PART TWO: Itsy Bitsy SpiderItsy Bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout.
Down came the rain!
And washed the spider out. Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain!
So Itsy Bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.
"Who the hell are you?" Peter demanded, uncaring that he was being rude. His pulse throbbed violently. The man had popped up out of nowhere. One moment, it was just Peter and Jason in the safe house; the next, his senses were on the fritz and there was a monster in the bedroom.
Monster, the web insisted. Man, Peter's eyes rejoined. But there was no mistaking the pulsing threads of malice embedded in the man's very core. Eldritch. Unknowable. It seeped out of him like subtle poison through the web.
But Jason recognised him. Was familiar. He'd lowered his gun before them. Peter battled against instincts screeching at him and turned to Jason.
"You know him?"
Jason nodded, exasperated.
The monster who was just a man smirked. He didn't appear especially bothered by the webs sticking him to the door frame. If anything, he was fascinated by them, studying the synthetic silk structure with great interest.
"Cor, this is weird." A tug at his bindings did nothing.
Peter didn't allow himself to relax. Someone able to materialise out of nowhere wasn't likely to be held up for long by something as mundane as webbing.
And to prove his point, the man snapped his fingers and the webs burst into flames in a sudden roar of heat.
Jason shot out and grabbed Peter's raised wrist, stopping him from immediately webbing the man again.
"Pete, this is John Constantine," he sighed.
The flames dissipated as swiftly as they appeared. The man — Mr Constantine — gave Peter a lazy salute, not even slightly charred by his brief pyrotechnics. Peter refused to let his guard down. It would make Jason mad, but he could throw Jason behind the kitchen counter if he needed to. Shelter him if this monster man decided to play the former and not the latter—
"He's the guy I said I called."
"The one who can get me home?" Peter's wariness lowered, swamped by excitement and dread that churned with equal measure in his chest. "Really?"
Jason was quiet for a moment. His expression had closed off into something politely distant and Peter wasn't sure why. Was he really that mad still?
"… Yeah," Jason said softly and glanced at Constantine. The man was brushing non-existent soot from his tan coat. "That's him…"
Now Peter knew the man wasn't a dangerousintruder (though intrude he had. Didn't he know about doors? Front doors?), he tamped down his alarm and cut himself off from the web. He was wary — no escaping that when the wrongness stained like tar on his tongue — but wanted to take in the man on his own terms.
Rumpled was the best word to describe John Constantine. Rumpled blonde hair, rumpled white button down and half-done tie, rumpled trench coat wrapped around an equally rumpled navy suit. Stubble blurred the lower part of his face. Peter couldn't pin down an age. He could have been in his mid-thirties or mid-forties for all Peter knew[1]. The only thing polished about John Constantine was the single diamond stud in his right ear that flashed back the light cheerfully.
The reek of cigarettes settled around him like a miasma. Even cut out of the web, Peter couldn't escape the tar.
"At your service, pet," Constantine said with an open leer at Peter.
Peter's cheeks exploded with heat. He still wasn't wearing any pants.
"It's been a month!" Jason growled, scowling as he side-stepped in front of Peter. Peter tugged at the hem of the hoodie self-consciously, eyeing off an escape route. "Where the fuck've you been?"
Constantine's attention shifted to Jason, but only after he sent Peter a wink. "Oh, you know, here and there. Hell, mostly." He spoke in the kind of arrogant, dismissive manner that Peter found reminiscent of Mr Stark or Doctor Strange. Someone who knew they were powerful but was caught forever treading the line between nihilism and hope. "Been workin' with your mate, actually."
"Biz?" Jason asked, straightening. He sounded… excited? "How is he?"
"Not bad." Constantine shrugged out a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out and wedged it between his lips. "Was helpin' stabilise his power. Didn't get back 'til last night. Came as soon as I heard yer message, 'cause that's the sort of carin' person I am, mate."
Peter didn't know who 'Biz' was, and he wasn't sure if he was meant to take Constantine's comment about 'Hell' seriously. He stared into the side of Jason's head as if it might reveal the answers for him. He'd already suspected the Red Hood had lived a far more exciting life than the message boards of Reddit and the BatWatch forums accounted for, but it wasn't as satisfying as he'd thought to have those suspicions confirmed.
Chest tightening for unknown reasons, Peter stepped off to the side. "I'm gonna…" He didn't finish the sentence. 'Put some pants on' sounded too dumb, anyway.
Feeling unnecessarily exposed for someone who swung around in a skin-tight onesie, Peter slipped past both Jason and Constantine and back into the bedroom, only to trip on the bandages rapidly unravelling from his leg. He caught himself on the door frame, but not before a yelp escaped.
"Peter?"
"I'm fine!" he shot back, cheeks burning as he fled inside and shut the door behind him. Thanks for nothing, super reflexes! Thankfully, Jason took him at his word and remained with Constantine, allowing Peter to momentarily lick his wounded pride.
The bedroom stank of blood — Peter's, he hoped — and brimstone. At least, what Peter assumed brimstone smelled like. Acrid, tickling at the back of the throat with the threat of a coughing fit. Were he not wary of Jason's security system, he would have opened a window.
Instead, Peter grabbed the sweatpants still left on the top of the dresser, only to remember the stupid bandage. He limped into the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet seat to re-wrap his thigh, tying off the ends rather than hunt for a safety pin. The twinges of pain piercing through his flesh went ignored as he wriggled into the sweatpants, his attention reserved for trying to listen in on the two men speaking in low voices from the other room. But it was no use: Peter's hearing was sensitive, but it took concentration and between his exhaustion, his pain and the walls between them, their words were scrambled into an indecipherable murmur.
He sighed as he tied up the waistband. The pants were comedically large. He had to roll up the cuffs four times. Thank God the waist was a string tie, otherwise he'd have had no hope keeping them up.
When he straightened, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. His hair was even worse than Constantine's: messy and tufted from its travels beneath his hood. His under eyes seemed darker than they had this morning and a smear of blood drifted across his cheek, having been there long enough to start cracking as it dried.
A glance at his hands explained how it got there. Sighing heavily, he plucked his discarded mask and gloves out of the sink, dumped them beside the shower and washed his hands, scrubbing furiously at the dried blood beneath his nails. It might have been his own, but the memory of where it came from threatened to break the shored-up banks of others. He couldn't afford a meltdown right now.
Home.
He was finally going home.
The reminder made him pause, hot water running uselessly over his hands. He should be… excited by that, right? This wasn't his home — didn't even try to resemble it! Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. Peter didn't belong here, not on Earth G. Not in a city that didn't even exist in his own world!
So if that was the case…
… then why the dread?
Because there's nothing left— he shoved the traitorous thought away and straightened. Turned off the tap, dried his hands on his pants, then padded back through to the living space.
Jason and Constantine's attention narrowed in on Peter immediately and he froze on the threshold. "What?"
"A whole month, eh?" Constantine let out a low whistle, looking impressed. "How the fuck're you still alive?"
"What do you mean?" Jason asked sharply, glaring daggers at Constantine.
Peter, however, was bemused. "I mean, Gotham's not that bad…"
"That's not what he means, Pete," Jason said, far softer than he spoke to Constantine. His expression was… strange, warring between concerned and devoid of any emotion at all, like the muscles of his face couldn't decide what to do with themselves.
"It's not," Constantine agreed. "You've been in this universe for more than a month—"
"Universe?" Peter interrupted. He shot a questioning look at Jason. "I… I'm just a time-traveller."
Jason raised a brow. "Petey. C'mon. It was obvious."
"I didn't think it was," he grumbled. He thought the time-travelling excuse had been enough for Jason. It wasn't as if it was even wrong, since he'd fallen eight years into the past. It was a bit embarrassing to realise it was yet another thing he'd failed to fool Jason with.
"Listen, as adorable as you two dipshits are, I've got shit to do," Constantine huffed, only to immediately undermine himself by collapsing with a groan into one of the armchairs. He picked up a glass: it looked and smelled like it was filled with whiskey. Peter had no idea where it came from when all he'd found was vodka. Constantine's other hand picked at the collar of his coat, where the remnants of Peter's webs still clung to the wool. "This shit come out in the wash? I'm wearin' me good coat."
"… It'll degrade in a few hours."
"Huh." The man eyed Peter speculatively. The cigarette had disappeared, though the scent lingered. "They natural?"
"They're synthetic," Jason growled. He'd crossed his arms and Peter raised a brow in puzzlement.
"Hm. Touchie." Constantine grinned crookedly.
"Concerned," Jason corrected. "Why'd you expect him dead?"
Actually, that was a good question.
Constantine returned his stare to Peter, though it'd lost its sardonic tint, turning into something biting. Peter felt as though the warlock could see every secret and hidden truth he'd clutched to his chest since he'd ended up in Gotham. "Tell me, kid… What do you know of the multiverse?"
Peter hesitated, glancing at Jason uncertainly.
"Go on," Jason urged him, immediately understanding Peter's misgivings. "He's an ass but he'll need to know the truth."
Peter turned back to Constantine. "Not much but, more than most," he admitted, swallowing his nerves. This wasn't the time for half-truths and obfuscations. Not if he wanted to get back. Because he did. He did. Screw whatever that feeling was in his gut. He had to go back. "Enough to know they're not to be messed with."
"Heh." Constantine smirked from the throne he'd made of the shitty Ikea chair. It wasn't even anything he'd done. Just the sheer arrogance of his posturing. Oh, to have even a fraction of that swagger. "Sounds like you learnt that the hard way."
Reluctantly, Peter nodded. "There was… a spell. Doctor Strange—"
"Strange? Ain't there a—"
"I don't think they're the same," Jason cut in. He turned to Peter. "You called him something, right?
"His name was Stephen," Peter clarified. He knew of Hugo Strange, a doctor himself until his unsavoury research had his doctorate revoked. "He was Sorcerer Supreme where I'm from—"
"Sorcerer Supreme?" Constantine sucked his teeth in derision. "Never heard of him."
"No, I… don't think he exists here. I looked him up."
"Bleecker Street," Jason said. "You asked for him when we went to New York."
"Yeah… that's the address of the Sanctum, where I'm from."
"You said there was a spell," Constantine said. "Was that how you ended up here?"
Peter shook his head. "No… the spell… broke. It was my fault. Something… bad had happened and the people I loved were being affected by it. I asked Doctor Strange to fix it. People were supposed to forget I was…" He glanced between Jason and Constantine, unsure if that was a secret he wanted to share with more than just Jason. "Who I was," he said eventually, settling for old habits. "Instead, it ended up pulling everyone who knew who I was into our universe."
"Fuuuck." Constantine scrubbed at his face. "An infinite number of people across infinite universes. Yeah, that'll fuck shit up pretty soundly."
"That's what Doctor Strange said." Peter licked at dry lips. "I asked him to… to cast a new spell. One to forget… me. Erase — me."
"You said there was nothing left of you," Jason breathed. His eyes were wide with muted horror. "I thought you'd just messed up your phrasing. But that's… you meant it? Literally?"
"He said it would be like I never existed." Peter couldn't tear his eyes away from Jason's. "And he was right. There was nothing left. No names, no pictures… nothing."
"Oh, Pete."
Peter forced himself to look away, unable to handle the raw sympathy on Jason's face. Constantine was studying him curiously.
"But that's not how you ended up here, is it? How long'd you last there?"
"What do you mean?" Peter asked, wary at the man's tone.
"Just a theory… So, humour me."
"Okay," Peter said hesitantly. "Well, about sixth months after I was — erased — there was… this portal."
"It was shaped like a star," Jason added helpfully.
"Really?" Constantine looked intrigued but shook the emotion away. He gestured for Peter to carry on.
Peter bit his lip. "Well…"
"C'mon kid. You what? Fell through it?"
"Yep," Peter said firmly. No way was he going to admit he tripped over a fucking speedbump. Certainly not in front of Jason. "Fell through it, and then a bunch of other universes… lost count after the first ten."
"You know where the portal came from?"
He shook his head. "There was no one around. It just turned up in a parking lot."
"And nothin' similar's popped up again?"
"No."
"Anyone likely to go looking for you?"
"No," he forced out. Then forced on a smile for good measure. "Unless you count my landlord."
"Can yer landlord use magic?"
"No."
"Then, no." Constantine leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Let me tell it to you straight, pet: you shouldn't exist. You don't belong in this world… and universes are somewhat self-correctin' creatures. Either it should've kicked you out, killed you, or destroyed itself 'cause it couldn't handle the breach."
Peter's stomach dropped. His mouth fell open. "I…" But he couldn't summon a single word.
That bad? It was — that bad? How could Constantine deliver such a line so casually?
And he'd already been here for a month?
"Don't feel too bad. How could you know?" Constantine shrugged as if he'd not just dropped a massive bombshell on Peter. As if he'd not gripped Peter's heart in his rumpled grip and flooded him with terror.
Peter glanced at Jason, unable to hide the alarm, hoping to… what? To share the horror of existential threat? No hope there: Jason's expression had schooled itself into something grim and… resigned.
He looked back to Constantine. "Can you send me back? Before — before that happens?"
"Well, see," Constantine drawled. He stood up and began circling Peter. A lion sizing up its prey. "That's the thing, isn't it? … You're still here, luv."
"I don't understand."
"Well, there's been no incursions. I assume you've not been experiencing any strange slips in reality? Any glitching?" Peter shook his head vehemently. "And of course, yer very much alive."
"So…?"
"So… there's something preventing any of that from happening. Preservin' ya, if you will."
A sudden gust of air escaped someone's lungs and Peter wasn't sure if it came from him, Jason, or both of them. "What do you mean?"
"Not very bright, are ya?"
Peter scowled. "Get to the point."
"Mm, he's cute when he pouts, ain't he?" Constantine chuckled, glancing back at Jason and entirely unaffected by Jason's dark look. If anything, it egged the man on. "I can see why you wanna keep him around, kid."
"Hello? Existential threat here? Cut to the chase!" Peter demanded, his senses shivering with the threat of violence emanating from Jason. Any more provocative comments from Constantine and Peter feared Jason might do something unhelpful like shoot him. Maybe some light stabbing.
Constantine directed his grin back at Peter. "Well, sweetheart, I'm sayin' you've not shuffled off this mortal coil or fallen off the face of the earth, 'cause somethin's tethered you here."
"That's possible?" Jason asked. His voice was as dark as his expression.
"As possible as strippin' someone's tethers to their home universe, I guess." Constantine shrugged. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and drew out his cigarettes again, snapping out a new one. This was once again wedged between his lips and lit.
Peter grimaced as Constantine sent the cloud of smoke his way. But just as he expected the poisonous fumes to assault his senses, it parted, as though hitting a wall and spread out each side of Peter in bilious plumes, curling in the air into shapes Peter thought might have been a language. His eyes hurt to look at them, falling in and out of focus like trying to watch a 3-D film without the glasses.
"What—?"
"Hush now." Constantine continued puffing at his cigarette and the symbols grew in number until they encircled Peter in a ring of white-grey.
He swallowed nervously. The temptation was there to dip into the web, but something told him that would be a mistake. The same low, animal instinct that ordered him to stay still, don't break the circle.
"What are you doing?" he asked again.
Constantine didn't answer for another minute. The cigarette burnt itself out and he stubbed it into the bottom of the glass he'd left on the coffee table. Jason tched at the action but otherwise didn't complain at his slovenliness. Then the warlock stepped back to inspect his handiwork. His gaze passed right over Peter, studying the strange smoky symbols surrounding him.
"The boring term would be 'running a diagnostic', I s'pose."
"And the interesting term?" Peter asked, unable to help himself.
Constantine grinned. In the apartment's dim light, Peter thought his teeth were a little too sharp for comfort.
"A diagnostic, I guess. Let's see what's lettin' you stay here, eh?" He clapped his hands and the sound snapped through the room, bouncing off the walls with more force than two hands merited. "Alright baby, speak to daddy."
Behind him, Jason choked. Peter's reaction was swiftly overtaken by fascination as the smoke symbols flashed a lurid purple, before alighting. They hung in the air, burning silently. Constantine stalked around Peter as he analysed them.
It all felt very tame. And then it wasn't: something unseen tugged at Peter's throat and crawled into his lungs. He gasped, sucking in the super-charged air. It burned all the way down. He would have clawed at his ribs, would have cried out, but his body was frozen, rigid with magic and sudden terror. It wasn't unlike the making and unmaking as he'd fallen through universe after universe. Peter was seized with the fear that Constantine was lying about the 'diagnostic' and had already decided on sending him back.
Then Constantine said something low and guttural and the flames abruptly died.
Peter collapsed to his knees, wheezing as he sucked in cool air. Jason was by his side almost immediately, helping him back up. His arms were warm and solid as Peter leaned heavily against him. He struggled to regain his bearings and hold back the shakes of horror. A hand rose to rest comfortingly against the back of Peter's neck.
"The fuck was that?" Jason demanded furiously. Peter's ears rang with the sound.
"Magic," Constantine snapped back. "As you bloody well know. If you wanted it pretty, you shoulda asked for Zee."
Still trembling but feeling stronger as the smoke dissipated — far faster than they would by natural means — Peter drew away from Jason. Constantine's sharp eyes fell on Peter.
And then he was laughing.
by Onyxmistkes
"What?" Peter frowned and Constantine made a visible effort to control himself.
"Sorry, sorry," Constantine snorted. "It's just — fuck me, it always comes down to blood, don't it?"
"Blood?" Peter echoed.
"Aye. You shed blood here, early on, didn't you?"
Peter's hand shot up to his forehead as Jason made a soft sound, remembering too.
Constantine nodded, satisfied. "It weren't much, but it was enough to give her somethin' to latch onto." He stepped close to Peter and gave him a sniff.
"Watch it," Jason hissed by his side. Constantine waved him off absently. He was eyeing Peter with naked interest.
"What?" Peter asked again, pulling back from both men. His legs were jellied but he locked them in place, unwilling to be seen as weak by the man who might be a monster.
"Hm…" Constantine's eyes locked with Peter's. "You ever heard of the Red?"
Peter's baffled expression was probably answer enough.
"Eh." Constantine continued to squint at Peter, but this time, it didn't quite feel like he was looking athim. "Don't look like it's somethin' for you to know yet… But I gotta know…" He dragged his fingers through the air and Peter startled as he felt the tug of something. Right in the centre of his chest.
"Oh?" Constantine burst into laughter again as he traced something unseen through the air. "Ohhh, you old bitch."
"What?" Jason sounded alarmed. "Who—?"
Shivers ran through Peter as Constantine continued manipulating whatever it was. He wanted to slap the man's hands away, but Constantine wasn't even touching Peter.
"Gotham. Fuck, she's a wily beast, ain't she?"
"Are you… talking about the city?" Peter asked, incredulous.
"What? You never felt like there was somethin' alive down in the dirt? Because this—" Constantine plucked at the unseen string and a soft, pained sound escaped Peter as he felt his very soul tugged and prodded, "tells me otherwise."
Peter opened his mouth to immediately deny all, then closed it. Because… he couldn't, could he? There'd been times when he'd imagined the city to be more than just concrete and sodden earth. When he'd imagined a sentience — unknowable, untouchable, intangible — brushing against him. When he'd wake, mouth soured by the taste of blood and exhaust.
That was… Gotham?
Peter suddenly felt very, very small.
"Are you saying it's Gotham that's tethered me here?" He made the mistake of looking back at Jason, but the man's face had turned opaque again. No chance of discerning meaning there.
"Aye," Constantine grinned. "There's no getting rid of you now. A man without a claim? Without roots? You were ripe for the takin' already, and then you foughtfor her? Saved one of her own? Because you did, didn't you? Recently too, I'd bet."
Peter nodded hesitantly. Constantine's grin widened, revealing those too-sharp canines again.
"Gotham's dug her claws in deep, pet. The blood, fresh and old—" he pointed at Peter's injured leg, then his forehead, "really just sealed the deal."
by alienatedartt
Too good to be true. Peter forcibly erased the thought. He didn't belong here!
But if not here, where?
"Nothing?" he asked, unable to hide the desperation from his voice. What he was desperate for, even Peter didn't know. "There's nothing you can do?"
"We~ell." Constantine scratched his stubble as he studied the empty air around Peter. "The claim isnew, I s'pose. It'd be delicate — and expensive — work," this comment he delivered to an impassive Jason, "but I could probably erase the claim — provided Gotham doesn't fight back, like she has for some." Another look shot Jason's way that went ignored. "But you've barely survived without roots, have you? Look how easy yer old world lost you..."
Peter swallowed nervously. A simple stumble. That was all it had taken. And then he was falling through worlds with no end in sight.
But that was just bad luck, right? The Parker Luck, striking again. Wrong place, wrong time and suddenly it was wrong universe, too. It had nothing to with things like 'ties' or 'claims' and everything to do sheer bad luck.
But… if that wasn't the case. If it did have something to do with Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme inadvertently scrubbing Peter clean of even his tethers to Earth I (negligence or malice? Which was it, Stephen?), then what was there to keep Peter in his home universe if he did get Constantine to strip away Gotham's ties?
Constantine noticed his fears and smiled grimly. "I warn you… it wouldn't take much for you to slip through the cracks again. And besides that… say I take away Gotham's claim. Tear those new roots outta you… my concern'd be you never find a place to call your own again. That you wouldn't be able to. You'd be barren ground, as it were. Nothin's gonna want to lay its claim on a man that rejected another's twice."
Peter swallowed back the rising nausea. His ears were ringing. "Are you saying it's here, or… nowhere?"
Constantine shrugged. "Better the devil you know, right pet?"
"But I have to…" he couldn't finish the sentence.
He didn't have to: Constantine did it for him. "Go back? Why? What for? You said it yerself: there's nothing left of you. Nothing for you there, either. The fact you're still alive is proof enough of that."
"No." Peter shook his head vehemently. "There's — there's…" He tried to summon the reasons but couldn't let them off his heavy tongue. "I can't just stay here!"
Constantine shrugged, unaffected by Peter's rising distress. "Way I see it, yer options are: you stay here and make yerself a home… or you live the rest of your life tripping from universe to universe without warnin'. Maybe you don't cause an incursion; maybe you do. No skin off my back, so long as it ain't here. Either way, I'm getting paid."
Too much.
It was too much to take in.
Jason realised the same moment Peter did. "Pete," he said urgently, shoving past Constantine to get to him. "Don't—"
But Peter never heard the rest of his demand.
He was already running.
— + —
"Well, shit," Constantine said in the wake of Peter's departure. "He moves fuckin' fast, don't he?"
Jason stood by the living room window Peter had punched clean through in his desperation to escape. The shattering of reinforced glass still bounced around his skull. Breathing was a struggle, like he'd inhaled the shards instead of watching them fall to the pavement below.
Stay calm. Peter came back the last time. Jason would find him again.
Fuck. Peter was barefoot, again.
He was in Jason's clothes, too. No chance of tracking him that way. He wasn't in the habit of sewing trackers into his own clothing and certainly not the ones in his safehouse.
"Fuck!"
"Mm. Or somethin' along those lines," Constantine agreed. He flicked his lighter and lit the new cigarette that suddenly appeared in his mouth. "He your boyfriend? You didn't say much in yer message."
"None of your fucking business," Jason snarled. He strained to search the poorly lit street, but Peter was long gone. And this time Peter didn't even have to travel on foot. No, he had those damned web-shooters. Who knew how far he'd got already.
"That ain't a no."
"It's a 'fuck off'!"
Jason pivoted on his heel. He stormed past the warlock and the rapidly growing cloud of smoke. It occurred to him that he could make use of Constantine but dismissed the thought almost immediately. Jason wasn't going to send the bastard after Peter. Not when he'd been leering at Pete the whole night. The idea alone made his skin crawl.
Fuck. Where had he left the muzzle? Downstairs? No, he'd removed it on the stairs.
Sure enough, it was hanging from the door handle outside the apartment. Lazy.
"Good luck with that one!" Constantine called after him from the doorway. "Cute, but seems like he's got the standard commitment issues."
Jason twisted to send him a vicious glare. "I'm thisclose to just shooting you."
"Definitely a boyfriend," Constantine said, as always, unaffected by Jason's bluster. "I'll show myself out, shall I?"
"You do that," Jason snapped. He didn't even bother checking to see if Constantine had left. He was too busy sticking the domino back in place, swiftly followed by his earpiece and the muzzle as he thundered down the stairs.
"Oracle? You still active?"
Her response was immediate. "Night's still young, despite the early excitement."
The garage door locked behind him. "Peter's run off."
"What?" Barbara exclaimed. "For heaven's sake, I warned you!"
"No," Jason said, voice clipped as he thundered down the stairs. "It wasn't that. Constantine finally turned up and Pete didn't take his answer well."
"Constantine?" Babs asked, if anything, even more alarmed. "What'd you need him for? Wait, was the cult story actually true?"
"Oracle," he grit out. "Please."
A heavy sigh. "Fine. Manhunt first, answers later."
Jason closed his eyes briefly. "Thank-you."
"You have any idea what direction he head off in? And how?"
"Due south." Jason started up the bike. "Used his webs. But he's not in his suit — he got shot. Only just stitched him up."
At least he was wearing pants now.
"Shit." The rapid clatter of typing. "Okay, I think I've got him. Goddamn he's fast! Those slingers of his are a menace. He's already in the Bowery — nope. Never mind, he's on the Upper East Side now. Just crossed Sprang Bridge."
"I'm on my way."
"Nightwing is closer. I can send him?"
Jason thought about it for barely a second. On the one hand, he didn't want the rest of the Bats sticking their nose in any more than they already had. But on the other, Peter was shoeless, without anything but those (admittedly impressive) web-slingers for back-up and guaranteed to be one bad impulse away from doing something drastic.
It wasn't a difficult call to make.
"Do it. He's a climber, just so you're aware."
There was a brief silence on Barbara's end as she relayed the directive to Dick, who wouldn't have been in Gotham at all were it not for the proximity of Halloween. Jason waited the agonising ten seconds it took for the garage doors to roll open, then he was off, back into the night.
His earpiece clicked on again. "N's on his way. Peter seems to have slowed down. I'm linking his location to yours but Nightwing's likely to get there first."
"Fine," Jason grit out, even though it wasn't fine because there was nothing fine about nearly losing a friend. About realising the person you'd been sheltering could've put Jason's entire world at risk. About caring less about the destruction of his universe than the possible death of that person.
There was nothing fine about the giddy relief Jason felt when Constantine declared Peter was stuck here, plausibly forever. Not when he'd seen the devastation loud and clear on Peter's face.
He swallowed back all those messy emotions and gunned the engine even harder. No way was he about to let one of the few friends he had do something stupid like take themselves from him.
Not when he knew for real this was someone he could keep.
[1] In the first volume of Hellblazer 'Original Sins' (1992), Constantine's blood becomes tainted with blood from the demon Nergal. This has slowed down his aging and provided him with an enhanced healing ability (slight). He uses his now tainted body to prevent a cult from creating the second coming of Jesus by sleeping with their 'chosen one', Mary/Zed (they were lovers at the time, but he knowingly did this after a] taking in the demon's blood, and b] Zed/Mary had resigned herself to submitting to the cult's wishes). I think he loses this at some point in the comics, but I've not read that yet so therefore it hasn't happened. I don't make the rules ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(It's also what has set off Peter's senses on the web.)