Text"So, the fuck was the deal that disappearing act today?" Jason asked around a mouthful of burrito of dubious origins. He and Dick were gathered in the same spot as last week. Though Dick spent most of his time in Blüdhaven, he said he'd rather spend the night in Gotham to be there for Sunday dinner, rather than make two separate trips. Jason suspected he just wanted another opportunity to gossip. "Pete noticed you missing. You gotta be careful: he's observant. And suspicious."
"Oh! So a great combination to have living with you, then," said Dick. He'd already ploughed through his burrito and moved onto the churros that were ostensibly for both of them, but Jason had already written off as a casualty of brotherhood. Cinnamon sugar sprayed across the blue insignia on Dick's chest as he ate. Jason suspected he'd missed dinner.
He shrugged. "I like to live on the wild side."
"Don't we all," Dick laughed. "Ivy messaged me."
"You mentioned."
"Said she'd noticed something strange through her plants. We were already on the lookout, so it raised alarms and O followed up. Tim thinks Pyg might be on the move after his breakout last month."
The breakout was just before Jason's return to Gotham, but it was good practice to keep track of shit like that. Pyg was one of the worst in Jason's books. He didn't just fuck with the Bats, he stolepeople. And Crime Alley was still a hot spot for trafficking, despite Jason's best efforts. The end results for those unfortunate enough to have a brush with Pyg were horrific and rarely reversible.
Yet another of Batman's irredeemable bastards that should have seen the end of a lethal injection or the electric chair but got away with literal murder on trumped up insanity pleas.
"So?" Jason pushed.
Dick sighed and scrubbed his hair. It just made him look more handsomely windswept, the bastard. "O pinged an associate of Pyg's on CCTV. She asked us to track him."
"And?"
"And… we ended up at the marine animals again. The seals… there were two missing by the time we got there. The keepers brought them out for the morning show, but they're kept in a backstage pool in between… we realised they were gone just before the zoo keepers discovered it for themselves when they went to give them their midday feed."
"How the fuck do you disappear a pair of six-hundred-plus pound animals?"
"We… don't know," Dick admitted, scowling.
"Inside job?"
Dick huffed and shoved another churro in his mouth, chewed quickly and swallowed before speaking: "Could be. O already flagged some suspicious activity a couple of days back. The usual: dark van, driving slow. Not around the zoo specifically, but with Pyg on the loose we figured it'd be a good idea to check things out while we were there."
"And? Where'd he bring you?"
The silence was telling. Guess they were long gone by the time Dick and the others turned up.
Jason clapped Dick on the shoulder. "Well, we all have our bad days."
"Shut up."
"No need to get touchie, Dickhead."
"I just…" Dick growled and buried his head in his bent knees. "It's just… Halloween's coming up and just once, I'd like us to be ahead of whatever messed up shit they've got planned, y'know?"
Jason did know. It was years since he'd been around for Halloween, but he remembered clearly the holiday horrors from his time as Robin. Sometimes, the 'holiday' was a one and done thing: nab the villain, throw him in prison, help with clean-up, job done. Those were the good ones. The bad ones? The ugly ones? They left their mark on the city for months afterwards. They were ugly and brutal and left the bitter taste of despair in your mouth. Left you wondering why you even bothered fighting when the monsters in the city were so determined to fight back.
"Ugh!" Dick grimaced with frustration. "I hate to say it, but the sooner B comes back, the better."
Jason let out a theatrical shudder. "Fuck me, don't even joke with that, asshole!"
"You know what I mean. Things still suck when he's around, but somehow it feels easier."
Jason didn't bother responding and focused on finishing off his burrito. He didn't want to admit that Dick was right. Sure, when things blew up, they blew up bad and it was never any easier when Bruce was around. But… mixed up feeling for the man or not, Jason couldn't deny that sometimes he still fell into the trap of turning to Bruce for guidance.
He screwed up the foil wrapper and stared morosely out at his sleeping city.
Even a beating couldn't stop Jason looking to Bruce for answers, just as a lost child might do to a father.
— + —
Peter sat at his desk, all lights off but his lamp (another of his dumpster finds… Jason had taken to calling him a raccoon the last couple of days. Peter kept it to himself that he'd actually met a talking raccoon. It seemed a little far-fetched, even for a 'time traveller'). The room was dim but warmly lit. A little chilly: it was too early in the year to justify the heating, even though Jason did say Peter could do what he wanted with the thermostat. Jason himself had left for work thirty minutes ago.
A few blocks away, the odd crack of fireworks or gunshots popped off. His body twitched towards the sounds instinctively. But despite his thoughts at the zoo, he couldn't help but feel like now wasn't the time. And maybe it was just an excuse, but Peter didn't think he was ready just yet to venture out into Gotham as Spider-Man. Not to mention he needed to make himself a mask… though he thought he could admit to himself that was mostly just an excuse.
Whenever he did go out, Peter thought it would be soon. He could feel it in his bones.
Forcibly, Peter shoved the rising guilt into the pit with the rest of his regrets and returned his attentions to his arms. Or more specifically, his wrists.
Or more specific than that, the spots on his wrist he'd firmly avoided touching, looking or even thinking about for the last three weeks.
His gut churned at the realisation. Three weeks. Three weeks in Gotham…
Rent was due last week.
No doubt his landlord would have been hunting for him the last couple of days. Maybe he'd have a couple more before Mr Demille decided that Peter had dipped, and then he'd be helping himself into Peter's shitty apartment to sell or throw out what little he had, ready to rent to the next desperate sucker. Knowing Mr Demille, he wouldn't even file a missing person's report.
And just like that, there'd be no one left to wonder where Peter Parker had gone…
The air seemed to thin. His pulse began to thunder.
Desperately, Peter crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against his collarbones. He couldn't afford to have a panic attack. Think it through, Parker.
So what if there was no one coming for him? No one left to care about his disappearance…. All that meant was that getting back would be down to him on this side. Peter already knew that.
Losing his apartment would suck. Losing his belongings would be worse. But at least there was minimal risk of being found out as Spider-Man by Mr Demille's inevitable pillaging of his belongings. The remnants of Mr Stark's suits — what was left after Peter stripped them for parts — were hidden in the ceiling. Considering the hatch had previously been painted right over, there wasn't much risk of his landlord checking it out.
Of course, all those thoughts were based on the underlying assumption that time passed the same here as it did back home. Nevermind that he somehow travelled nine years into the past and a different universe. It could well be, when Peter didfind a way back, he'd return to the exact moment he'd tripped fallen through that weird portal. Like those kids from Narnia. A whole lifetime erased from his body in the blink of an eye.
The hope was enough — pitiful as it was — to calm him down, though he felt ragged and raw around the edges as he resettled. Eventually, Peter let his hands slide down to rest on the desk. The lamp threw long shadows across the scuffed wood. He twisted his left arm in the light, watching the muscles move beneath his skin, tendons pulled taut as he flexed his fingers.
Two finger-widths down from the spot where palm turned to wrist, adjacent to the faintest trace of a bruise he couldn't remember getting, was a small crease in the skin. The casual eye would have missed it. The more observant might have categorised it as a scar. But Peter knew better.
Discomfort made him heavy with reluctance. But he'd have to come to terms with the changes eventually. Who knew how long it could take before Jason finally got in contact with his 'guy'… Peter had eventually done his own research last week: there were a few magic folk around who could maybe help (at least, according to their Wikipedia pages), but he was sure the only way they'd do so was if he came to them as Spider-Man. And even then, he thought he'd be pushing it. 'Just some guy' didn't exactly fall under the Justice League's purview… but one displaced superhero might.
Call it paranoia or instinct, but Peter knew that the time for putting on the mask was growing ever closer. Some way or another, Spider-Man was going to be dragged back into existence.
And his suspicions warned him his debut would start with the Wayne family.
He didn't know what was going on with the Waynes (and adjacent). He didn't know if Jason was involved (though he did own a lot of guns… and he knew Red Hood). But people didn't just get scars like theirs from working out. They didn't just wear expressions like Dick's when they were 'normal'.
And sure, all the Waynes (and adjacent) he'd met were nice enough (ignoring what Damian pulled at the dinner last week). By all accounts, the family had a glowing reputation: the apple of Gotham's eye. Bruce Wayne was renowned for his philanthropy while Wayne Enterprises had a reputation to rival post-Iron Man Stark Industries. The Waynes did good. The kind of good that built up a community… but so had Al Capone.
He remembered jokingly asking Jason if he was part of a gang… now he wasn't so sure it was a joke after all.
Peter didn't know what to do about his suspicions. Was Jason in over his head? It seemed unlikely… he'd only known Jason three weeks and he already understood that though the man was occasionally prone to impulse, he was not impulsive. He was clever. Cautious. Deliberate. Whatever he did, he did with eyes wide open (which was more than what Peter could say about himself). The chances of him getting embroiled in gang activity by accident were low. And if that was the case…
For now, Peter filed them away to be dealt with later. Later, when he knew more. There was no use throwing himself in half-cocked. That's how people died. That's how he got people killed—
So…
Learn what changed (again). Understand his body (again). That was his priority.
Peter forced himself to touch the spinneret. It was a small lump beneath the skin, highly sensitive, molars withdrawing into his jaw with discomfort. Weird. Peter traced his thumb downwards. Felt the muscle and something else…
Spiders store silk proteins in glands.
He chewed on his lip. Without something like a CT or MRI machine, he couldn't be sure, but he thought he could feel two shapes beneath his skin and subcutaneous fat but above the muscle. A brief investigation found the same on his right arm. They were long, spanning the entire length of his forearm, and slid away from his investigatory thumb when he pressed down. It didn't hurt to do so, but it was uncomfortable.
Still, it didn't seem like it could possibly enough for anything practical. Peter Two used his webs to carry himself around. They had a projectile quality to them that bordered on the fantastical. Peter couldn't imagine his little spinnerets ever being able to do the same. But Peter didn't have a need for webs to carry him around: the synthetic silk he'd formulated worked great (and, he thought rather competitively, they were superior since they decomposed in a few hours upon contact with oxygen. 'Leave no trace' and all that).
Then again… many spiders were capable of producing different types of silk for different purposes. Could he do the same? That might be of better use to him that using biological webs for transport…
Thinking about it that way helped. Though he couldn't shake the churning discomfort — like poking at a half-healed wound — Peter was pleased to find he could approach this from a scientific angle after all. He pressed his thumb against the spinneret again and this time when he drew back, a strand of silk came with it, fixed to the whorls of his thumbprint.
The sensation was wildly foreign. Painless, but there was still a localised feeling of pulling something from his wrist. Like one of those extreme ingrown hair videos people liked to post.
Gross. Peter resolved to never think of his webs like that ever again.
Worried he'd break the thread, he moved slowly. The silk strand caught in the lamplight.
Gold.
His lips twitched in thought. Well. Maybe he knew what one of his arachnid progenitors were. Golden orb weavers had some of the strongest webs around. What kind of tensile strength could he expect from the Parker Special? Peter remembered reading something about fishermen making nets from golden orb web, and there'd long been talk about the possibility of making spider-silk bulletproof clothing… if they could find a workaround for the fact that spiders were impossible to domesticate. He'd read things about altering the genes of silkworms, or something to do with goats[1]…
Good thing Peter was fully domesticated (though Jason might have something to say about that).
The silk strand was thin. Not as thin as a spider's, but definitely nowhere close enough to offer any kind of protection. Already Peter was thinking of ways he could incorporate a fabric woven like kevlar into his suits for additional armour (Peter was built durable, but he was vulnerable to pointy things). He'd have to learn how to spin them into threads that could then be woven into something more functional. Would it be more flexible than kevlar? Would the flexibility impact its efficacy? Just because spider silk was stronger than steel or kevlar didn't mean it could be used in the same way after all…
He'd have to test it. Maybe he could steal one of Jason's guns…
…
… Maybe not.
Just because he suspected Jason was involved in something dodgy didn't mean Peter was about to disregard his ground rules. Not when he'd shown Peter such kindness. Not when it could mean Jason threw him out.
Besides. He was in Gotham. Crime capital of North America. How hard could be to find himself a gun?
— + —
Jason cleaned his guns as he waited for the call to connect. He'd finished up for the night, having dealt with a small pocket of False Facers attempting to make a comeback in the Narrows. One of his informants had warned of a meeting at the last minute and Jason made sure he was there early to give the wannabe BDSM groupies the greeting they deserved. None dead — he didn't know enough about them to decide that — but definitely a few with some nice, long-lasting injuries to keep them out of business.
One of the fuckers had got a lucky shot in. The scratch had scabbed over but twinged unpleasantly as he worked and residual anger at the audacity of those bastards seethed in his chest — they just couldn't leave well enough alone, could they? Sionas was a beast, scarcely human even before he'd melted his own brain with that techno-organic virus[2]. 'Gotham's suitors have lacked sincerity,' Sionas tried to preach to Jason, as if he wasn't intent on draining her dry for his own gains. Fucking hypocrite.
That some men wanted a man like that back in control made his blood boil.
But he kept the rage at bay. The methodical process of disassembling and cleaning was as close as he got to self-soothing these days. If he kept his thoughts on other things he knew he'd be able to fold the anger down small, compress it into a singularity to feed until he could finally unleash it on the right people.
There was a click as his call was picked up.
"Simon," he greeted warmly. "Morning."
There was a pause over the line. "Jason, hi! Give me a — give me a moment, would you?" A clatter and the rustle of fabric as Jason waited. He checked the time: it was just after eight in the morning in England. Either Simon was at work or getting ready.
Eventually, things fell quiet and he heard Simon huff as he drew the phone close to his ear again. "Okay, I'm secure."
Unseen, Jason nodded. "I wanted to know if you'd found anything in that sample Oracle sent you. It was about three weeks ago."
"Oh! Yes, I completed the sequencing of it last week. Fascinating stuff!"
Jason frowned. His silence was carried through the line easily enough.
"I… should have contacted you earlier."
"That would have been helpful, yeah."
"Ah." Simon had the grace at least to sound sheepish. "I confess, I didn't think it was a priority and we've just started looking into blending jellyfish cells with—"
"Simon."
He cleared his throat. "Ah. Yes. Apologies."
"It wasn't an urgent request," Jason reassured him, before steering the conversation back on track, "but I do want to know what you found."
"Yes! Well, I must say, I would be very interested in meeting this individual. The transgenic combinations within his genomes are beautiful! Would they be amenable to—"
"No." Jason winced a little at his harsh tone. But if there were two things sure to send Peter running for the hills, it was unabashedly invasive Batman or an obsessive scientist desperate to learn more about his DNA. And that wasn't even taking into account the fact that Peter didn't know Jason had taken a sample of his blood for testing. Peter obviously tried hard to keep his cards close: who knew what he'd do if he learnt Jason had stolen one from right under his nose (or rather, his scalp). But Simon didn't know that — he didn't even know where the sample came from.
Jason worked to gentle his tone when he carried on. Despite his history of revenge and violence, Simon was a sensitive man. "There's no chance of you meeting him, sorry."
"Ah. A shame. I would have liked to have learnt about the splicing process. He's a meta of the sort you don't see often. Man-made, rather than born or manifest. I can't help but feel some kind of connection."
Considering Simon had spliced his own body with alien DNA, that wasn't a surprising confession.
"You said you'd finished the sequencing. What'd you find?"
"Well, it's a bit of a mish-mash, but it's predominantly spider."
Jason blinked, barrel frozen mid-way into the slide. "A what."
"A spider! Or rather, several spiders."
"How… many, exactly?" the question came out slightly strangled.
"Oh, it's too difficult to tell. There's plenty of spiders out there, and most have never had their genomes sequenced. But I'd be confident in saying at least three."
"Three."
Jason thought of Peter's first appearance. He'd used something to grab and yank the gun right out of Jason's hand, and with considerable speed and force. Definitely superhuman. Were those… webs? Jason had thought he'd seen Peter use some kind of device — he often wore wrist cuffs — but could he be misremembering?
No. He was certain those webs hadn't come from Peter.
But what did that DNA give him, then? Superstrength, definitely. Speed, too, though nowhere close to a Supe or speedster. He wasn't invulnerable though: Jason had stolen his DNA right from a cut on his head, courtesy of his face meeting a brick wall. So, no exoskeleton. Venom?
Shit. Did Peter have fangs?
That's sick, an errant thought passed through his head. In both senses of the word. Jason suddenly remembered that he'd thought Peter had been about to bite him while stuck in a nightmare.
Fuck. He'd have to pay attention to Peter's mouth at dinner tomorrow.
"What are they doing?" he asked eventually, voice even enough to conceal his minor freakout. "Can you tell what the spliced DNA is doing?"
"Without having the spider genomes themselves in front of me? Not really. I'm afraid that's a little above your paygrade."
Jason frowned. "I could pay you more."
"Ah. Let me clarify. What I mean is: my real work is at a critical junction and I am trying to create a stable work-life balance."
Jason narrowed his eyes. He didn't mind that Simon wasn't interested in researching Peter's DNA more. If he got really desperate, he could just ask Peter. But there was something Simon wasn't saying….
Ah.
He chuckled. "Did you get yourself a girlfriend?"
Silence over the line. Then a heavy sigh. "I really can't keep anything from you, can I?"
"It's what I'm best at." It was what all the Bats were best at. "Things going well?"
"They're excellent — she's excellent." There was a distinct note of pride in Simon's voice.
"That's good. I'm happy for you." He genuinely was. Simon might have had a rough patch (okay. A longand violently obsessive rough patch), but Jason was pleased to see him rehabilitated and learning to move on with his life. "Is she a scientist too?"
"Yes. We met at a conference. She is a remarkable woman — I feel sometimes like she can run rings around me. We've been taking things… slow. But! Things have been getting more serious—"
"And you'd like to spend more time with her," Jason cut in. "I get it."
"So, you can see why I'd be reluctant to take on work of such a nature," Simon explained. "Not to say I wouldn't be willing to help if it's an urgent matter, of course! But if it's not…"
"I'll look elsewhere if I have to. Thanks for letting me know. And for looking it over."
They said their goodbyes and Simon hung up. Jason set down his reassembled weapons and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. So Simon had a girlfriend and Peter was part spider(s). What a night of revelations.
He'd have to talk to Peter about it. It wasn't just curiosity: for both Peter's safety and those around them, it was best Jason knew what he was dealing with. For all that he'd talked Peter down from his guilt-ridden desire to run (yet again), the reality was that Peter was dangerous. Consciously? Not a chance. But what might happen if he got triggered? If he couldn't be snapped out of another nightmare?
Jason was raised by the Bat. Contingencies for contingencies were his bread and butter. But he couldn't paint himself a full picture without Peter's cooperation.
He snorted.
Cooperation was going to be difficult.
— + —
Jason returned home to an empty apartment.
Well. That was a lie. Dog was there. But Peter? Peter was nowhere to be fucking found.
Jason stood on the threshold of Peter's bedroom — the door had been left open, so it wasn't him being nosy — and tried not to panic. Had Pete somehow sensed that Jason was intending to ask him some probing questions?
No. That was ludicrous. Don't panic. Think. Look.
He ventured a step inside and flicked on the light: still a pigsty. Peter was a messy creature. The bedding had been stripped; the blankets were gone. But a cursory look through his wardrobe showed that his clothes were still there, though Peter's heaviest coat — a recently purchases puffy monstrosity that made him look like a burnt marshmallow[3] — was not. His phone was gone, but the charger was still plugged in.
The anxiety loosened in Jason's chest when he saw Peter's backpack still stashed beneath his desk. It was unlikely he'd run off again if that was still here.
Not that it explained where he'd gone, however.
Jason pulled out his phone and opened the tracking app. Peter's trackers — embedded in all his shoes and coats (look: Jason was a thorough guy, and the way he saw it, it was for Peter's own good) — showed the expected cluster in the apartment, and another two… still in the building.
He frowned. Peter made polite conversation with the family across the hall on occasion, and often helped carry groceries for Mrs Peng who lived in the apartment below, but it was unlikely he'd gone to make a blanket fort with the Hudsons at three-thirty in the morning—
Ohhh.
The roof.
Not where Jason would have expected Peter to go. It wasn't exactly a balmy night (then again, with the exception of June to August, no night was 'balmy' in Gotham) and Peter ran cold.
He shot Peter a text, then thought better of it. Who knew how long that lunatic had been on the roof and Jason wasn't enthused by the idea of dealing with a hypothermic flatmate. Better just to go and find him, rather than wait around for him to maybe notice that Jason had texted.
He wasn't entirely sure how Peter had got onto the roof — his keys were still hanging by the door, and the window in Jason's room was still locked. A question to ask him later — or better yet, to scan through his security cams for. Jason gave Dog — sleeping on his bed — a pat before sliding out his window onto the fire escape. He climbed the rattling horror-show up to the roof (the thing was actually structurally sound. Jason made sure of that as soon as he'd moved in, but it still sounded like it could collapse under his weight at any moment). The moment his head cleared the ledge he spotted a tell-tale mound of blankets bundled up a few yards from the edge.
"Pete?"
The mound didn't move. It was too dark to see if Peter was breathing.
Unease stirred again. Not promising.
He hauled himself up over the ledge and took pains to not land soundlessly like his instincts would've preferred. No use triggering another attack from Peter if he was sleeping.
And he looked like he was sleeping. Buried in his coat and blankets, the only part of Peter that was visible was a narrow rectangle of skin: eyes and nose. Definitely could have been asleep, but… now that Jason was closer, he could see the soft up and down of his chest, too deep and slow to be sleeping.
He tried again. "Pete? You good?"
Peter's body flinched. He could hear his breathing pick up, before steadying. "Jason."
"Whatcha doing? Fucking shit place for a nap."
"Wasn't napping," Peter said softly. He blinked up at Jason sluggisly. "Time is it?"
"Nearly four."
"Oh..."
"How long you been out here, Pete?"
"Hmm." Peter moved sluggishly, like he wasn't working on all cylinders. Jason's concern ratcheted another notch. "A coupla hours?"
"A couple — Jesus, Pete!" He crouched down and tentatively brushed his knuckles across Peter's cheek. It was icy cold. "You tryna kill yourself?"
"… No?" Peter struggled to sit up, hampered by the blankets and Jason wrestled him into a seated position. The younger man hissed as cool air invaded his nest and immediately latched onto Jason, arms snaking around his waist and burrowing the icy wedge that should've been his nose into Jason's neck.
"Christ, Pete, you're a damn icicle!" he yelped, shivers radiating from that singular point of skin-on-skin contact.
"Mnn. Didn't notice 'til now." The slurred words gusted cold over Jason's collarbones.
He huffed, rolling his eyes. How had this guy survived to adulthood? It was as though he was determined to sabotage himself.
And okay. Maybe that was a bit rich coming from a guy like Jason, but he liked to think himself a little better adjusted these days. Certainly not ready to drive himself into the ground on some kind of suicide mission like he was five years ago. These days, he'd prefer keeping himself out of the grave as long as he could manage.
Peter sniffed. "Smell like blood."
Jason kept his posture loose as he formulated a lie. He'd hoped Peter would never even notice the scrape. "Got cut by some glass at work. Nothin' serious. Don't even need stitches."
Peter hummed neutrally and pressed his icy nose harder into Jason's neck. He grit his teeth to hold back a curse.
Wrapping an arm around Peter's shoulder and hauling the blankets over both of them was impossibly easy. Peter took the move as blanket permission to treat Jason like his personal space heater. He should've been offended by the carte blanche treatment — Peter practically climbed into his lap for fuck's sake — but there was something unconscious about the move… like Peter wasn't fully there. Like he was little more than a benign heat-seeking missile. It settled the indignation that crept up. And the rest of Peter was only marginally warmer than his face. Jason figured he needed it.
Besides… the contact was… nice. Shockingly, Jason didn't exactly share a lot of touches with people that weren't steeped in violence. It felt nice to be needed, so he slung an arm around Peter's waist and propped them up with the other.
I should ask him now.
Jason looked back at Peter. All he could see of him was a whorl of brown hair and sliver of ear. The rest of his face was buried in Jason's neck. There was an air of contentedness about him. It seemed a crime to destroy that. He knew the moment he asked Peter about his abilities, the soft moment would wither away.
He swallowed, mouth dry.
Later, he told himself. He'd ask Peter later.
"You're warm," Peter hummed sometime later, pleased. He sounded a little more alert. Enough for Jason to ask him something else.
"Why're you up here?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"So you thought you'd have a sleepover on the roof?"
"… It seemed a good idea at the time?"
"You're the king of good ideas, aren't ya?'
"Shaddup."
"But really, Pete. Why're you up here? What were you doing up here?"
"Listening."
"Listening?"
"Mhmm. Gotham's a noisy city."
Jason chuckled. "That's one way of putting it."
"It's not the same though." Peter sighed heavily. "I… was hoping it'd be like mine but it's too different."
"Oh." Jason swallowed back useless platitudes, but Peter sounded so sad it was hard to resist. "Different, how?"
"Too many gunshots."
Peter's wry tone shocked a laugh from him. "Yeah. That's… not surprising."
"More shouting, too."
"Also not a shock."
"She's… an angry city."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. A lot of anger. And hurt. And — horror."
Jason sighed at the assessment. Peter wasn't wrong, but it was still his city. He had to defend her. It was a contractual obligation. Probably had something to do with all the dirt not-quite-a-zombie Jason must've eaten while digging his way out of his own grave. "She's not that bad."
"No. It's… there's laughter here, too."
The defensive edge settled.
"The people here… they're fighting. For happiness. Contentment. They'll fight tooth and nail for't."
"They will. They have."
"I think that's beautiful."
Jason pulled back so Peter did too, offering Jason a sleepy smile before looking out at the city. The night hugged the slowly refilling contours of his cheeks and his long, thick lashes. The expression in his dark eyes was unreadable, but Jason's gut swooped at the sight.
Beautiful, a traitorous voice offered.
He looked away and focused on Peter's slowly warming weight in his lap.
"There's a lot of happy people here," Peter murmured, like a confession. "More than the angry or the cruel."
"How can you be sure?" Jason couldn't help but ask, even as he recalled the similarities to his own speech to Biz[4]. As the Red Hood, he saw more of Gotham's ugly side than average. But intellectually he knew the city wasn't irredeemable. He wouldn't fight for her if it was. He wasn't Batman, chasing after an impossible dream. An impossible mission.
"I can feel it."
Unseen by Peter, Jason frowned. An odd choice of language, there. "You got some kinda telepathic skill I don't know about, Pete?"
"… No?"
"You don't sound convinced."
"No." Surer this time. Jason snickered. Peter frowned at him, then his expression turned distant as he looked for the words. "It's like… a million bright lights, burning all at once. Most of them are dreaming, though."
"Well, it is almost four."
"Boo."
"That'll be you today, you realise. Don't you have work today?"
"… Shit."
He snorted. "You think maybe you should go to bed?"
"… Maybe."
Bold words from the man who made no move to get up. Jason laughed again. "Am I gonna have to do the hard work here, princess?"
The silence turned disgruntled, then eased off as Peter snickered. "Well, you are the one with the muscles…"
"You're literally super powered."
"And yet! You're the musclebound monstrosity."
For that, Jason shoved Peter off his lap, laughing cruelly as he did so. Peter sprawled backwards with an ungainly squawk. He tore the blankets away in retaliation and Jason was engulfed in icy air.
"You spiteful shit."
"Yep." Peter took care to pop the p obnoxiously. Jason jumped up into a crouch and Peter grinned up at him, all teeth, eyes glittering. Jason matched him tooth for tooth, and Peter's expression turned wary. "Hey now," he tried, then yelped as Jason hauled Peter up, blankets and all and threw him over his shoulder like a potato sack, ignoring the twinge of his scrapes. "Wha - this is dehumanising!"
"You're dehumanising."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"You don't make any sense."
"Now you're just being petty!"
"Well, I learnt from the best." Jason hiked Peter higher up his shoulder and Peter yelped again. For such a slight thing, he weighed a not-insignificant amount. The average guy would never have managed it. "Consider it payback."
"I feel like that's a pointed comment towards me and I don't appreciate it."
"What's wrong, Petey? Can talk the talk but can't walk the walk?"
"I mean! Right now I can't!"
"Mm. True."
"And I — shit!" Jason had jumped off the roof to the fire escape to land soundly on the metal grating. It rattled in protest but didn't give. Good job Past Jason.
Peter, to his credit, didn't struggle as Jason took them down the rickety stairs to his apartment below. He'd never tell, but he did contemplate tossing Peter, blankets and all, through the window, just to be an ass. But with heroic effort he resisted (mostly, Jason didn't want to wake up Mrs Peng downstairs) and instead gently set Peter down on fire escape. He looked absurd, bundled up in blankets like the world's most depressing burrito. Jason had left the lights on in his bedroom, and it spilled out to highlight Peter's cold-reddened nose and ear-tips poking through his shaggy hair.
"Could've come down myself," Peter grumped. Jason pet him on the head, taking care to saturate the motion with as much condescension as he could.
"Sure ya could, champ."
Peter's expression looked constipated. It took all of Jason's self-control not to burst into laughter.
"Just you wait," Peter threatened as he crawled through the window. "I'm gonna come up with the most embarrassing stories about you and tell them to your family."
"I'm quaking in my boots." Jason passed through the window with considerably more grace than Peter, likely owing to the fact that he wasn't half-frozen and carrying all his bedding in with him. "Next time you wanna listen to the city, why not try opening a damn window. Or do us both a favour and do it during the day."
"It's too loud," Peter said sourly, then let out a jaw-cracking yawn. "I can't extend myself far enough."
Just how far could he extend his hearing? Was he at Superman levels? No… probably not… and he'd said 'feel', not just hear. Jason wasn't sure what exactly Peter meant, but he suspected it was more than something as simple as enhanced hearing (if you could ever call enhanced hearing 'simple').
"Maybe get yourself some ear defenders?"
"Silly Jason." Peter smirked lazily. "That's not how it works."
Didn't think so.
"Then how does it work?"
Peter's smirk turned secretive. "That's for me to know and you to not."
"That's not how the saying goes."
"Oh dear. So it's not."
He could have pushed it further. Demanded clarification. But instinct told him to stop. Right now, the quips passing between them were little more than teasing banter. If Jason started to ask more pointed questions, they'd cut through Peter's exhausted haze and get his hackles up. He was smart enough to know when he was being interrogated, and Jason had been working hard (before Dickhead's suggestion, thank-you) to build up a level of trust between the two of them (or as much as Jason could afford to give).
So instead of pushing, Jason wrapped Peter up tight in his blankets, keeping his expression light and a little exasperated. "Go to bed, dumbass," he said as he turned Peter around and steered him out of his bedroom by the shoulders.
"Aw. You say the sweetest things."
"I'm every boy and girl's dream man, I know."
Peter twisted to straight up leer at him. "Yeah you are."
Not to be outdone, Jason leered back. Not that there was much to leer at when Peter was all bundled up. There was nothing seductive about him except his big doe eyes, hooded and sleepy.
"Bed," Jason ordered. And for once Peter actually listened.
"Night," he mumbled, shuffling out of the room. "Night, Dog, my most favourite person in the world."
Dog acknowledged his existence from Jason's bed with a singular twitch of an ear. She was a professional sleeper. Apparently the only one among the three of them.
"Heart. Broken," Peter mourned.
"As are we all. Now get out."
Peter's laughter followed his exit, soft and throaty and full of the promise of future mischief and headaches.
Trouble, Jason thought as he shut the door on him. But he couldn't bring himself to resent that. And when he finally fell into bed, it was Peter's warm, dark eyes he thought of, and how different they were to Artemis'.
[1] From The Guardian:
"[Freckles] is all goat, but she has something extra in every one of her cells: Freckles is also part spider….
"We're interested in dragline silk – the silk that spiders catch themselves with when they fall," [Randy Lewis, a professor of genetics at Utah State University] tells me in his midwest lilt. "It's stronger than Kevlar. It really has some amazing properties for any kind of a fibre."
In a sense, spider-goats are an extension of the farming we've been doing for 10,000 years. All livestock and arable has been carefully bred, each cross being a genetic experiment of its own. "The trouble is, you can't farm spiders," Randy says with an almost comic deadpan face. "They're very cannibalistic." He and his team took the gene that encodes dragline silk from an orb-weaver spider and placed it among the DNA that prompts milk production in the udders. This genetic circuit was then inserted in an egg and implanted into a mother goat. Now, when Freckles lactates, her milk is full of spider-silk protein."
[2] In RHATO (rebirth) vol 1, Black Mask uses a techo-organic virus to first control the city mayor (this is disrupted by Jason at the very start of the volum) and later, the Bizarro clone. However he miscalutes and the virus fries the connection between his brain and his body, leaving him practically a vegetable. Jason refuses to give him what remains of the cure (cooked up for him by Dr Simon Amal) and lets the virus run his course.