rooftop trying to figure out what his powers might have been telling him, and it was gone.
His regular spidersense still seemed to be working normally; he caught a water bottle in the Cave that Jason, fresh off duty from helping Alfred on comms, tossed to him from behind, and shot out a hand before a slippery shampoo bottle could hit the shower floor. His reflexes were as strong as ever, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his spidersense had been trying to tell him something important.
Apparently, Dick hadn’t forgotten either. Similarly changed out of his suit and into a set of sweats, he stood up from his cool-down stretches as soon as he saw Peter emerge, shaking out his limbs and walking forward.
“Hey. Everything alright? You seemed a bit spaced out at the end of patrol. Everything good with your friends back home?”
“They’re fine. Ned invited me to try and see if I can join a livestream of his Spiderman vlog.”
“Is that possible on your phone?”
Peter shrugged. “I haven’t tried yet. I wasn’t sure about it yet. I didn’t exactly end on good terms with the general public in my first world. Ned says it’s better now, that a lot of people have listened to the truth of what happened, but I . . . I guess I’m still not sure.”
“That’s understandable. Your friend does these livestreams often?”
“About once a week. We’d just have to coordinate it with the time differences.”
“Okay. So at least you have plenty of time to think about it.” Dick considered him, and Peter knew they weren’t done yet. “That wasn’t why you stayed behind for a bit, though, was it?”
Dick may have been more casual about it than Bruce, but he was still a detective. He wasn’t going to let this go so easily.
“No. It wasn’t.” He sat down on a nearby stool, fiddling with a hangnail. “I don’t think it’s anything dangerous yet, and I’ll tell him tomorrow, but will you not tell Bruce about it yet?”
Dick nodded. “If it’s really not dangerous, then I trust you to tell him. Goodness knows I kept my fair share of harmless secrets from Batman during my time. Now what’s up?”
Peter winced, pulling a bit too hard on the hangnail as he took a readying breath to explain himself. “I think something’s up with my spidersense.”
“Your sixth sense thing? Something’s wrong with it?”
“Not wrong, per se, just–new, maybe? Maybe this is even the next stage of it working better, when I can actually figure out what it is.”
Dick didn’t say anything, likely a mix of thinking through the matter himself and waiting for Peter to gather up his thoughts and continue.
After Christmas, something had changed. Peter still didn’t quite know how his emotions or social life connected to his spider DNA or powers, but something about the safety Christmas had made him feel had changed something in him. Something about being so accepted by this family and this world that they’d go out of their way to make sure he had a piece of his old home with him, had made something click in his powers here.
For months, it had been like his spidersense was in overdrive, constantly alerting him when it wasn’t needed, so much so that Peter eventually got used to it, though the extra strain affected his other enhanced senses as well; still well above the ability of a normal human, but noticeably below his normal capabilities.
It had only been about a week since Christmas, but Peter had noticed the difference almost immediately. Without his spidersense alerting him almost all the time, he was more at ease, comfortable in his safety, his senses reaching out farther than they ever had in this world.
It had been a nice week or so of that comfortable familiarity–and now he had this new thing to deal with.
“I don’t think I’m in immediate danger like the usual tingle,” Peter mused. “But I do know it’s trying to alert me to something.”
“Well, like your thing with your friend, at least it isn’t an immediate issue, and you’ll have time to figure it out.”
Peter huffed, not going unnoticed by Dick; they both knew he didn’t appreciate having things left unknown.
“Oh, come on, webs,” Dick slung an arm around him, steering him towards the stairs. “From what you’ve said, this power is pretty instinctive, so if you don’t think it means danger, then it probably doesn’t. It’s only been happening on patrols?”
“So far.”
“Then we can think about it more tomorrow. Now–” he stretched his other arm far above his head, “–is sleep time.”
Peter shook his head, though did obediently head up to his own room. Jason wasn’t there tonight–these days, it was hit or miss on if Jason felt like sleeping in Peter’s room with him; Jason felt a lot safer in the manor now, too, after all.
He pulled his electric blanket over him, admittedly a lot sleepier with the increased warmth; his suit was heated well, but nothing could beat wrapping himself in the Christmas gift. A big warm spider-burrito, as Dick had affectionately called it the first time he’d used it.
He may not have been trained in detective work for years like Bruce or Dick, but he did have plenty of practice in the scientific method, and they were similar enough–do research, cultivate a theory, see if it panned out, record the results, rinse and repeat. He already had a couple theories on what his spidersense was telling him–now he just needed to gather evidence and see if they were right.
How hard could that be?
/*/*/*/*/
The research process was informal at best at first, but by a week later Peter had confirmed a few things about his new sense.
One: It still hadn’t erupted into a sense of danger. It was still just a sense of awareness. Reassuring, he supposed, but not exactly specific enough to be helpful. And while there was no sense of danger, Peter found that the longer it went on, the more it started to morph into a sense of dread–definitely reinforcing that whatever was happening didn’t have to be dangerous to be bad.
Two: it didn’t seem to be affecting his regular danger sense–he could still dodge with perfect reflex a half second before he consciously knew a hit was coming, even if the underlying buzz was still there in the background. Annoying, but manageable. There was also no aftereffects on his normal spidersense capabilities after the low buzz went away.
Ant three: it only happened during nighttime patrol, and continued through patrol nearly in its entirety. It wasn’t there at the very start of patrol, but it didn’t take long for it to take effect. It always disappeared by the end of patrol, usually when B started driving them back in the Batmobile. The feeling somehow never came during his daytime patrols.
The feeling sometimes, but not always, disappeared when they needed to get into big fights or get in somewhere dangerous, only to flick back on soon after.
Doing his due diligence as Batman’s responsible partner, he told the rest of his family over dinner. Alfred even sat down as Peter finished his roast, though whether out of curiosity or concern he wasn’t sure.
“Do you think it means you’re getting new powers?” Jason asked excitedly, following at Peter’s heels as Bruce had insisted they find out what they could in the Cave after dinner. “Maybe you’ll start shooting real webs like a spider, too.”
Peter shuddered; sure, Peter 2 had had organic webs, and he’d been cool, but something about the thought just grossed Peter out. Imagining the feeling of webbing under his skin, or what it would be like to press the webs out of himself–
“I hope not; I’m fine with the powers I have.”
“I don’t think that’s what this is,” Bruce said, already grabbing a tablet and starting to scribble down what Peter had described to him. “This sense of yours isn’t logical, you’ve said–you’ve had issues with it in the past.”
It wasn’t a question, but Peter nodded in confirmation. “After times of extreme stress or uncertainty, yeah.”
After the Vulture, when a box fell from the top of his closet when he was rearranging and his spidersense had screamed at him, leaving him shaking in the fetal position for ten minutes after, preparing for the building to collapse around him again.
After the Battle for Earth, when he couldn’t handle the flip of a switch turning the light off, as if he’d fade into the darkness of space again, making him so subconsciously scared that he couldn’t react properly when danger was coming for him.
After Mysterio, when, in the midst of trying to handle his identity being revealed, he’d also be waking up every other night sure everything around him was fake again, that there was nothing he could trust–not even himself, unable to control his senses properly.
And then after losing May. After saving the universe he’d nearly destroyed, and landing in a place so very, very far from home. It wasn’t until this place had started to cement itself as a second home itself that his senses had mellowed out and gone back to normal. Well–had gone back to normal.
“Maybe this is a new evolution of your spidersense, or maybe there’s a bio-emotional source behind it.” Bruce pursed his lips as if holding back frustration, and Peter sympathized; like him, Bruce didn’t like to be without answers, but he wouldn’t have survived this long working with other superpowered people in the League if he couldn’t go without having all the whys answered occasionally. “Ultimately, we know it doesn’t seem to be hurting you, so the primary directive is to find out what it’s trying to tell you.”
“It could be cluing you into future danger,” Dick suggested from the Batcomputer’s spinning chair.
“Then why would it stop whenever he’s not on patrol?” Jason pointed out.
“Or is it trying to guide you to the danger, then? Like a hot or cold situation? Does the feeling ever get stronger when you go in a certain direction while having it?”
Peter shook his head. “It’ll get a bit stronger or weaker sometimes, but I’m not sure it’s based on something I’m doing; it’s too random for that.” He turned. “How about you, B? You’ve been quiet so far.”
Bruce stayed quiet for a few moments more, tapping his stylus idly against the tablet. “The simplest explanation I can think of is that it’s telling you you’re being followed on patrol. But that’s not possible; I would have noticed someone following us on patrol.”
Jason scoffed. “Forget you–Peter would’ve noticed someone following him by now. He can hear a bird chirp from across the city.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Peter corrected. “And normally, yes, but lately . . . I hate to say it, but it could be possible. My senses have taken a bit of extra time getting used to the new city, too, and were bothering me a lot at first when I got here. It’s possible I could have missed something like that.”
“I can’t imagine I would have,” Bruce reiterated. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know the sounds of the city like I know my own voice. We’re not being followed on patrol.”
Dick met Peter’s eyes over Bruce’s head just in time for Peter to see him rolling his eyes. He bit back a smile; put like that, it did sound a bit sanctimonious.
“I’ll keep it as an option anyways.”
/*/*/*/*/
“Morning, guys! Ooohh, where did this all come from?”
He’d volunteered at this soup kitchen only once before, just a couple of days after Christmas. It was one of the smaller, non-Wayne sponsored ones–if Spiderman was only ever seen volunteering at Wayne shelters and pantries, people would start to question it; there were already rumors that Batman was funded by Bruce Wayne, and Peter didn’t intend to fan the flames.
There had been some donated Christmas pastries the last time he’d come, but it wasn’t hard to tell that the kitchen was often strained to make ends meet. The middle-aged couple that ran it, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, tried to welcome anyone that needed to come through the doors for the three meals they served each day, but even right after Christmas Peter’s heart had clenched to watch them have to tell a few people that they were welcome to come in from the cold, but they were simply out of food. A few minutes later, Spiderman had returned with hot bags of Batburger for everyone that needed it.
Today, though, there were half a dozen boxes inside the kitchen of gourmet muffins with fat blueberries poking out, scones, tarts, coffeecakes and fancily branded coffee and tea.
Mrs. Fisher shook her head, tossing a pair of gloves over that Peter caught easily. “Anonymous donor. Didn’t even come themselves, just sent it in a taxi.”
“Well, that was nice of them, I guess.” It was nice of them–just kinda odd that the person didn’t want to accompany his goodies and see them dropped off. These looked expensive.
“It’s very appreciated, make no mistake. Go help Dan set up the coffee?”
Peter saluted, grabbing both of the packages of coffee and meeting Mr. Fisher over by the coffee bar.
It was a good morning. He’d promised the soup kitchen his time from set-up for breakfast through lunch’s cleanup, and especially with everyone’s excitement at the donations, there wasn’t a dull moment. As always, Peter took advantage of the brief pause after everyone had been served but before the dishes started flooding in to be washed, going out into the crowd of tables.
Sometimes he just talked to everyone else; hearing their stories, telling them about he and Batman’s latest patrol. Other times little kids would drag him over by the arm, giggling and pleading until he’d do backflips for them or show him his webbing or carefully toss them up onto his shoulders.
He remembered a couple of them, from Christmas time: Jemma, a retired zookeeper that, even now, wasn’t quite the same after being exposed to a whiff of Joker’s toxic gas and not getting the antidote fast enough a few years ago, little hiccupping giggles escaping a toothless mouth every so often; Roy, a recovering heroin user that was trying, and so far failing, to get clean so he could get custody of his son back; Hazel, the little four year old that was determined to be a world-class ballerina someday, always twirling in a worn out, slightly dirty tutu that her mom had found in a Goodwill.
“Crane’s out, I swear it.”
Peter turned from the pot of mac & cheese he was stirring for lunch. The words could be nonsense, especially since it sounded like Josiah’s voice, who wasn’t known for solid reasoning–but in this city? Better to listen and be sure first.
“Nahh, that’s BS,” a raspy female voice Peter thought he recognized as Jemma’s. “The Bat put him away months ago, and he was in a bad place. No one to help him get out.”
“Someone on the inside, then,” Josiah said. “Buckle up, Jem; he’s lying low for now, but I’ll bet he’s got something big planned this time.”
Jemma let out a little giggle. “Nooo, the Bat’ll put him away again, especially now that he’s got his new friend. Right, Spidey?” She called, waving to him with a smile just slightly too big.
Peter smiled back; even after only seeing the Joker once, he still sometimes had to wince, seeing a reminder of his awful grin, but he knew Jemma couldn’t help it. He nodded to Mrs. Fisher, who obligingly took over macaroni duties as he went over to their table.
“You got that right, ma’am,” he promised. “If Scarecrow’s got plans, we’re happy to ruin them.”
He’d only been here a few months–Scarecrow had been put away before he’d gotten here. Though he and Batman had gone up against a few of them, he knew he hadn’t faced that many of Gotham’s infamous rogue’s gallery. Batman had tried-and-true antidotes against multiple strains of Scarecrow’s fear toxins, but still, he’d always been one that had made Peter nervous to think about. Someone that could make you see your worst nightmare . . . in a lot of ways, it wasn’t so different to what Mysterio had made him see. If he could avoid being caught in that toxin by surprise out on the streets, he would.
He excused himself soon after, hearing Mr. Fisher struggle in the back storeroom, resolving to bring up the rumors with Bruce later.
Once everything was wiped down and put away, all the dishes washed, Peter waved goodbye to the couple and other volunteers. Though he’d eaten some at the kitchen, he was definitely still hungry, stopping at a Batburger for extra fuel–in the New Year, he’d read a headline that the franchise was going to put together a Spiderman themed chicken basket soon, even if nothing had come of the rumor yet.
He’d almost never gotten to patrol during a school day in Queens, unless it was a rare teacher work day or during spring break. This time of year, he didn’t often patrol for more than two or three hours at a time unless it was an emergency; his suit had a heater built in, but it was best to not leave it to chance, and it wasn’t often necessary, either–even a lot of the worst criminals didn’t want to be out when it was this cold if they didn’t have to be.
Still, he had a couple of hours to kill before he was going to meet Bruce at Gotham Academy to pick Jason up for his first post-winter-break school day, and it was better to spend most of it in his heated suit. Cold or not, there were certainly worse ways to spend his time, breaking up a couple of fights, interrupting an attempted burglary at a coffeeshop (and scoring a free hot latte out of it!) and stopping at Dr. Thompkins’ free clinic to see if there was anything he could help out with.
Finally, he flipped to a stop outside the crumbling, condemned apartment building he’d tucked a backpack full of civilian clothes earlier. Jason’s school was still several miles away, but there was a safe bus stop not half a mile from the spot. He’d confirmed when he’d dropped the clothes off that there were no working cameras nearby, but still made sure to glance back and forth for witnesses a few times before ducking inside to change.
He hadn’t gone fifteen feet from the building, still adjusting his zipper tighter, when he felt it: a low, subtle buzz at the base of his neck. He’d felt it too much recently to not recognize it immediately.
Peter’s heart quickened; it had never happened during the day before. Was this a new complication, or a piece to solving the puzzle?
Keep walking. Just keep walking, and look normal. Look for more evidence.
Unlike when it happened during nighttime patrols, the buzz didn’t stay subtle for long. It slowly but surely escalated. Peter attempted to test it, changing directions or crossing the street, but the feeling continued to get stronger until it was injecting him with the same urgency as a usual burst of his spidersense, and he had to tense his muscles to keep from flinching.
For better or worse, he pushed back against the warning too much, causing his body to not react in time when there was a final, insistent shock to his system just as he was grabbed and shoved up against an alleyway wall, what felt like a muzzle pressed to the side of his ribs.
“Hand over your wallet and watch and no one gets hurt.”
Peter blinked, mind rushing through thoughts before he could grab onto one. Just barely remembering in time to make his voice scared like the mugger expected him to be, he asked the first question that formed fully.
“Were you following me?”
The man’s face was mostly hidden by a mask pulled up over his nose, but it shifted as if was sneering under it. “Don’t blame me for not seeing it coming. Now hand over the money.”
Peter had to hold himself back from smiling, remembering Bruce’s firm insistence that Peter’s spidersense just couldn’t be telling him that he was being followed, that of course the Batman would have realized if someone was tailing them.
“How long were you following me?” He could guess the answer pretty definitively, though.
The mugger swore, pressing the gun harder into his side as if Peter had forgotten about it. “A while, who the hell cares–now are you going to make this easy or hard, kid?”
“Hm. Easy.”
Before the attempted mugger could get another word out, Peter pressed his high-grade taser against the man’s side, pressing down and watching him convulse from the voltage until he lay on the ground, only conscious enough to twitch and groan.
He picked up the gun, emptying out the bullets and storing them in his pocket, resolving to take them to the police before he met Bruce. He regarded his new taser appreciatively before tucking it away, as well–a Christmas gift from Alfred. Even though Peter Parker-Todd had grown up in Crime Alley before living on the streets and would be expected to be willing to fight, no one wanted him or Jason in a situation where they had to brawl to defend themselves, hence the probably-not-quite-of-legal-level taser that they both kept on their person now.
It was Gotham; it was weird if you didn’t have a weapon of some kind on you.
He dialed the GCPD, grinning as he walked. They were being followed on patrol–a slightly ominous confirmation, but Peter was just glad to know. Now that they knew, they could focus on catching the stalker before his warning buzz escalated into another shock.
Anyone that could manage to follow Batman and Spiderman–senses malfunctioning or not–was a danger waiting to happen. And Peter didn’t plan on letting that danger strike.