Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Kid, you have to go,” Stephen Strange left no room for argument as the yellow-gold color of his magic spilled from his fingertips.

“No! Sir, please.” Peter begged. He fought the urge to grab onto the magician’s arms and stop whatever spell he was performing from working. Peter was pretty sure that if he did touch him at all he would probably die. “You have to let me stay. I can help! I know I can!”

“Don’t move.” It was as if Peter never spoke at all. At least, not to Strange.

Peter knew that he had said something. It was quite loud, judging from the reactions given to him by several individuals. He gave a guilty smile and waved, as if to say ‘Sorry for the disturbance, please continue!’ 

“Please, Sir. You have to let me stay,” he pleaded again. “I don’t even know why you’re making me leave!”

The Magician paused his spell-making for a moment and looked Peter dead in the eye (through the mask, that is). “We decided, that since this fight with Thanos might not go so well, you–being the youngest–would be the most beneficial to survi–”

“Hold on, hold on,” Peter raised his hand to pinch his nose. “You’re telling me that you guys decided for me that it was too ‘scary’ and you’re choosing to what? Ship me off?”

“...In a sense, yes.”

“I cannot believe you right now!” Peter laughed incredulously. “You guys elected to do something without even thinking of involving me? On something that determines my future?”

“Look, this might be a rough transition at first, but you’ll be fine.” Stephen tried to skirt around the question, but Peter brought him right back to it.

“Answer my question!” Peter was stressed for an answer. “Please, Sir, let me stay.”

Stephen Strange’s lips pursed shut as he continued moving his hands around, creating more peculiarly shaped symbols that lined a circle under Peter.

“I can’t do that,” came the curt response, “because I already finished the spell. Now don’t move unless you want to experience the pain of your cells splitting instead of the little jostle you’re supposed to feel.”

As Peter opened his mouth to argue again, all of his words were caught in his throat. He swallowed, before trying again. “Please! Don’t do thi–”

The echo of his voice was all that was left of Peter when he was transported. Stephen Strange sighed, frowning. He wouldn’t say that he was sad the kid was gone.

Not to anyone’s face, at least.

The rubble Peter woke up in is not reassuring. Nor are the burning fires that seem to be melting a building across the way from him. What would Mr. Stark do? What would he do? He thought to himself, trying not to panic. Karen!

Peter smiles grimly as he remembers his suit’s technological capabilities. Except when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. Well, something does, just nothing close to the words he wants to say. And it hurts. Oh, does it hurt. Instinctively, he tries to raise a hand to his throat, but they’re both trapped under pieces of concrete.

Only now does he realize just how loud everything is. The sound doesn’t stop even if he wants it to. The baby crying for its guardian to pay attention to it, and the arguing behind closed doors about how on Earth they’re supposed to make rent this month. There’s just so much. Frustration gives Peter a wave of strength as he rips his left and right arms from the debris. His legs are definitely fractured, but he saves that to worry about later. Right now, he just needs to get out. Pushing, he manages to free himself fairly easily.

The movements bring him back to when he was trapped under an excavator while fighting the Vulture. Somehow, this time hurt less.

look! here! run! hide! eyes!

Peter winces as he turns, wishing he had the Iron Spider to support his legs. Raising his arm, he shoots from his web-shooters and swings himself onto a wall, crawling upwards until he reaches the topmost corner of the building. He backs himself next to the cozy home of a person, nodding in a curt attempt at peace. He hopes he can keep a good rapport just for a little; just until he can figure out who’s watching him. That and how to get out.

left! right! below! hurry!

Looking up, Peter notices a small gap in the ceiling of the building–from what he can tell, Peter thinks it’s an abandoned warehouse–and it’s wall. In the back of his mind, Peter worries about the structural integrity of the building he somehow managed to land in. But he doesn’t bother to dwell on it for long. Careful not to disturb the local tenant, Peter scootches his way over to the other wall, trying not to wince at his legs. 

hello! Hello! HELLO!

Peter sucks in a soft breath as he hears footsteps begin on the upper floor of the warehouse.

“Yeah, I’m not seeing anything here,” the figure says, his foot tapping ever so slightly against the creaky floors.

Peter almost blows his cover by gasping. Why is his voice so loud ? Why is everything loud? 

“ Keep looking, Double R. B’s busy so you and Robin have to find answers yourself. ”

“You doubting my skills, O?”

“ Of course not,” whoever O is responds.

Peter shimmies a little more to the hole, keeping a stern eye on the figure–who acts strangely similar to a vigilante–that’s looking at the pile of ruins he had left only moments before.

look! new! look!

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spots another figure climbing the stairs that don’t look like they’re up to OSHA’s code at all. Finally at the gap in the wall, Peter shifts himself to make a clean getaway out of the building. Heaving himself over the wall, he takes a second to watch the two interact and speak amongst themselves. It’s increasingly obvious that the second one–Robin–is more temperamental than whoever ‘Double R’ is. It’s also evident that the two bicker and argue like brothers, or at least people who work quite closely together.

run! go!

As Peter turns, he is once again berated by the loudness of the city. All he does is stick to the wall and try to gain his bearings. He is still acutely aware of the two vigilantes in the building, but he doesn’t know exactly what kind of technology they have.

…What if they have x-ray vision? Shit.

Peter leaps off the building, making a getaway from the two who are looking for the cause of the massive pile of brick, concrete, and glass. Finding a rhythm with his swinging, Peter is instantly comforted by the familiarity within the feeling. Until a wave of gunshots rings out, which makes Peter falter for a moment. Sticking a web to a building later than he wanted, Peter almost scraped his feet on the sidewalk if he didn’t lift them just before.

That’s enough swinging, Peter decides for himself, making a sharp right into a back alley. At that exact moment, Peter becomes very grateful for the skin-tight clothes that Tony Stark had engineered to go under his suit. Of course, it's just a pair of leggings and a t-shirt, but it’s better than being butt-naked (except for underwear, of course) in a city he doesn’t know. Pulling a hoodie from a clothesline, he quickly makes amends with himself for his theft because he has maybe 74 dollars to his name–Tony always made him carry bills in his suit, no matter the circumstance–and no place to stay. Pulling the hoodie over his frame, the fabric ends halfway down his legs, which allows for his butt to stay at least a little warm.

He looks around the alleyway some more and spots a green, moldy dumpster. Taking his chances, he opens the plastic top of the metal crate. He immediately winces and covers his ears as the lid creaks, causing the lid to slam shut. His eyes shut for a moment, trying to calm himself down. Taking another crack at it, Peter tries his best not to overreact to the high-pitched squeaking of the dumpster lid. The smell is almost as bad as the vomit Peter knows he’ll be producing later. Giving a quick prayer to his holy stars, Peter starts sifting through the trash until his eyes land upon a small–but otherwise useful–knapsack. It has a couple of holes in the back pocket and smells like a pigsty, but other than that it’ll come in handy.

Let’s go! Peter does a little fist pump before pushing himself out of the dumpster. But to Peter’s dismay, the momentum jostles the container and the lid falls, crashing and giving a ringing sound to Peter’s ears. He almost yelps in surprise–if it wasn’t for the fact that his larynx decided not to work–and covers his ears, wincing. Stop, stop stop stop stop!!!!

He crouches into himself, trying to make himself small to stop the ringing.

eyes! hello!

“Hey! What’re you doing back there?” A gruff voice yells, only adding to the pain in Peter’s ears. “You’re old enough to know there’s a curfew! And going through trash is illegal, kid!”

Peter freezes for just a moment. His vision blurs as he tries to function through the pain in his head. He’s almost certain that his ears are bleeding. Frantically, he pushes his spider suit into the knapsack and slings it over his shoulder before running. He pushes right past the man–who he now realizes is very tall… and very muscly–and runs down the street and turns several corners to make sure no one’s following him. After a couple of minutes, Peter turns into another alley where he’s confident no one would be. Looking at the brick walls, he runs at one of them before leaping and sticking to it, before crawling up onto the roof.

As Peter sits on the edge, he allows himself a moment to take everything in. Sucking in a deep breath, the sounds get excruciatingly louder until something that’s being said what feels like several blocks over sounds like it's being shouted into his ear. Betrayal hits him, too. Peter runs a hand through his hair and tries not to cry as the waves of emotions hit him over and over again.

Betrayal. Pain. Anger. Sadness. Loss.

One after another they seem to sink deeper and deeper into Peter, like a knife cutting through a stick of room-temperature butter. He crosses his legs on the edge of the building, resting his head on his hands that are propped on his knees.

Opening his eyes, Peter looks at the buildings that are in his view. They’re all cookie-cutter buildings, a copy-paste of the same brick pattern and structure. The loss of variation within the story bums him out quite a bit, since perching on gargoyles is always a fun thing to do during the dull moments of his vigilante career.

Peter doesn’t want to admit it, but he isn’t a fan of wherever he is. It’s quite the opposite, actually. He hates the noise, the smell, the look. It’s like the… bane of his existence. He almost immediately cringes at that statement. I’ll need to come up with a different comparison soon, he amends.

hello!

The crunch of roof gravel is soft underneath a trained step. The heartbeat of the person behind Peter is a little faster than nor– the what of whoever’s behind me? Peter asks himself, eyes widening. His body is acting as if he could listen to people’s heartbeats all along when he most certainly could not . Dr. Strange, sir, what did you do? he questions, exasperated.

“Hey,” the voice is soft, but Peter immediately clocked the voice’s owner as ‘Double R’, “Could you take a step away from that edge for me?”

Peter would have had a witty response up and ready the second there was silence if it wasn’t for the unfortunate situation that his voice is currently in. But since he can’t speak, he decides to make it easy for the guy and leans backward, falling promptly onto his back. Peter brushes himself off as he stands up, looking up at the vigilante. Wait. Up? Peter wonders to himself.

“You shouldn’t be up here,” he tells Peter. “Is everything alright?”

All Peter does is nod in answer to the questioning. He does know sign language–he used to have a neighbor who was a deaf old lady, and she told lovely stories, but she also made for an amazing teacher–but he doesn’t need to use it for a simple yes or no question.

“What’s your name?”

“P-E-T-E-R” he finger-spells his name out first, before doing his sign name.

“Could you repeat that for me, sorry, I wasn’t expecting ASL.” 

Peter gives a thumbs up before repeating the gestures, making sure to go slow enough for him to read his signing. 

“Nice to meet you, Peter,” he copies Peter’s sign name as he says it aloud, “I’m Red Robin.”

“SIGN NAME” Peter quirks an eyebrow to signify he’s asking a question.

“Like this,” he gestures.

“RED ROBIN”

“Yup,” a soft smile makes its way onto Red Robin’s face. “What’re you doing up here, Peter?”

“BORED” Peter signs.

“It’s dangerous this high up, Peter. Especially on a ledge like that.”

“I KNOW”

“You weren’t going to do anything drastic, were you?”

Peter only crosses his arms and responds with a judgemental look.

“It’s a fair question, kid.”

“NO KID”

“You’re a kid, Peter.” from what Peter can tell behind the domino mask, the vigilante is giving him a deadpan stare. “What are you, twelve?”

Twelve…? Peter stares up at him. “HOW TALL YOU”

“Like… 5 foot 7?” he shrugs. “Why?”

Oh shit. No way. Oh shit. Peter’s eyes widen. “NOTHING”

“...Hm.” Red Robin doesn’t look impressed. “Do you have someplace to go?”

“YES” Peter signs, lying straight to the vigilante’s face. 

“Why don’t I walk you there?” he gestures to the stairwell that he assumed Peter came out of. “We can chat on the way.”

“NO THANK YOU”

“I’m not a bad guy, Peter.” Red Robin’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m actually one of the guys on the other end.”

“NO THANK YOU” Peter repeats.

“At least let's get you down to the ground level,” he tries to coax him.

Peter thinks for a moment. If I go down with this guy, maybe he’ll leave me alone. But maybe he’ll try to convince me to let him take me home, which I don’t actually have. He contemplates for a second more before nodding at the vigilante and walking through the door that is being held open for him.

Red Robin smiles as Peter passes him, patting the boy on the shoulder. It's faint, but Peter can hear the beep of a tracker activating. Oh, that bitch… he grumbles as they go down the stairs together.

Once they hit the bottom, Peter pulls away from Red Robin’s close tail behind him. "BATHROOM”

The vigilante nods and doesn’t make a move to follow Peter, but he also doesn’t leave, either. Peter rolls his eyes as he walks into the restroom, only slightly unsettled by the darkness in the mens’ room. Only taking a moment, Peter easily finds the tracker that Red Robin had placed on his shoulder–and the one that was put on the end of his hoodie sleeve. Setting them both down on the sink, Peter leaps up and opens the window, the creaking piercing his eardrums yet again. 

Pushing his knapsack out before shimmying out in a way that wouldn’t be possible for any other person, Peter makes a mad dash.

He would like to make it at least a day within a stupid city he’s new to without being trailed by some dumb vigilante.

Chapter Text

The squeaking of mice as they scurry away from Peter hurts his ears more than he wants to admit. He has been able to ignore the possible fractures in his legs for a while due to the sheer amount of adrenaline, but trying to keep that same level of ignorance is growing harder to maintain.

Think, Peter. Ms. Natasha drilled a survival plan into you the moment you started working with the Avengers, he thinks to himself as he walks down the cracked concrete sidewalk; water, food, shelter.

Stressed out of his mind, Peter grips tighter onto the ratty knapsack he stole. The soles of his shoes feel like they’ll give out at any moment, and he desperately wishes for a place to sleep. The only thing keeping Peter awake are the sounds of the city nightlife that he still hasn’t adjusted to.

look! here!

Peter looks up to find nothing exciting. That is until he turns his head to see the words ‘Public Library’ on a dirty pillared building. He sighs in relief at the sight of the public building. Even if it isn’t open, Peter decides it’s better to sleep in a place that the public is allowed to go to than an abandoned area. He slowly creeps up to the door, careful not to alert the security cameras in the front. At the door, he reads the sign, noticing immediately that the library closes at 9 P.M. every day, even on the weekends. And by taking a glance above him, it’s increasingly obvious that it’s past nine o’clock. Despite that, he can still make out the faint glow of a computer by the front desk. Huh , he thinks to himself, I thought the librarians would have gone home by now .

eyes! no! hello! bye!

Despite his better judgment, Peter decides to crawl his way up one of the walls and shimmies open a window that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since 1939. He winces as the window opens, trying to keep the sliding noise from interrupting the person working inside. As it opens, Peter is met with the talking of the librarian at the front desk. But, it doesn’t seem to be library talk that they’re doing.

“...B, someone’s on their way in from the back doors,” they pause, “not a Robin.”

A gruff hum is all Peter can pick up from the call. He registers the voice of the librarian as whoever—Red Robin talked to when he found Peter’s wreck—is called… O? Just how does Peter manage to get himself into the strangest shit? He was glad, however, that the library has multiple floors; and that they’re all furnished. Setting his knapsack down on the ground, Peter settles into a beanbag chair that he moved over to a corner of the library, just out of view from any security cameras that he has picked up on.

He tries not to make any more noise as he sits down, not even a sigh of relief. He knows that his legs will heal soon enough—he’s gotten hurt so much that his regenerative abilities have gotten much better over time—but it doesn’t mean that it hurts any less than it would for a normal person.

Shutting his eyes, falling asleep was almost instant for Peter. But it didn’t mean he would leave himself vulnerable. He knows his Spider-Sense… his Peter Tingle would be able to notify him of anything that he wasn’t aware of, but he also kept an ear open for anything going on as well. He might as well put his painfully enhanced hearing to use somehow, he figures.

Peter wakes up four hours later to an empty stomach and nearly healed legs. The sun has just started to leak through the old windows and perfectly lines up with his eyes, temporarily blinding him. He looks away from the window to push himself off of the—quite uncomfortable—beanbag chair that he subjected himself to sleep on. Bending back into a backbend, he feels his skin shift as he stretches himself out. He wishes he could say that his bones crack as he twists, but he hasn’t had bones ever since they got replaced with an exoskeleton.

Standing up straight from his backbend, Peter grabs his knapsack and exits the library. I’ll come back later , Peter decides as he lands on the pavement. Maybe midday .

Peter forgot how loud noises were. As soon as he stops thinking to himself, Peter’s ears are berated by the sounds of a bustling city at rush hour. He almost presses his hands to his ears before stopping and thinking rationally for a moment. Shooting a strand of web fluid from his web-shooters into his palm, he rolls it into a small pill-shaped ball before sticking it into his ear. He repeats the action, only this time he sticks the fluid into his other ear. Peter’s solution is in no way permanent, no more than it’s comfortable. But he doesn’t make a move to take them out. They’re the only things helping dampen the loud noises from the outside, and until he can get his hands on some noise-canceling headphones, the fluid is going to have to do.

Okay, Peter. Water and food. Peter thinks to himself as he rounds the corner outside of the alley. Almost as if on cue, his stomach growls. Loudly. He winces in embarrassment as he shifts his bag on his shoulders. Surely someone heard that, he thinks. He can feel eyes on him. Four pairs of eyes, to be exact. One individual.

Quickening his pace, Peter is relieved to find a small corner store that seems cheap enough to fit into his very tight budget. There’s a bell that rings as he enters the store. Despite his homemade noise mufflers, Peter still pulls a slight face as the ringing vibrates in his ear canal more than he likes. As he eyes the price tags of all the different things, Peter grows more and more astonished at the prices: 47 cents for a pack of ramen, three bucks for a huge reusable water bottle, and there was even a small sewing kit for about six dollars. No wonder people live in this ugly city, Peter relishes in the dirt cheap items, throwing them in a basket he picked up from the store’s entrance. He walks down a couple more aisles not intending to buy anything until he comes across a pair of headphones that have the labels of being Bluetooth accessible and noise cancelling. He almost jumps at the sight of them, thanking whoever—or whatever—decided to leave the headphones there for him to buy. All for a whopping seven dollars. 

Peter spends approximately 19 dollars at the store, which brings him down to $53 left (he counted wrong and only had 72 bucks instead of the 74 he thought he had (and he also purchased a box of granola bars to eat while he walked)). Pushing all of his purchased items into his knapsack, Peter prays that the tattered bag won’t tear and break until he can sit down to stitch it up with the sewing kit.

He takes a glance at the clock inside the store before he leaves, and notices it’s 8:17. The library should be open now, right? Peter wonders as he exits the store, pulling out the web fluid before rapidly pulling the headphones over his ears. Even for the cheap price, the headphones worked quite well against his enhanced senses by muffling most of the surrounding sound, surprising him. Peter starts to retrace his steps back from Palance Street and to the Gotham City Public Library, a.k.a. the place he broke into and crashed at the first night he was at this hellhole.

As he reaches the front door, Peter grows increasingly nervous. Even though in the back of his mind he knew that he wasn’t seen by any of the low-tech cameras surrounding the building’s perimeter, it doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t know that he was there.

hello! eyes!

Peter’s eyes snap up to attention as he opens the door to the library, promptly noticing all the sneaky glances the librarian at the front desk is giving him. He walks right by her, not trying to interact with her at all. But she is technically a public worker, so of course she would say something.

“Hello! Welcome to the Gotham City Public Library! Is there anything I can help you with?”

Peter hesitates before moving. He gives a glance over to the woman before he gives her a curt smile and shakes his head in response. 

“THANK YOU” he signs before turning to the computer section. Peter doesn’t bother to wait for a response from her as he sits down at one of the computers.

Opening his bag, he taps the chest of his suit, and Little Legs comes to life almost instantly. The animatronic spider crawls up Peter's hands and onto the desk, ready and waiting for a command. Unfortunately, Peter doesn’t exactly have a voice to tell L.L. what to do, so he points to the USB port and hopes for the message to be conveyed. Luckily, Little Legs does get the message and settles in nicely to the USB port, quickly hacking itself into the mainframe of the computer and allowing Peter access to the internet.

Peter smiles proudly as he starts typing away at the interface, starting a lengthy googling spree.

‘Gotham map’ is the first thing Peter googles. He decides that if you’re somewhere you don’t know, you might as well search it up while you have internet access. New Jersey, Peter scrolls out a little and his eyes land on the letters N.J. Dr. Strange teleported me to fucking Jersey. No wonder why he hates this place. Any self-respecting New Yorker would automatically hate Jersey too, even if they don’t know where they are to begin with.

The second thing he looks up is ‘Peter Parker’. Even though he’s sure Gotham City doesn’t exist where he’s from, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exist. When the screen turns up with a ‘No entrances match your search’ screen, Peter doesn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. 

‘Tony Stark’ gathers no results. Neither does ‘Black Widow’, ‘Captain America’, ‘Hulk’, ‘Hawkeye’, ‘Thor’ (besides the Norse God), or ‘Avengers’. Where the hell am I? Peter runs a hand down his face. Focus, Peter. Remember what Ms. Natasha taught you. You need intel, and you have a computer in front of you.

Instead, Peter decides to go a different route. ‘Vigilantes in Gotham’ seemed reasonable, and it gathered a pretty hefty amount of search results too. Opening up a Wikipedia link, Peter starts reading everything he thinks he should know on the subject. ‘Gotham City’s main protector is the vigilante Batman, along with his sidekick Robin. There are several more Gotham City Vigilantes+. Batman is known for his ability to blend with the shadows in Gotham City and for his no-tolerance policy for metahumans.’ What’re metahumans? Peter raises an eyebrow, continuing to read through the page. Am I considered to be a metahuman?  

Peter frowns in contemplation. If he is classified to be a metahuman, that would most likely cause a multitude of problems for him, especially since Dr. Strange wanted him to be here to be safe. He continues reading and clicks on a link that takes him to a page about the ‘Justice League’, which is an annoyingly stupid name if you ask Peter. According to the wiki, the League is a group of heroes dedicated to saving the lives of innocents and keeping the world safe. So basically, Peter rationalizes, they’re just the Avengers but… nerdier. He eyes Superman with the red and blue colors and giant ‘S’ on his chest. And Peter thought his gimmick was obvious.

watch! eyes! hello!

Peter’s reaction time is delayed, but still good enough, because he comes eye-to-eye with an approaching librarian. The same one that was sitting at the front desk when he walked in.

“Hello, my name’s Barbara,” the librarian introduces herself as she comes to a stop. He notices her using ASL, presumingly trying to make him more comfortable. Peter doesn’t need it, but he finds it nice all the same. “Do you need help with anything? Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“NO, THANK YOU” he signs in response. “I AM PETER”

“It’s nice to meet you, Peter. Please let me know if you need anything,” she smiles at him before wheeling off, presumably to put the stack of books in her lap away on their shelves.

He sighs in relief, glad she hadn’t commented on the fact that he’s a teen looking up the vigilantes that he should probably know about from the beginning of his life. But, given the fact that he’s first a New Yorker, and second definitely not from here, Peter gives himself a pass.

Speaking of not being here, Peter does wonder where he is, exactly. Did Dr. Strange learn multidimensional travel? He googles the term but there aren’t many results to work with, and none of them say anything about working. What’s the science behind that? How did he do that? Well, he’s Dr. Strange and he used magic but still, that's so cool…

It takes Peter a couple of moments to get out of his daydreaming. When he does, he has one last Google search: ‘Gotham Celebrities’. Bruce “Brucie” Wayne is probably the most prominent figure within the Gotham community, is what Peter gathers. Running Wayne Enterprises and coming from old money, Peter can’t help but think that he’s just another rich person who tries to empathize with the lower class but can’t (he doesn’t think of Tony Stark like that; he knows Tony much better than he knows Bruce Wayne). But when he looks at how Bruce supposedly treats his workers and is surprised to find that they do get decent pay and quite a bit of time off and sick leave. Huh, Peter raises his eyebrows slightly, never woulda thunk. On top of that, it seems like Bruce Wayne has a huge number of children, upwards of five actually legal ones, but he’s been seen with other kids as well. Is he just running an illegal orphanage, he thinks, unamused. 

Peter concludes that he doesn’t like Bruce Wayne at all. On top of that, he also remembers that he is poor and without housing. One very enticing solution weaseled its way into his mind, and Peter is no better than the annoying next-door neighbor who likes to sift through your mail. He also knows, that since Bruce Wayne comes from old money, he wouldn’t notice if there were just a couple hundred dollars that were missing from his bank account. Peter is acutely aware from previous experiences—namely Tony Stark, throwing his credit card around at people not bothering to check if he’s getting scammed—that overwhelmingly rich people rarely bother with the bank.

Opening up a new tab, Peter types in ‘Gotham Bank’, before clicking on the link that takes him to the First National Bank of Gotham. He’s sure to keep an eye out for the librarian—even though he didn’t need it—as he started hacking his way into setting up a bank account. He puts it under the name ‘Tony Stark’ before also hacking his way into Bruce Wayne’s account with some reluctant help from Little Legs. Peter knows that L.L. is not one for theft or creating fake online documentation. But he still helps anyway, which Peter is immensely grateful for, even if he can’t tell him.

eyes! friend!

Peter switches back to a Wikipedia article faster than Bruce Banner could switch to the Hulk (seriously, he needs to get some better comparisons) before the librarian, Barbara, rolls by him. As she goes back to her desk Peter almost bangs his head on the desk below, getting a little annoyed with how it feels like she’s hovering around him like she’s waiting for him to make a mistake. Going back to the bank’s website, Peter is quick with taking out $250 and putting $239 into Tony Starks fake account. He is careful to make the account look old, adding foax activity going back upwards of seven years. Peter adds several extra layers of protection onto the bank account, so that no ordinary person can go in and look at whatever he’s doing.

He’s feels a sense of relief once he exits the bank’s website. After he closes all of the windows and shuts off the computer, he urges Little Legs to crawl out of the USB port and onto his hand. L.L., feeling a little sassy, doesn’t do what Peter wants from him at first, but eventually gives in at the sight of his pout. Peter’s face dons a smile instead of the frown, happy that his mechanical spider friend cares about him enough to listen. Peter makes sure his knapsack is secure before tossing it over his shoulder and walking lightly towards the door.

“Any books you need to be checked out, Peter?” Barbara asks him softly from her place at the desk.

Peter is once again conflicted by the librarian but decides to go up to her desk this time. “NO”

“Okay,” she smiles. “I noticed you don’t have a library card, either—I know my regulars—so I was wondering if you want to set one up for yourself?”

“HOW” he asks, genuinely curious. Peter knows that the library is a good way to gain knowledge, and anything non-digital that he could get his hands on was a good starting point for trying to get home.

“I’ll just need your full name, address, and a phone number or email address that I can use to contact you.”

Oh. Peter doesn’t have two out of the three of those, and he isn’t sure if he even wants to give out his last name to some lady.

“NO THANK YOU”

“Are you sure?” Barbara asks, and in the same breath she says: “And aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?”

Light on his feet, Peter bolts. He’s not ready to be made yet. And didn’t her voice sound suspiciously similar to that person Red Robin was talking to over whatever comms they have?

Peter does feel exceedingly bad for his fleeing. And guilty. But his brain works from a survival-first standpoint, and that would have turned into a high-stress situation fairly quickly. I can go back tomorrow, he decides.

Finishing the box of granola bars as he walks down the street, Peter re-remembers the next important step that Natasha Romanoff taught him about survival in an unknown place: shelter. He knows that he can’t keep breaking into the library forever. Hell, sleeping there for just one night was a risk. Especially with Barbara staying there so late. As Peter continues walking, the building quality goes from ugly- and funky-looking to downright depressing. Almost all of the buildings that he comes across have multitudes of grime buildup and shattered windows that are patched up with tarps.

He’s reminded of his life with May after his uncle died; how they lived on the streets for some time and barely made it by. Sleeping on the side of the road, huddled under a thin blanket, sharing bits of scraps they find in dumpsters behind fast food chains before getting harassed by business owners. Peter tries to clear his mind, shaking his head. It hurts him more to think about his life with May than it is to listen, and he hates that. Being with May has always been a fun time, but now he can’t help but look back on these memories with a twinge of heartbreak. As if his mind is trying to make him accept something that his heart never will. He also doesn’t like that he can’t tell the time anymore, since the weather always seems to be ‘cloudy with a side of more clouds’.

The wind that blows through the townhouses cuts through Peter’s stolen hoodie and feels like it’s meant to seep straight into his soul. He shivers, and the back of his neck feels more exposed than ever. Pulling the hood over his head, he attempts to shrink into the fleeting warmth it had once provided. 

It’s quieter here though, which is a good thing for Peter. As he wanders through more unfamiliar streets, Peter wonders if he’ll be able to stay in anyone’s house. He knows that some people won’t trust a kid on the street asking for a place to go, but he still has hope that at least one person will be nice enough to let him sleep on their couch, even if it’s only for one night. Walking up a flight of stairs, Peter knocks on a door. He can hear the termites inside of it with their annoyed squeaks and vibrations as he disturbs their peace, but he tries his best to pay them no mind. The door shoots open, stopping suddenly as the chain lock prevents it from going any further. A prying eye stares at him through the crack.

“What?” the woman’s voice was gravelly and unkind.

“LET ME STAY PLEASE” it comes to Peter’s mind after the fact that not everyone knows sign language.

“What the fuck did you just do?” she was harsh with her question, unpleased with Peter still standing on her doorstep. “You a fucking wizard?”

Peter is more surprised by that answer, but he isn’t taken aback yet. He shakes his head in response, trying to get the woman to trust him.

Her eye squints, and it’s as if she’s contemplating her question. “You look too young to be a wizard. But still, get lost.”

What does she mean by ‘too young’? Peter asks himself, rolling his eyes as he turns to go back down the porch. I’m 16!

He crosses the street to go to another house, barely caring enough to look both ways before crossing the street. He knows that his Peter Tingle will let him know almost instantly if there’s a vehicle rounding the corner, and it’s made him do more and more dangerous things ever since he acquired it. Getting to the other side of the road, he takes little effort in climbing the stairs before knocking on another door. While he waits, Peter waves at a friend who has set up their home in between the brick walls of the rowhouse and the metal banister.

The person who answered the door this time was a man. He doesn’t have a metal chain lock on the inside, but he blocks the entire view of the inside of his house with his frame. “Ya need something?”

Peter goes to sign a message, but he stops himself before doing so. He instead puts his palms together and presses the back of one of his hands to his cheek, in a mock way of saying ‘sleep’.

“Uh huh…” the man looks unamused by Peter’s antics. “Go home, kid. You don’t belong here.”

As the door gets slammed in his face, Peter makes a deadpan expression. Really? I don’t belong here? Who would have guessed? He’s beginning to get frustrated with the lack of sympathy he’s receiving from the adults he comes across, but he can’t exactly blame them. No one would just take a homeless person off the streets willingly unless they had no suspicious bone in their body. 

But what ticked Peter off even more was the fact that they kept calling him a kid. Finding a puddle in the street—which wasn’t very hard, as it seemed to be cloudy or rainy in Gotham with no other types of weather in between—he looked at his reflection. Peter was horrified with what looked back at him. Peter did see himself in the reflection, but he saw his thirteen-year-old self instead of what he looked like when Stephen Strange transported him magically to this hellscape. Shit, shit this can’t be happening, Peter touched his face in dread. Maybe the water is just muddy, he tries to delude himself into thinking. Maybe I am still sixteen, and this water is just warping my reflection. Looking up, he finds a rare window that hasn’t been smashed yet and runs over to it desperately. To his dismay, his reflection hasn’t changed. He is thirteen, and not a sixteen-year-old with a warped look. Fuck.

In no way was this Peter’s ideal time. Firstly, at sixteen he had finally grown out of his baby face. Back at thirteen, he was just as babyfaced as a toddler learning how to walk. Secondly, it’s going to make it increasingly harder to find some way to get a job in fucking Jersey. He knows that in New York, it’s just about illegal to work under the age of fourteen, so Jersey is probably no different with its child labor laws. Third and finally, his suit most likely didn’t fit him anymore. He was too worried about not being spotted with it on him the last time he wore it, so he hasn’t noticed if it is too big for him yet. 

Peter runs a hand down his face (and wishes he could groan to complete the feeling, but can’t). Taking it all in, Peter slumps down on the side of the road with his back pressed against the wall and sits there for a little while.

The thing that gets Peter moving again is his stomach, unsurprisingly. Pushing up off the wall, it almost hurts to move as he tries to find food that will meet his minimum requirement of 5,000 calorie-per-day appetite. He notices as he walks that he has been joined by a friend, who is currently sitting on top of his shoulder and sleeping peacefully. He doesn’t know what to name her yet, but he hopes that he finds the heart to leave her away from him before he does come up with one.

Peter passes several buildings on his hunt for food, one of them being a memorial clinic. He stops in front of it, looking at all of the signs that have been placed on the windows or the door. ‘Free Clinic’, ‘Walk-Ins Welcome’, and ‘Free Snacks’ are all very enticing signs to him. But he knows that doctors' offices will ask him for personal information that he either doesn’t have or is not willing to give out. Against his better judgment, Peter walks by the establishment and does his best to force himself forward. As he continues, he comes across a small cafe-esque building called ‘Chris’s Coffee’. Deciding that it’s better than nothing, he pushes open the door with the shoulder that isn’t housing a spider.

Walking up to the counter, there isn’t a worker in Peter’s sight. But people are watching him. There’s a couple in the corner muttering about how his appearance is odd, and a kid is tugging on his mom’s shoulder whispering to her about the spider that’s asleep on him. Ringing the bell, Peter hops onto one of the barstools and waits to be served. As he waits for someone, Peter skims over the small menu in front of him. After a minute or two, he decides on a melt stuffed with bacon and grilled cheese as well as a big glass of apple juice.

hello! new!

“What can I get you?” the server takes a stance in front of Peter, one foot acting as the pillar of their balance a ticked-off look on their face. 

Peter points down at the menu, signaling what he wants. He knows that this will be a small expense, but since he doesn’t have the means to eat the ramen that he bought earlier he is going to do the best he can with the food he can get his hands on. If that also means dumpster diving later, so be it.

As the server gets his food, Peter notices the spider on his shoulder slowly stirring awake. While she takes her time standing up, the child from before whispers to their mom again, this time more terrified than curious. The glass of juice is set down in front of Peter, and he reaches for it almost immediately. In all his time at Gotham, he has forgotten twice now to refill his water bottle at a fountain. As Peter puts the glass up to his mouth, he accidentally hits his teeth and causes a painful sensation to ripple across his mouth. Almost slamming the glass down, Peter raises a hand to cover his mouth. Using his tongue, Peter feels around for any type of injury to himself that might have been caused. When he finds no damage he tries to take a drink from his glass again, moving slower this time. He takes two big gulps of his drink, downing almost half of the glass.

He sits on the barstool silently as he waits for his melt to finish, absentmindedly petting the spider still sitting on his shoulder.

“If you’re curious, go up to him,” he hears the mother loud and clear as she talks to the child.

“I’m scared!!” she complains back.

Peter almost giggles as he listens to their conversation, trying not to give away the fact that he can hear through the headphones just fine.

small! hello!

Peter doesn’t move to look at the child approaching him until she says something to start a conversation with him.

“Uh… excuse me?”

Peter turns to look at the girl—who seems to be only about six—and nods, a closed-lip smile forming on his face.

“Can I look at your spider?” her voice piques with both curiosity and fear, which Peter supposes is a good thing.

He nods again, coaxing the spider onto his hand before lowering her down to the kid's eye level.

“Woah…” Peter can practically feel the sparkles radiating from her as she looks at the spider.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” 

Peter holds up two fingers, indicating the latter.

“A girl? She’s so pretty!” she says. “Does she have a name?”

Peter shakes his head in response.

“I’ll name her then!” the girl pauses, tapping a finger to her chin and looking at the ceiling. “Hmm… I know! She’s now named Dotty! Because of the dot on her back! Hi Dotty, my name’s Amelia!”

Peter smiles as he feels Dotty vibrate happily; as if she’s purring. Can spiders purr? Is that even a thing? He wonders to himself.

“Your food, kid.” the server says as he sets down Peter’s plate. “And keep that thing away from the kitchen.”

“Hey!” Amelia exclaims, but the server walks away from her without even batting an eye. “I’m sorry Dotty, that guy’s just mean.”

“Amelia, come back and let him eat,” the girl’s mother says from their table.

“But Mommmmm,” she whines.

“Amelia, come here.”

“Fineee,” she turns over to Peter and Dotty again. “Byebye!! Thank you for letting me look at her!”

Peter just smiles as he watches her walk back to her table and gush to her mom about the spider before turning over to his food. He sets Dotty down on the counter and picks up his sandwich before biting down on it. Peter immediately relaxes as the bacon, cheese, and tomato melt into his mouth. As well as the taste of copper. Setting down his sandwich, he snatches a napkin from the counter and presses it against his mouth. When he pulls it away, he is quick to notice the spots of blood that come off with it. He swallows the bite of food that he had taken and presses a finger to his lips. The cuts are in the exact positioning of where his canine teeth are.

What the hell? Peter’s more confused than ever. Did they grow or something?

Peter sighs, and Dotty quirks her head in confusion. He shakes his head as if to brush it off and not worry her. I’ll worry about this later, he decides. I need to finish this first, though.

Peter is exceedingly careful while finishing his food so that he doesn’t cut himself again.

Somehow (Peter thinks he was watching him from the back of the house) the server sets his check down on the counter as Peter is finishing the last couple bites of his food. He’s billed for $9.94 (including tax), so he puts down a ten before picking up Dotty and walking out of the cafe. He can hear the server grumble about the six-cent tip behind him, and even though Peter does feel bad for him, he feels like he needs his remaining 43 dollars a little more.

Wandering for a while longer, Peter finally finds a small, seemingly unclaimed alley to sit in for a while. As he sits down, he opens his knapsack and pulls out his sewing kit. Getting to work, Peter starts stitching up the holes, making little patterns with some of the different colors (a red spider and a crude Iron Man helmet). Pulling out his spider suit, Peter looks at the tears in the fabric. He wishes he had the means to fix the suit but he doesn’t have the materials he needs to put it back together correctly, and putting little holes in the fabric by sewing the gashes shut will just be a setback in the long run.

Sighing, Peter stands up from the alley and starts moving again. Since being bitten by a spider, he has changed genetically in small ways. One of those ways is that he’s now cold-blooded instead of warm-blooded, so he needs to find a place that radiates a steady amount of heat. And that was not one of Gotham’s descriptor terms. As he progresses, the air starts to get colder and colder until Peter is downright shivering as he walks along the road.

behind! look!

“Hey!” a voice calls out over the thundering of a motorcycle. Peter can hear them just fine without them yelling, but they don’t know that. It takes him a moment but he slowly turns to look over at someone with a red biker helmet and black leather jacket on. “You need a ride?”

This sentence doesn’t register in Peter’s mind at first, and he definitely looks like an idiot standing there shivering.

“Are you okay?” they ask again, this time using sign language.

“I AM FINE” he signs back, as if he’s on autopilot. “NO RIDE”

“Do you have a place to go back to?” they are still using sign language, which is a courtesy to Peter that he appreciates.

“YES” he lies to the stranger, because if Peter knows one thing about staying in any area—especially one as sketchy as Gotham—saying you’re either on your way to some friend's house or that someone is expecting you are both great ways to get out of a kidnapping scenario. “SOMEONE EXPECTING ME”

He knows that it’s not that convincing, but anything to get someone away from him is an advancement.

“Okay,” they say, revving their motorcycle up again. “Stay outta trouble!”

Peter only stares as he watches the person ride off, leaving him alone and shivering again. He feels Dotty crawl under his stolen hoodie, trying to find a source of heat that he doesn’t produce. Trudging on, Peter’s movements grow slower and slower as he tries to get to a shelter. That or to another homeless person who is willing to share their camp for the night, even though that might be unlikely after seeing the other people who weren’t homeless who didn’t allow Peter to crash there.

Sighing, Peter sits down against the side of a building, the brick’s coldness seeping through his skin and down into his muscles. Shrinking further into the hoodie than he was before, Peter tries to keep himself at least lucid as he starts to succumb to the tiredness he’s feeling. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he chastises himself. You shouldn’t have left the library, Peter. What were you thinking? Peter facepalms himself, but only mentally, since his joints are starting to lock up from the temperature drop he is currently facing.

After an hour, his Peter Luck seems to come into play miraculously because it starts raining on him. Hard. On the side of the road and drenched, Peter is close to getting hypothermia—or at least hypothermic symptoms. In the distance, Peter hears the revving of a motorcycle, one that he heard not too long ago. It gets louder and louder until the sound stops in front of him, which is followed by a “Shit, kid.”

familiar! hello!

Heavy boots splash puddles of water on the sidewalk before large hands pick Peter up. Through foggy eyes, Peter has a hard time making out any defining features besides a white strand of hair. Peter is set in front of the person as they start their motorcycle back up, and Peter has a hard time trying to fight the urge to let them take him wherever they want. He doesn’t win.

As the two of them stop the adult picks him up and takes his knapsack in the other hand. They go inside an apartment building, going up a couple of flights of stairs before Peter hears the sound of keys rattling.

“Hood, why are you at your apartment?” a voice—one Peter only knows as O—cuts through the sound of jingling.

“Forgot something,” they say gruffly.

“What, your other, other, other gun?” comes in another voice which, despite his slower-than-usual mind, Peter connects to Red Robin.

There isn’t a response from the person carrying him.

The door to an apartment creaks open but none of the lights are turned on. Dotty immediately relaxes as she warms up, but Peter is not as quick to do so. He’s still tense as he’s placed down on a couch. The hoodie he has on is taken off of him slowly as if the person is trying to keep him asleep (which he isn’t). 

“What the fuck?!” they exclaim, probably seeing Dotty. Peter does his best not to make a change in his facial expression, even though he finds it exceedingly hilarious that a grown man is scared of a little spider. “Does this kid not know there’s a fucking spider in his jacket?”

He is then laid on his side before a warm, fluffy blanket is placed on top of him. There is the scratching of pen on paper before the door is opened and shut, locked from the outside. Peter tries to move thinking that he’s warm enough that his joints aren’t as solidified, only to be met with searing pain if he tries.

Stuck on a squishy couch and under a warm blanket, Peter’s consciousness slowly goes out until he’s fast asleep in an unknown person’s house with no knowledge of how to get away.

Chapter Text

Peter’s eyes just about shot open as he wakes up at dawn the next morning. He is immediately up and ready to leave, grabbing his stolen hoodie from where it’s strewn across an armchair to dry. He searches for Dotty, who’s sleeping on a note left on the counter. It takes Peter only a second or two to read the note: ‘You fell asleep in the rain. There’s food in the fridge. - Motorcycle Guy’. Peter doesn’t know how he knows to write ‘Motorcycle Guy’ and not his name, but he’s grateful for it either way. Probably just ‘adult intuition’ —like Aunt May used to say when he was a toddler— or something stupid, he figures.

But, he does decide to look in the fridge. He’s been on the verge of starving to death since he got here and since he is being offered food, who was he to deny the invitation? Opening up the fridge, Peter’s eyes immediately land on the leftover Chinese takeout in half-empty containers. Practically ripping the food out of the fridge, he doesn’t even care enough to look for a fork as he starts shoveling food into his mouth with his fingers, no more animalistic than the daintiest spider. He continues eating even though he’s piercing through his lips; something he’ll have to work on not doing if he wants to be alive long enough to go back home. Pinching cold lo mein noodles, Peter has bits of rice stuck to the corners of his mouth. 

prey! here!

He can hear the faint buzzing of a fly in the background, its sound growing more and more intense as it gets closer to his food. Reaching out in the air, Peter grabs onto the bug with two of his fingers before giving it to Dotty for her to eat. Staring at the counter, he smiled lightly in pride at the amount of space he cleared for the unknown man. Peter stacks the containers together as best as he can before he shoves them down into the trashcan set conveniently at the side of the counters.

Peter walks into the bathroom before leaving the apartment he turns to find the light switch, even though he doesn’t need it, and after turning the lights on, he’s met with his reflection. Dirt and grime covers his face, and his hair is sticking to his face at odd angles. He opens his mouth, and finds his teeth to be… sharper than usual. His canines don't match the same length as his others, coming down about a half-centimeter furtherr than his other teeth. He splashes water on his face, both to clean it off and to see if he’ll wake up from whatever kind of hallucination he is experiencing. He doesn’t.

After quickly using the bathroom (and not flushing, to keep the sound to a minimum), Peter decides not to push the hospitality of the unknown man anymore. He honestly doesn’t know how he hasn’t woken up either, but he doesn’t want to know. Grabbing his knapsack, Peter opens a window and looks at the inside of the apartment one last time before sliding out. He sticks tightly to the side of the building, closing the window before letting go and jumping down the rest of the way.

Safely on the ground, Peter readjusts himself, ensuring Dotty is settled completely before moving onward. Even though he knows he has to do things today, Peter’s still a little slow because of how completely stuffed he made himself (even if his metabolism will only burn through it in an hour or two). Strolling down the road, his pace picks up a bit as he starts heading to the library. He ends up getting to the library much earlier than he expected. Maybe I was hungry, he shrugs as he walks up the steps to the building.

The first thing Peter does when he gets inside is fill up his cheap water bottle. He knows that he’ll forget again if he doesn’t do it as soon as he sees the fountain. As he stands in the tile hall next to the bathrooms, he takes his time in looking at the area. There are a few fliers pinned to a corkboard, although it looks like there should be more. He scans the words, his eyes focus on each detail, differentiating the Helvetica from the Courier from the Arial with ease. Workers Needed: Baristas ; Book Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays ; Housing Rental Available in Park Row . Peter takes a slip of paper from the housing flyer and promises himself that he’ll look into it later.

Screwing the lid to his water bottle shut, he walks into the main area of the library, coming face-to-face with the librarian again.

“Hello Peter!” Barbara smiles at him before she takes a sip of coffee. “How have you been?”

“GOOD” he signs, trying his best to give her a close-lipped smile in return.

“Will you need any help today?” she asks.

“NO” he pauses, as if to break his sentence and start another, “THANK YOU”

“You’re welcome, let me know if you do.”

Peter walks part her and sifts through the books, looking for anything of interest that he can read. Picking up a multidimensional travel theorem book, he settles comfortably on the beanbag he slept on during his first night in Gotham. An hour and a half later Peter finishes the book and he wants to check it out and take it home. Just like he used to with graphic novels when he was a kid. He closes the book and stands up to head over to the computers, remembering what Barbara had said about what she needed in order for him to have access to a library card. An email or a phone number, Peter thinks to himself as he boots up the seemingly ancient computer. He pulls Little Legs out of his bag and introduces Dotty to him before putting him next to the USB port. After L.L. hacks his way through the firewall—which was practically nonexistent—Peter starts setting up a gmail account.

He sits in the chair for what feels like forever as he contemplates what name to use. He knows that there isn’t anyone named ‘Peter Parker’ in the world, from what he can tell. But, he would still like to pay at least a small tribute to the people he doesn’t know if he’ll see again. In the first box he puts ‘Peter’, but in the second he puts ‘Stark’. Finishing the rest of the boxes, it’s easy for him to click ‘I Agree’ to the Terms and Conditions to create the account. He’s already read them several times over from when he was a young teen and creating multiple emails for the various gaming accounts he had. He skipped through the gmail tutorial, making sure to change some of the settings that were on it to match the ones he used with his actual gmail account. The one at home.

While at the computer, he also looks into schools that he can apply for. He remembers all the fun he had at Midtown High, but he mostly remembers that Midtown had great chemistry labs to make his web fluid in, so he tries to look for schools similar to it. ‘Gotham City High School’, ‘Gotham Central High School’, and ‘Cameron Kane High School’ all come up in Peter’s initial search, but upon clicking on their websites he noticed they’re all public schools; a type of school that won’t be able to fund Peter’s illegal stealing of materials. But the one that sticks out to him in particular is ‘Gotham Preperatory High School’. Looking over its website, Peter immediately notes that it says ‘Private School for Teens 14-18’, and then right under it was a button that said ‘Funding Help’. He disregards the age restriction for the time being as he clicks on the funding button.

Upon reaching the page, Peter is met with two different links: ‘Payment Discount’ and ‘Wayne Scholarship’. He obviously clicked the second one first. While reading, Peter decides to take the entrance exam that the page explains he’ll have to take than to try to come up with all of the money to pay for the school himself. Pressing on the sign up button, Peter notices once again that he needs an address to be able to enter. Probably to send him letters, but Peter is annoyed with the fact that they can’t just send him an email and save trees.

Sighing, Peter shuts down the computer after closing out all of his tabs, making yet another mental note to come back the next day after he makes a PO box for himself. He stands up from the desk after he puts Little Legs back into his knapsack, before walking over to the front desk.

“Peter,” Barbara’s voice is upbeat, almost surprised. “What do you need?”

“CAN YOU PUT THIS ON HOLD FOR ME” he asks.

“Of course,” she says. “But why not take it home?”

Peter stumbles across his signs as he tries to answer the question.

“JUST MOVED AND NO ADDRESS” he frowns as his brain works double time to come up with a convincing answer. “ONLY EMAIL”

“Ah,” she says, as if his half-assed answer answers everything. “I’ll keep it by the desk for you until you can make a card.”

“THANK YOU” he grins at her sincerely.

“No problem,” she rustles with something behind her desk before holding out a jar of candies. “Would you like a mint?”

“NO THANK YOU” he shakes his head. “ALLERGIC”

As Peter walks out of the library a shiver crawls up the base of his spine and ends at the bottom of his neck, as if he’s being watched.

Peter wishes he was able to talk just so that he could tell the man at the Post Office counter to quit wasting time. Currently stuck behind two other people in line—one being a sweet old lady with more packages than he wants to count—Peter starts anxiously tapping his foot. If I can’t get this done today it’s just one more day before I can get everything sorted out and I need this, his thoughts run rampant as his mind tunnel visions. I need to be able to go out and be Spider-Man again. I need to.

He is practically pacing in his mind as he tries to keep his thoughts from getting too wild. His stomach growls again, because of course it does, and it interrupts his train of thought. It also, however, attracts the attention of the old lady in front of him.

“Honey, are you alright?” she asks him as she turns around, a heart warming smile setting on her lips as if that’s all she’s ever known.

He nods in return, unsure if she knows sign language, so he’s better without it. 

“Hold on,” she says before rummaging through her bag. As she does so Peter catches one of her boxes, not even noticing what he did until after he did it. “Oh thank you, dear!”

Peter can’t help but grin at the woman. He wondered what she did to stay in such a place, because she was definitely way too good for the dreary city of Gotham City, New Jersey.

“This is what I was looking for,” she pulls out a little bag of sweets before handing him a lollipop. “I hope you like watermelon.”

He nods his head as he unwraps the hard candy and sticking it in his mouth.

“Oh that’s lovely,” she sighs as she closes the bag to put back in her purse. “My little granddaughter absolutely adores the watermelon ones, so I always happen to carry some on me just for her.”

Peter nods along with what she says for the next fifteen minutes as she rambles on with her son and granddaughter, mentioning her son’s wife briefly before disregarding the topic. In which time he learns that her name is Penny (which is short for Pennsylvania for some odd reason) and she wants him to refer to him as Grandma Penny whenever he wants to, and that she wishes her son would let his daughter, Amelia, stay at her home overnight more often. He doesn’t pay much attention to the conversation, content with the sweet she gave him. Soon enough, she was up at the front counter after giving him a piece of hard caramel. After a while she finishes with her packages, and it’s Peter’s turn to go up to the counter.

When reaching the counter, the first thing Peter does is make a motion for a paper and pen with his hands. It takes a moment for the motion to register in the post worker’s head, but he obliges begrudgingly.

‘I would like to open a PO box.’ he writes down, sliding the paper back over to the worker.

After he reads it he says, “What? You’re like… five? Do you even got the money for it?”

‘Yes, I do.’

“I can’t believe this is my job,” the worker mutters before sighing in an exasperated manner, “Small, medium, or large size?”

‘What are the rates?’ Peter asks.

“5, 10, and 15 dollars.”

‘Small.’ he might have sprung for the medium sized box if it was more like seven dollars. Maybe it’s good that the price is ten dollars for the medium PO box, Peter thinks. I don’t have that much money to spend, anyway.

He pockets the paper and pen on the way out, almost inconspicuous. He did have to do a bit of thievery as a young kid when he was homeless with Aunt May, so it’s not like it’s that hard for him to do. Even though it was only about noon, Peter felt more accomplished and more tired than ever before. Peter doesn’t know what to do next, really. Stuck between options, Peter wanders around to try and find Penny. He knows that he shouldn’t do what he’s about to do, but asking won’t hurt. He writes as he walks, trying to make the future conversation as smooth as possible.

look! danger! help!

Rounding a corner, Peter is faced with an otherwise irritating sight. He finds Penny, stuck in the middle of the road, being almost attacked by two men with what looks to be guns in their waistbands. Practically infuriated, Peter makes his way over to them. He almost coughs at the cigarette one of the two is smoking. But he doesn’t, because he wants to look at least a little tough when he protects his favorite old lady. He feels the pitter-patter of Dotty’s legs as she crawls out from under his hoodie, perching defensively on his shoulder. He steps in front of Penny, glaring at the two men in front of him.

“Aww, who’s this?” one of them—that Peter nicknames Scar—coos.

“Grandson come to rescue his Grandmama? How cute,” the other responds.

Peter doesn’t bother listening to the words they speak, instead calculating exactly where in the knee he should kick one of them.

“The baby’s too scared to say something,” Scar mocks, “Look!”

It’s then that Peter swings his leg, Of course, he doesn’t use the full strength of what he can use, but it’s enough force that he might want to get it checked out for fractures.

“OW! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL!” the second—who Peter now dubs Knee—swears like a sailor. He wouldn’t be surprised if that's a side hustle of Knee’s.

“What the–” Scar takes a step back before pulling out the gun he held in his pocket.

light! attack!

Peter doesn't know exactly what his Peter Tingle means by 'light' but he listens to it anyway. He's quick to grab the gun by it’s barrel, pulling sneakily on the disassembly lever before pulling it apart.

“Jesus Christ!” Scar exclaims, starting to back up. “Fuck that!”

“I’m right with ya,” Knee follows as they both run (Knee hobbles) away.

Turning around, Peter checks Pennsylvania over, making sure that she’s alright.

“Honey, what’s wrong with you?!” she exclaims, pressing her hands on each of his cheeks in good Grandmother-fashion. As she presses his cheeks together, his canines start to tear into Peter’s cheeks and blood starts to draw in his mouth. “Come, come.”

She takes his hand and starts to pull him somewhere. In a couple minutes, the both of them reach a townhouse before going up the stairs. Penny makes a fuss over her keys for just a moment before finding the right one and pushing it in the lock. Gesturing for him to come inside, Penny turns on the lights. “You sit on the couch and I’ll make you something to eat. You shouldn’t have done that, especially at your size!”

All he can do is comply, so he sits down tediously on the edge of the couch, setting his knapsack down by his feet. Peter tries to take up as little space as possible as he waits for her to be done in the kitchen. He’s glad that he won’t have to waste money on more food, even if he is okay with spending it.

After around ten awkward minutes of Peter sitting alone in a woman’s living room, Penny finally walks over to him with a glass of Kool-Aid and reheated lasagna. Peter doesn’t mind—or even really notice—the amount of sugar that’s lacking from the drink mixture as he digs into the meal.

Chapter Text

Peter finally relaxes after his third helping of the lasagna, even though he can feel a slight itch flaring in the back of his throat. He’s grateful for Pennsylvania’s hospitality and starts to feel a little guilty for what he’s about to ask. She smiles at him, clearing his plate.

“Do you want any more, hon?” she asks before returning his plate to the kitchen.

He shakes his head no, smiling back at her. As she walks away, Peter pulls out the piece of paper that has since crumpled in his pocket from the last time he had it in his hand. Standing up, he finds Penny in the kitchen putting his plate in the sink to wash later. She turns to supposedly head back to him, and teeters back in surprise and clutches her heart as she almost runs into him.

“Oh!” her voice is airy while she catches herself on the counter.

He frowns, not knowing how to express that he’s sorry in the same manner he would if he could talk. He holds up his hands, hoping that the intent of apologizing is taken.

“It’s alright, lad.” she smiles and tries to make light of the situation. “You’re just so quiet, I didn’t know you were there!”

Peter grimaces as he nods along to her sentence. She is right, after all. Holding out the wrinkled piece of paper, he tries not to look in her direction as he reads the words on the page and opts to stare at the floor instead due to his anxiety (it might be his fear of rejection instead). He looks up after almost a complete minute of complete silence. When his eyes reach Pennsylvania’s, he finds her looking him up and down.

“Uh huh…” he can tell she’s suspicious of him. “And you aren’t going to try and rob me or anything, are ya? Because I’ll have you know I can knock any bastard out any day of the week.”

Peter’s reaction is slightly delayed due to her cursing taking him off guard. He also heavily doubts that she’d be able to knock him out—even with a good swing of a baseball bat—but he vigorously shakes his head no regardless.

“Of course then, honey.” Peter isn’t sure if she actually knows his name—or rather, if he ever gave it to her—with how much she calls him ‘Honey’. “You’ll have to sleep on the couch since I only have one extra room, but I hope that’s alright with you.”

He nods, smiling. She hands him back his paper and he he writes something else on it before handing it back to her.

“You’re welcome, Peter.” she says, reading his note. “Now, about your sleeping arrangements.”

He follows her quietly as she wanders around her house. Dotty is interested even, quirking her head it the lovely grandmother who’s fussing over how comfortably Peter should sleep. Peter couldn’t care much about his actual sleeping situation, just so that he has a roof over his head when he does knock himself unconscious. Wandering back into the kitchen, he finds nothing better to do than the dishes that Penny had put in the sink. He had been ingrained from previous experiences that bad manners aren’t acceptable and will not go unpunished, and so he’ll do the dishes for Penny every day if she asked. Especially since she’s so nice.

Hearing the clattering in the kitchen, Pennsylvania goes into the room to find Peter with his arms up as he does the dishes in steaming-hot water.

“Petey, move, I’ll do those don’t worry,” she says and tries to move him out of the way of the sink. But Peter does not budge. In fact, he only sinks into his stance firmer as he does the dishes. She tries one last time before sighing in a tone that Peter has heard a million times before from Pepper. One that says ‘I’m too tired to deal with this’. Peter grins in accomplishment.

He listens to her heartbeat and the pitter-patter of her feet as she moves back into the front room. Her shuffling slowly filters into welcomed background noise. He finishes the dishes quickly and sets them on a plastic drying rack Penny has on her limited counterspace. After washing his hands again in the sink, he wipes them dry on the towel hanging from one of the drawers. Peter’s nose twitches at the dish soap and food smell that clings to his hands and lingers in his nostrils. He isn’t a fan.

He is delighted to the sight he comes back to. The couch somehow has turned into a bed—he thinks Pennsylvania is a magician for just a second before thinking that the idea is kind of an insult to Stephen Strange, even if she’s a million times cooler than he is in Peter’s book—with a bunch of handmade quilts on top of it. He knows he heard squeaking in the room, but he didn’t know what was happening. He doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head like a teacher, even though he thinks it would be pretty cool to have.

Peter grins as widely as possible without showing too much of the inside of his mouth, since he knows it will most likely land him back on the streets before he can even think about trying to explain. He doesn’t go in for a hug though, even if he wants to. He doesn’t know her boundaries with that and also doesn’t know if he himself is comfortable with a hug. Maybe that it’s too soon, or maybe he just doesn’t want to get too close to the nice old lady, but hugging did not seem like the most optimal idea at the moment. Walking up to the faux bed, he flops down on it face-first and lays in a T-pose for more time than is considered ‘normal’.

“Glad to see you’ve taken a liking to it, Peter.” he can hear the smirk through Penny’s tone of voice. “It’s yours.”

For the time being, he mentally tacks on to the end of her sentence. He doesn’t want to take up her space for too long, so he pledges to himself that he’ll leave Pennsylvania alone after a couple of days after getting a job. He sticks up a thumbs up in response to her sentence. The soft tapping of Dotty’s feet shifts from his shoulder to the couch, and he turns his head to watch as she explores the new area. On occasion, Peter’s glad that he isn’t an actual spider and just has the genetic code of one in his DNA. He can’t imagine ever being that small and having everything be so big, nor can he imagine trying to traverse using more than just the two legs—and two arms—he has. Eight has always seemed excessive to him, but he isn’t one to judge. He does do practically the same things as they do, just with a little more… oomf.

Penny laughs a small amount before she leaves Peter to his shenanigans on the couch. The ticking of the clock on the wall puts him in a sort of trance, annoyingly captivating as he watches as the second-hand turns from one tick mark to another. He doesn’t know exactly how long he’s stuck in that position (he does since he was staring at the clock, but he doesn’t remember what time he started) but when he’s done it’s closer to three o’clock than it was to midday. Standing up, he notices Penny on the shabby reclining chair next to him sewing away. He opens his knapsack and taps Little Legs awake before discreetly placing him under his hoodie next to Dotty. He turns around and watches Penny as she moves her fingers numbly, catching and poking the needle as if she knows what she’s doing by heart (she does). After a moment, she looks up at him.

“Do you need something, Peter?” her voice is sweet like honey, but not smooth like it—-that would be more like Loki, and Pennsylvania isn’t anything like him according to Peter.

He jabs his thumb toward the door, trying his best to indicate that he’s going out.

She seems to get the gist of it when she responds with, “You’re going out? Alright. Be back soon and safely. And don’t do any drugs.” 

He nods in response, slightly appalled that she added on the last sentence but glad to know she doesn’t have any further questions to ask. Peter makes sure to close the door gently behind him when he leaves the house, and he doesn’t leave until he hears Penny turn the lock from the inside. He walks down the cracked sidewalk, trying not to trip on any of the holes in the concrete. Peter continues on and out of the street, passing the Post Office that he left only hours ago. Turning down several more streets he finally makes it back to the library for his second visit of the day. Inside, he beelines immediately for the computers once again. At this point, he doesn’t have to tell L.L. what he wants him to do, as they’ve both been there enough times to know the same routine. Plugging himself into the USB port, Peter logs in and opens the Gotham Prep page. He goes to the scholarship page and plugs in his information, this time adding his new PO box address to complete the form. He lies about his birthday, making him fourteen, and committing yet another federal crime. Submitting it, Peter is happy to see that the school year hasn’t gotten too far, only a couple of weeks, and he hasn’t missed too much. His entrance exam is in two days—-Saturday—-and he has to look at the very least… presentable. This is a problem for Peter, as he’s been wearing the same outfit for the past two days straight. He probably smells worse than he looks. But he hasn’t been sweating much recently, so he’s unsure if that previous statement is completely accurate. Turning off the computer, he collects Little Legs before going up the counter.

“Peter, welcome back!” Barbara smiles. “Are you here to check out that book you asked me to hold?”

He nods before signing, “DOES P-O BOX WORK”

“Yes, a PO box does work as your address,” she says, even if she doesn’t sound too pleased about it. She slides over a form and allows him to look at it before saying, “Just fill this out and I’ll put all of your information into the system.”

Peter gives her a thumbs-up with one hand and grabs a pen from the desk with the other. He readjusts his headphones before answering the prompts. ‘Name: Peter Stark’ , ‘Age: 14’ , ‘Email: [email protected]’ , and ‘Address:PO Box 332 Palance St. Gotham, NJ’ . Sliding the paper back over to Barbara, she takes it and puts it into a scanner.

“Your library card should be available in a couple of days,” she says, looking back at him.

“THANK YOU” he nods as Dotty comes out from under his hoodie.

Barbara notices almost immediately and just about screams. “Peter!”

He quirks his head as if a spider poking out from under his clothes is a normal occurrence, which for him it is. “WHAT”

Barbara is also now confused at Peters reaction to her outburst. “You know you have a spider,” she shivers, “under your shirt, right?”

“YES” his lips quirk up in fondness for his spider friend. “D-O-T-T-Y”

“…Ah.” she doesn’t have much of a reaction after that. “Do they allow those in school?”

What, Peters mind blanks for a moment too long. “YES”

She squints at him and Peter doesn’t think he can take the skepticism he’s facing any longer. Turning on his heel, Peter almost sprints for the exit. Opening the door, Peter runs into a tall man with black hair.

“Oh! Sorry, kid,” he hears the man say, but he’s too focused on getting out on the awkward situation to use his manners. He runs for only a couple of blocks, giving Little Legs and Dotty soothing pats once he slows down. Coming to a stop, Peter notices that he’s lost. He figures that the distraction of getting out of a stressful situation took too much of his concentration away from the topic of his whereabouts. He shrugs before starting to wander around, figuring that if he stays within a couple block radius of where he is originally, he’ll be able to find his way back to Penny’s house.

Tim Drake cannot stand Peter Stark. Well, he can, it’s just that there’s no information about him anywhere. He was concerned about the kid, for the most part, when he first met him on top of a particularly tall roof. But when Peter juked him in that same building's bathroom and took off all of the trackers Tim had placed on him in case of emergency, he just got pissed off. But then hearing from Babs that Peter was in the Gotham Library looking particularly scroungy and somehow hacking his way through a library computer—not that it’s hard; he can do it in his sleep—the next morning, that’s when Tim was finally intrigued.

He wouldn’t go so far as to say he was the best with computers (he would), but Tim thinks he’s one of the best people to ask when you’re trying to find information. So finding nothing when he tries to look Peter up on any kind of search is pissing him off. He first started with a generic search on his own computer on Google, looking up Peter as well as any Mr. and Mrs. Stark that count as Peter’s parents. Looking into the searches, there are only a few results, but none of them come close to being Peter or his parents. The youngest Stark that Tim found during his Google searchathon is 72 years old and currently in hospice care.

Deciding that it’s just a lack of options, Tim goes downstairs to look at the batcomputer. He’s stopped once by Alfred Pennyworth to make sure that his coffee intake hadn’t reached past the point of no return. Reassuring him that this was only his second cup, Tim was able to leave freely and head into the BatCave. Tim would keep the secret that he had 3 other cups that morning and that this was his second of the afternoon to his grave. Sitting at the BatComputer, he uses Batman’s login information to unlock the computer. Tim has a time limit placed on his login ever since he sat at the computer for over a week straight trying to start a pattern log of all the villains in the world and organizing them by class because he was bored. Even though that was over 2 years ago, he’ll never be able to live it down.

Plugging in all the information Tim has on Peter into the BatComputer, he frowns when the search comes up empty. He thought the BatComputer is the best tech in the world. B’s gonna have to update his tech, because this is awful, Tim thinks. It’s no better than Google.

He pulls up the CCTV footage of Peter going into the library, zooming in to his face and then running it through facial recognition. He pounds his coffee as he waits, getting up to get another cup before the computer finishes. Once it does, all that shows up are images from the past two days.

“What the fuck?!” he pounds on the desk, spilling a bit of coffee on the desk that Batman will get mad at him for later.

“Please mind your language, Master Tim.” Alfred’s voice echos from somewhere in the house down to his ears. Tim has never figured out how Alfred has managed to know exactly when anyone in the BatCave curses nor does he know how Alfred can sound so monotone while calling so far, since the cave is soundproofed to the rest of Wayne Manor.

“Sorry!” he calls in response.

Tim stays in the chair until way past he should. His eyes are dry from not blinking as he stares at the large screen, practically swallowing the blue light into his skin. He doesn’t hear as his name is called more than once as he continues to look into more options as to where Peter could possibly be from, because to Tim, anyone who hasn’t been seen by at least 20 different CCTV cameras doesn’t exist.

He feels a weight on his shoulder, jumps, and starts to try and take his attacker down. Except his attacker was Batman, and Batman wasn’t trying to attack him.

“B!” he raises his eyebrows in surprise, high on caffeine. “I hate this kid!”

Batman grunts in response.

“Hey, Timmie…!” a familiar voice calls, but Tim pays it no mind.

“He’s actually nowhere to be seen! Except for here, of course.” Tim plops himself back into the chair.

“How long have you been on the BatComputer?” Batman’s monotone voice drills.

“Not too long…” he tries to skate around the subject.

Once again, Alfred's magical listening skills seem to bite Tim in the ass as he says, “About five hours now, Master Bruce.”

“Bed.” is the one command that is given, but Tim begs to disagree.

“But B, I’m so close to cracking this case wide open! Just another hour!” he pleads like a kid who’s getting their iPad privileges taken away.

“Now.”

“C’mon Tim, let's go.” Richard Grayson’s empathetic smile comes from behind Batman, in full civilian clothing and nothing to trace him back to Nightwing (unless you count his face). He reaches out and takes Tim by the shoulders before turning him away from the computer.

In response, he digs his heels into the floor and tries to resist the push, but is met with the astounding response of being picked up. He starts kicking and swinging his fists, letting his inner four-year-old finally take over. But the idea is a bust because he soon starts to tire himself out before becoming dead weight on Dick’s shoulder for him to carry upstairs.

Peter got home about 2 hours ago, after being lost for what seemed like eternity. He’s laying on his couch-bed with his eyes open, trying to recount the past two days of being shipped off and abandoned in fuck-all New Jersey. He lists off the things he’s done: the PO box, library card, food, water, bag, hoodie, books. He also lists off the people he’s met: Barbara, Grandma Penny, Red Robin, Knee and Scar, Motorcycle Guy, Dotty, Amelia. He tries to follow the ticking of the clock to stay awake, staring at the ceiling.

He feels extremely lucky to be able to have met the people he has, the ones that help him even when he doesn’t ask for it. Peter doesn’t want to admit that he’s starting to maybe like it in Gotham, so he won’t.

Perchance.

Chapter Text

Peter wakes up with hair in his eyes and drool down his cheek, rotated 90 degrees with one foot hanging off the edge of the couch. Sitting up, he runs his hand through his hair a couple of times to try and remedy the rat's nest he knows was created during the hellish sleep he had. Pushing the blankets off him, he yawns as he makes his way into the kitchen. Checking the fridge, he pulls out a jug of apple juice before pouring himself a glass to drink. As he sets the juice back into the fridge he decides that he should be a good roommate—if that’s even what he should call himself—to Pennsylvania and make breakfast for the two of them. He pulls out the egg carton and sets a pan on the stove before getting to work. Chopping up some vegetables, Peter heats up some pieces of bacon to cut as well. He whisks all of the ingredients for omelets together before pouring half of the mixture on the pan. Peter looks in the cabinets and finds some coffee grounds to use. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices the coffee machine that’s hidden behind several other cooking machines.

Peter can hear Penny’s breathing hitch for just a moment as the coffee machine makes a loud screech as he pulls it forward. He winces in both pain and embarrassment. Opening the lid, Peter scoops some of the coffee grounds in. He figures that he should ask Penny before he starts making it how strong she likes her coffee, but he doesn’t want to wake her just yet. Peter lets the coffee brew as he gets back to the omelets, the first one almost finished. The sizzling of the eggs is much less than music to his ear, and the drops of coffee as it brews feel like a personal attack against Peter’s bladder. Running the risk, Peter dashes at an insanely inhuman speed to the bathroom, relieves himself, and dashes back. But it seems like his Parker Luck hasn’t left him—not even after the name change—because he comes back to a burnt omelet that’s starting to smoke.

No, no, no no no!! Peter’s mind runs rampant as he tries to find a fire extinguisher. Coming up empty, Peter turns off the stove and pours its contents in the sink before dousing it with plenty of water. He sighs in disbelief and sinks to the floor. How does my stupid luck manage to stay with me but my voice doesn’t?

Standing back up with the pan in hand, he sets it back on the counter before trying again with the other half of the omelet mix. This time he won’t be leaving. Not even if Tony Stark was knocking on the door to Penny’s house (that’s a lie, he’d do anything to see Tony on the other side of the door. Or MJ. Or Ned. Or just about anyone, if he’s being honest). He pours the coffee into two separate cups on the counter as he listens to everything that his headphones allow him to. At least, everything that he allows himself to hear through his headphones. He listens to the crackling of the gas stove and the whirring of the fridge. He listens to the pitter-patter of the ant line outside and the creaking of the floors upstairs that indicate Pennsylvania moving around. Peter smiles in comfort, glad he’s not alone in the house—if he was there would be bigger fish to fry than just some burnt omelet. As she creaks down the stairs, Peter plates her omelet and sets it down on her small kitchen table.

“Peter?” Penny calls when she reaches the bottom of the stairs. He thinks she knows he won’t verbally respond, so he waits for her in the kitchen. “What smells burnt?”

Peters ears turns red in embarrassment as she wanders into her kitchen.

“Oh you sweet summer child,” she gasps at the sight of breakfast. Grabbing his cheeks, she plants a kiss on his forehead.

He turns away from her, trying to escape from her tight grip. Peter is reminded too much of his Aunt May when Pennsylvania does that. He takes a step back to allow her space to eat her breakfast, and he sits on the counter and sips his coffee. His stomach rumbles, but he isn’t too deterred by it. Frying another egg from where he’s sitting on the counter—which he shouldn’t be doing—Peter eats it straight out of the pan. He hops off the counter and tries to ignore his mostly empty stomach as he walks into the front room to grab his knapsack and Dotty. Finding a stray piece of paper, Peter grabs a pencil to write down a note for Penny. ‘I’ll be out for a while, Grandma Penny. See you later!’ He puts the note next to her before walking towards the door.

“Have a good day, Peter!” she shouts. Peter winces, his ears picking up more of the sound than he would have liked. He closes the door as slow as possible, trying to not slam it for the sake of his ears. 

Walking out of the neighborhood, Peter heads directly to the library. He forgot to check where Gotham Prep is, so he figures it’s better to check where it is the day before than to go find it blind (he could find it easily with his hearing, but that would take too long). As he walks, Peter picks up the sound of a familiar heartbeat amidst all of the others. Motorcycle Guy, Peter thinks in a small panic. His eyes dart around and he finds the man easily by the white tuft of hair on his head. He takes only a second to file away the man’s other features before putting his hood up, making sure to not bother Dotty, and walk around the man. He doesn’t break a sweat as he starts moving faster and faster, almost breaking into a jog to reach the library.

Once inside the building, Peter takes a minute and pushes his back against the door before composing himself.

“Good morning, Peter,” Barbara says as she looks up from her computer. 

He waves in response, heading over to the computers.

“Oh, Peter! Here’s your card,” she stops him and holds up a piece of plastic. “I had it prioritized so you could check out your book.”

“THANK YOU” he signs as he walks to the desk before grabbing the card and his book.

“It’s no problem. I’ve already checked the book out for you with your card, just remember to bring it back in two weeks.”

He gives a tight-lipped smile before turning away. For once, when he sits down at the computers he doesn’t ask Little Legs to help him hack into the systems. Signing in with his card, Peter opens a tab and types in ‘Gotham Preparatory School Address’. Looking at the page, Peter also pulls up a map of Gotham to check the distance. His eyes bulge as he notices the length from where he is to where he should be. Clicking a button on the map, he notices the subway system underground that could work as his transportation, even though it had the worst reviews ever.

Sighing, Peter shuts down the computer and stuffs his library book into his knapsack before heading out. He knows exactly where he’s going—to the nearest thrift store. Walking for approximately 10 minutes, Peter makes it to a little store filled to the brim with cheap clothes. Going in he is immediately faced with the distinct smell of a thrift store that doesn’t seem to differ between worlds. It’s somehow worse in this place, but he pushes through anyway. Sifting through the clothes, he found clothes that almost fit him and came together in a set. There wasn’t a tie, but Peter doesn’t care that much. He already looks insane enough as a small kid with headphones on doing a scholarship exam once the school year already started, he doesn’t think he can look much worse.

Going up the the register, Peter pulls out his wad of cash and pales a little at the cost, $10.54 with tax, that shows up on the screen. Sighing, Peter gives up eleven dollars to get 46 cents in return (and his clothes that he’s only going to wear once). Holding onto the bag tightly, he starts making his way back to Penny’s house. He’s spent only a little time outside and wants to be out longer, but he doesn’t trust anyone in this city one bit. Knocking on the door, he shuffles his feet as he listens to Pennsylvania move around inside. Peter watches as her lips spread into a smile as she opens the door.

“Back so soon?”

He just nods in return, smiling. Setting his bag on the couch, Peter stops in the kitchen for a minute and grabs a glass of milk to chug down. He knows it isn’t enough to make him less hungry, but it’s what’s available and easy to make. He also grabs a couple of slices of turkey, horking each slice down inelegantly. Burping, Peter gives himself a satisfied smirk before making his way back to the door.

“Mind your manners,” Penny scolds him as he makes his way past her, slapping him upside the head.

“SORRY” he winces from the pain as he signs out of habit, not thinking that she might not know it. "SORRY SORRY SORRY”

“Sign language?” she asks.

Peter tilts his head before nodding slowly.

“My husband used to do that—he lost his hearing during his time in the military,” she smiles softly. “Could never get him to wear his hearing aid.”

“SORRY” Peter frowns.

“It’s alright, hon.” she pats him on the shoulder. “I’m a little rusty—haven’t done it in a while—but I’ll try to understand you.”

Peter can’t help but smile. Covering his mouth with his hands he smiles fully, exposing his teeth. I should buy some masks or something, he thinks as he closes his mouth. Readjusting his headphones, Peter moves toward the door.

“GOING OUT” he signs before reaching for the doorknob.

“Have fun, Petey!” she waves at him as he leaves.

Peter sighs as he thinks about the remaining 32 dollars and 52 cents in his pockets. He knows he has the bank account that he made for Tony, but he doesn’t want to touch that money unless it’s for school purposes such as field trips or uniforms. Kicking a stone as he wanders, Peter bumps into someone accidentally (he doesn’t know how that happened).

look! familiar!

“My ba–” the person’s sentence stops midway through.

Peter looks up from the ground to be met with Motorcycle Guy again. Oh crap.

“Hey, where’d you go? Are you okay?” his concern was almost immediate. “You were gone when I got back.”

Slowly, Peter starts to back up and move away from the man, who just seems to follow him at the exact pace he’s moving. In one fluid movement, Peter spins on his heel and starts sprinting. He looks over at Dotty, who is sticking as best as she can onto his shoulder from inside his hoodie.

“Hold up!” the man calls out from behind him, starting to run as well.

Peter does the opposite and picks up his pace even more. Making sudden turns left and right, Peter doesn’t know where he’s going. All he knows is that he’s going to shake this tail even if he breaks something in the process. He cuts into a person’s yard before climbing up the chain fence and gracefully falling off the other side, tucking into a roll before moving onward. He can hear Motorcycle Guy cursing as he pulls himself over the fence, but by that time Peter is already across the next street and jumping another. In a state of desperation, Peter looks left and right only once before climbing up the back of someone’s house and slinking down onto their roof.

close!

Lightly, he crawls over to the center of the building, listening to the quiet panting of the man trying to track him down. As he passes him, Peter sighs in relief and jumps down from the building. Looking right to left, Peter heads in the opposite direction.

Jason doesn’t know who this kid is but he’s starting to grow on his nerves. First, he takes the kid home out of the goodwill of his heart because he can’t stand to see the kid shivering in the rain. And he then leaves without a word and takes half of his food with him. Jason doesn’t even know how such a small person can eat that much. Secondly, when he runs into the kid again randomly during a stroll the kid runs. He thinks that one is actually kind of reasonable; a kid from Crime Alley being skittish around an adult at least three times his size. But when he chases after him the kid gets away. He’s actually much faster than what Jason expected him to be, and not being able to catch him is a bruise to his ego (not that he’ll admit it). Slowing back to his original pace, he pants as he walks and tries to maintain his posture. Three minutes later, Jason is back to normal.

He would talk to the others about the kid, but he doesn’t trust them just enough still. Even after being revived and trying to resolve his… “issues”. 

Jason also hates the spider that the kid has on his shoulder or somewhere in his clothes 100% of the time. Spiders were never his favorite animal, and even though he loves reading books, it usually isn’t anything scientific. He still gets a slight shiver down his spine whenever he thinks about the spider that crawled out when he took off the kid’s hoodie. But he dealt with it.

Jason can’t help but want to make sure the kid’s alright, for some odd reason. He looks somewhat cleaner than the last time he saw him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s better. He makes a note of where he ran into him. Maybe he lives nearby, he thinks. I’ll keep an eye out during patrols.

Sitting still in the middle of the night is not how Peter wants to spend the night before his scholarship exam. His hair drips from the shower he took only an hour ago. Shaking his hair to try and dry it a little more, he tries not the disturb Dotty as he stands up. He tries not to be nosy but ultimately fails as he looks through her hall closet. In it he finds fabric, cleaning supplies, goggles, thread, needles, and a sewing machine. He smiles, thinking he has hit the jackpot. He uses one of his web-shooters to pull the tub down from its shelf. As he pulls it down, Peter jumps at the sound of a motorcycle whipping through the street.

familiar! bye!

Peter questions his Spider-Sense as it tells him that he knows the person on the motorcycle before thinking: Motorcycle Guy.

He sets the tub of fabric on the floor before sitting next to it and sifting through the materials. He immediately looks for his signature red and blue, but upon only seeing a little blue, he also drifts to the black as well. He figures he’ll use the blue sparingly, such as the spider design. Satisfied with his sorting, he places the unneeded colors—such as seafoam green and hot pink—back into the tub. He has to grab a stepstool, which is honestly one of his worst nightmares, to put the fabrics back. Peter stuffs the ones he wants underneath the pull-out couch before he lays down on the bed to try to go back to sleep, this time successful.

Waking up the next day, he doesn’t have the time to make breakfast for Pennsylvania again. Taking off his normal clothes, Peter changes quickly into his “formal wear” that barely fits him. Dotty waits for his hand to climb onto him, but he doesn’t offer it. He wishes he could tell her that he doesn’t think he can take a spider with him to a very formal entrance exam for the school he’s trying to impress. She seems to sulk, but Peter pets her once before heading to the kitchen to grab something. Opening the fridge, Peter grabs some turkey slices before stuffing it into his mouth. He closes the door before sticking an apple between his teeth and grabbing a pen and paper to write a note to Penny. ‘Grandma Penny, I’ll be gone for a school scholarship exam. Please don’t worry and I’ll be back later.’ Signing the note, Peter leaves it on the counter. 

As he walks back into the front room, Dotty looks at him with a particularly pleading look. He sighs in defeat and reaches down for her to climb up on his shoulder. Grabbing his knapsack, Peter takes out his super suit just in case they do bag checks at the exam. He pulls up the couch cushions and throws the battered suit under it so that Penny won’t find it. Swinging the bag on his shoulder, Peter checks to make sure everything is in order before leaving the house. He bites into the apple as he walks on the sidewalk. He finishes with it quickly, chucking it into someone's garbage can. Peter finds the subway entrance quickly now that he knows where it’s supposed to be. Jogging down the stairs, he hops over the turnstile in true New Yorker fashion. He looks at the subway map and finds the stop he has to get off at fairly quickly. Standing on the platform, Peter waits anxiously for the correct subway to make its way onto the platform.

I really need a watch… he thinks to himself as he watches the second train go by. Finally, the correct subway train makes its way onto the platform and Peter scurries inside. Sitting down on a lone bench, Peter digits nervously with his hands. Dotty notices and crawls down from his shoulder onto his hands, and he starts petting her instead.

eyes! watching!

Peter discreetly looks up at his surroundings and sees several people looking at him. Well, looking at Dotty specifically. He shrinks in on himself at the attention, but she preens instead. She does a little twirl on his hands, and he can’t help but breathe out through his nose to suppress a giggle. He continues to watch Dorry, not noticing the one person who notices him from their one run-in.

Getting off the train, Peter runs out of the carriage, not knowing what time it is. Hopping the other turnstile, Peter jogs up the escalator and looks around for a street sign. Spotting one, Peter digs through his memory to find where he needs to go. Turning on his heel, Peter walks down one of the roads before making a left and coming across Gotham Preparatory High School. Walking in through the gate, he checks his headphones before he shrugs his knapsack before placing Dotty in it, signing a quick ‘sorry’ to her. 

Slinging the bag onto his back, he walks to the front door and presses the bell. The doors click and he walks into the building before turning into the front office.

“Hello,” the secretary—a short Hispanic woman—says. “How may I help you?”

Peter’s surprised. He has never seen such an attentive school secretary before. Rich people things, he assumes. He makes a gesture for a pen and paper to write on.

“That won’t be necessary, I’m well versed in sign language if you’re more comfortable with that.”

“HERE FOR EXAM” he signs. “PETER STARK”

“Ah, yes. If you’ll just follow me, your exam will be in our auditorium.”

Peter trails behind the woman through the extensive amount of hallways in the building until they reach the room to the side of the school. Walking in, Peter is immediately amazed at the decor and the size of the entire room.

“Your seat is just down there,” she gestures down to the front of the room. “Good luck.”

“THANK YOU” he signs before walking to the front row and sitting down in front of another adult.

Peter finds the exam extremely easy. Having been in high school for a couple of years already, most of the test work was already pretty simple. But during the math and science sections what really helped was his time working with Tony Stark in his lab. As he turns in the test, he’s almost certain that he got all of the questions (he doesn’t doubt that he got a few English questions wrong; it was never his forte).

“Your acceptance or rejection letter will be sent to you by tomorrow. You will also be sent a singular uniform for free if you are accepted.” he is handed a form. “Please fill this out with your measurements. We have a measuring tape if you need to be sure.”

Peter reaches for the measuring tape, putting his full body, wrist, waist, chest, and hip measurements onto the form before handing it back over to the proctor.

“Thank you for signing up. You will now be escorted out.”

Peter turns around to see the same secretary back at the doors, ready to lead him out. He grabs his knapsack from the floor and follows her out.

“THANK YOU” he signs from the front door.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Stark. I hope to see you on Monday.” she waves as he walks away.

He stops halfway to the gate, putting his bag down and taking out a quite pissed-off Dotty. He tries to convey through facial expressions that he’s sorry, but she seems to turn her head away as she crawls up to her spot on his shoulder. Walking through the gates, Peter goes down to the subway to jump the turnstile again before his Peter Tingle stops him.

eyes! right!

Looking to his right, Peter spots a lone Gotham Cop. Turning on his heel, Peter immediately exits the subway station. Now with no real understanding of how to get back to Penny’s house, Peter looks at a map conveniently placed outside of the entrance that he hadn’t noticed before. He reads the map, logging what roads he has to pass and turn on to get back to Crime Alley.

Peter’s stomach starts growling again as he starts walking. Digging into his bag, Peter opens a ramen pack and barely considers any other options before biting into the hard noodles. It pains him to waste food like this, but with barely any money left for him to spend, he has to spend as little as possible. Finishing the block of ramen quickly, Peter continues to walk. When he exited the school, he noticed that the time was close to 1 P.M., which meant that the exam took him approximately four hours. He knows that his train ride was about 45 minutes long and that an average train goes 18 miles per hour. He also knows that an average person his age walks 3 miles per hour, which means he has about a five-hour walk to get home. A particularly awful end to his day.

As he walks, his pace starts to get slower and slower as he runs on less and less energy until he’s barely picking up his feet to walk back. Almost back, it’s darker than dark. If it wasn’t for both Peter’s decent night vision and the flickering street lights, he would have been completely lost.

hello! familiar!

Peter’s head whips around until he zeros in on one of the many vigilantes in the city, Red Robin. Taking a minute to process the fact that it’s most likely not a normal thing to notice when someone who’s trained to be stealthy is trailing you, he turns his head away. But it’s too late as they’re already on their way down.

“Peter!” he calls as he lands on the sidewalk. “Glad to see you.”

He squints his eyes in return. He distinctly remembers the last time they met and how he had to take off a tracker planted on his clothes. “SURE”

“How have you been?”

“FINE” Peter’s trust radar is blowing off the hinges in the wrong direction that a vigilante should be heading for.

“What are you doing out so late at night?”

“GETTING TO HOUSE”

“Oh? I’ll walk you,” Red Robin offers.

“NO THANK YOU”

“You keep saying that.”

And you never take the words to heart, Peter rolls his eyes. Turning back around, Peter continues on and doesn’t pay much attention to the vigilante behind him. When they reach Crime Alley though, Red Robin’s demeanor changes into one of slight stress. Peter can hear his heartbeat pick up.

“Uh… Peter, where are you going? It’s not safe in there.”

“HOUSE” Peter rolls his eyes, stepping down the road. He expects Red to follow him, but instead, he stops in his tracks. He raises an eyebrow for a moment but doesn’t have the willpower to question it. He can hear him mumble into his earpiece as he walks away from the vigilante.

“Oracle, let Hood know Peter’s in his… domain,” is the sentence that’s said last by Red Robin before the sound of a grappling hook shoots off in an opposite direction.

Great, another vigilante to deal with, Peter sighs. I don’t have the energy for this bullshit. Climbing up a fire escape, Peter starts to jump from different buildings' roofs to get back to Pennsylvania’s. From the streets, he hears the roaring of a motorcycle zipping down one of the roads. Peter watches as someone with a red helmet zips past the building he’s balancing on. Too tired and hungry to care, Peter continues to walk on the roof line of the buildings within Crime Alley. When he makes it back to Penny’s he knocks on the door before checking the handle, surprised—but thankful—that it was left unlocked for him. Slipping inside, he throws his knapsack on the floor before raiding the kitchen. He cooks the last of Penny’s eggs on the stovetop and fills her toaster with multiple pieces of bread. Grabbing a plate and a fork, Peter sets his food on his dish and sits at the dining table. Hungrier than he would ever like to be again, Peter shovels down his late-night breakfast quicker than a vacuum cleans a carpet.

After washing his dish in the sink, Peter doesn’t care enough to get out of his clothes—only taking off his jacket—before setting down Dotty carefully and throwing himself onto the couch cushions. Almost immediately he falls into a deeper sleep than he thinks he ever has before, glad to get some rest after walking for over 6 hours.

Peter wakes up to the creaking of stairs. He doesn’t feel like opening his eyes, but he knows exactly what step Pennsylvania is on every time she descends one more. He makes the mistake of shifting under his covers, though. As he moves so do his headphones, and his ears are left exposed when unprepared. He does take them off when he showers, but he puts in earplugs to try and minimize the sound (it doesn’t help as much as his headphones, which he’s still convinced are laced with some type of magic, but they do help a little). Almost yelping out in pain from the noise—ranging from tires screeching and guns being drawn to yelling in houses and heartbeats from miles away—that protrudes in his ears. Adding to injury, his Peter-Tingle goes on the fritz, trying to show him how to help.

help! gun! kid! swing! front! awake! help!

Peter is suddenly moving to pull the headphones back over his ears. His eyes are still screwed shut as he tries to calm himself. The pain settles into a ringing in his head, and he curls up on himself to try to get rid of it. He’s mad at himself for not helping, as well. Angry and in pain is not the combination that he wants to have the day after he takes an exam that will determine the rest of his life in Gotham. Peter tries to go back to sleep, still tired from the scholarship exam.  But Penny seems to have other ideas.

“Good morning, Peter,” she greets, shaking his foot.

Not ready for the sudden contact, Peter pulls away from her out of instinct. He has never been one for being prodded by people he doesn’t trust with his life, and the unexpected grab set off too many alarms.

“Woah there, honey,” he can hear the surprise and sadness in her voice, and he can’t help but feel guilty.

It takes him a moment for his eyes to adjust when he opens them, the dim sunlight shining through the blinds and in his eyes. He rolls over—listening for Dotty, who likes to sleep fairly close to his head—and sits up before sliding his feet over the slide of the bed. 

“Don’t be like that, champ,” Penny says. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

Peter listens to the sound of her feet as she shuffles and then the quick succession of her stumbling. Immediately he’s up and over to her, a hand on her hip and the other wrapping her arm around him. His face is filled with worry, and when she looks up at him, all she does is laugh.

“Look at you, being such a worrywart,” he doesn’t find it funny. “I’m fine, I haven't had a tumble like this is a while, but it’s nothing I’m not used to.”

That just makes him even more concerned.

“How did you even get over this quickly? I thought you were still on the couch.”

Peter looks back to where he was supposed to be, a yard or three away, and looks back at her before shrugging. He tentatively takes her arm off of his shoulders and signs: “FAST REFLEXES”

“I’d say,” she chuckles, using the doorframe as a stabilizer for just a moment more before continuing to the kitchen.

He puts his hand in front of her to try and stop her and tell her to sit down, but she moves despite him. “Peter let me do this, it’s my own house for Pete’s sake.”

He rolls his eyes but complies with her words anyway and allows her into the kitchen.

“I hope you’re a cereal enjoyer. My little girl, Abigail, loves sugary cereals,” she reaches up to the cabinets and opens one to show him three different types. “You have the choice between Lucky Charms, Honey Cheerios, or my Flax Plus cereal.”

He doesn’t feel like flax cereal is his most appetizing option, so he settles on the Cheerios. “C-H-E-E-R-I-O-S PLEASE”

“Cheerios?” he nods. “Alright.”

She pours him some cereal and milk before making her bowl of cereal. He pays extra attention to the woman as she walks to the table with their bowls. He doesn’t give her much of a chance to set his bowl down as he takes it from her hands to start eating. He didn’t notice how hungry he was until he started eating. He is halfway done with his bowl as Pennsylvania takes her first spoonful. As he finishes his bowl, Peter feels self-conscious about the pace at which he finishes his breakfast bowl. But Penny doesn’t seem to notice, and if she does, she doesn’t care.

“If you’re still hungry, there’s more cereal for you to eat.”

“NOT HUNGRY” he lies, shaking his head. His stomach betrays him with one of the loudest sounds it could muster.

“Uh-huh,” she raises an eyebrow as she scoops up more cereal.

Sighing in defeat, he pours himself another bowl and hops up on the counter to eat it. At about 5’2, Peter has a significant space between the bottoms of his feet and the floor as he swings them back and forth. He twists his torso and puts the box of Cheerios away, trying his best not to slam the door closed.

He rinses his dish out before placing it in the sink and moving back to the couch. Grabbing his dirty casual clothes, Peter climbs the stairs to the bathroom and changes. He then brushes his teeth with the toothbrush that Penny had grabbed from the linen closet for him. He had to ask her to buy another type of toothpaste for him, as the mint isn’t good for his ‘allergies’. Strawberry toothpaste is not what he wants to brush with, but it’s either that or certain death. It’s also pretty uncomfortable for him to brush his teeth; his canines are too big to sit well in his mouth, so trying to brush around them is difficult. 

Finishing in the bathroom, Peter takes his nice clothes and walks downstairs. He extends his hand and lets Dotty up on his shoulder, where she hides along his hood. He sloppily fixes the sheets on the couch and grabs his suit from under the cushions when Penny isn’t looking before stuffing it back into the bottom of his knapsack. Peter checks on the stitching and smiles to himself when he sees them in good condition. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Peter makes for the door.

“Peter, I’ll be making a key for you today. It’ll be under the plant when you return this afternoon,” Penny calls from the kitchen.

He gives her a thumbs-up in return before opening the door and leaving the house. Shutting the door, Peter starts heading out of Crime Alley. As he reaches the end of the neighborhood, his Peter-Tingle starts to tell him things.

eyes! new! up! right! hello!

Following his Spider-Sense, Peter is met with a yellow vigilante—Peter remembers as Signal from his time in the library—standing at the edge of a building looking down at the street. He raises an eyebrow for a moment before turning his head back to the road. Over the rushing of water in pipes and the clattering of sinks in houses, he can make out the soft whispering of Signal talking into their earpiece.

“I swear I just saw him look at me, O. No, I'm not going crazy!"

I really do need some sunglasses, Peter thinks to himself as he walks past the building Signal’s on. He figures that the Post Office, being a government building, won’t be open until about twelve, if it’s even open at all. But he checks anyway on his way to the thrift store. When he passes the building, he’s not surprised to see the lights shut off and no one inside. The sign on the door says: ‘Sunday - 12 P.M. to 2 P.M.’. Rolling his eyes at the obnoxious hours, Peter walks past it to the thrift store he was at on Saturday.

The ringing of the familiar bell still bounces around in his head as he opens the door. Walking through the aisles, Peter glances at the clock, which reads 10:36, before grabbing his wad of cash that’s ever-slimming out of his pocket. He counts $32, and looks for the cheapest clothes possible. He doesn’t care if they match at all, just as long as they’re cheap. In the teens section, Peter sifts through what feels like hundreds of clothes before finding something that isn’t torn too much. The pair of jeans was the cheapest he thinks he's ever seen jeans at: 2 bucks. Wandering over to the shirt section, Peter finds a large black t-shirt for 96 cents. It makes him wonder what’s wrong with it, but he doesn’t care enough to think much about it. Over at the wall of sunglasses, he finds a fairly nice looking pair for cheap. They look fairly similar to Tony Stark’s E.D.I.T.H. glasses, and he puts it on his to-do list to customize them to better fit himself.

He hears the rain start before he sees it. Sighing, Peter also walks over to the umbrella section and finds a normal black one that looks decent enough to use. That was, until he opened it and found a decent sized hole in the fabric. Putting it back, he goes through the whole bunch until he settles on a small deep blue umbrella.

Peter sets down all three of his things at the cash register after also picking up a box of face masks as well as a two pack of both socks and underwear, which he’s going to bleach later just to be sure they’re clean. His total comes out to a whopping $7.52, which brings him down to 25 dollars exactly. Putting all of his purchases into a plastic bag, he opens the umbrella and walks out of the store. He takes his time getting to the Post Office, taking unnecessary turns around the city to familiarize himself with the area. As he splashed through puddles, water started soaking through the tops of his shoes and onto his feet. He hasn’t known sickness since he was bitten (and after the initial sickness of the spider DNA running through his system and changing things about him, down to a molecular level), but it’s still uncomfortable to say the least.

Finally reaching the office, he has to wait about 8 minutes to get into the building, during which he spends petting Dotty. When the front door clicks open, Peter rushes inside and fumbles with the key in his pocket. Standing in front of the PO box wall, he finds his own after a minute of searching. He listens to the gears turn as he opens the box, and the rusty hinges squeaking doesn’t help his enhanced hearing in the slightest.

eyes! familiar!

Peter turns to look behind him, but there’s no one there. What the… he looks around for a moment more before turning back to his box. It’s never done that before.

Looking back inside the PO box, he grabs the singular letter and closes the door.

“Hey, are you the owner of PO box 332?” the person at the counter says as Peter makes his way to the entrance. Pivoting, Peter nods and heads to the counter. “There’s a package for you.”

Peter knows what the package means, but doesn’t let his excitement show. The worker makes him sign a form before letting him take the box, but once he does, he’s allowed to leave.

Peter almost runs back to Pennsylvania’s with his box and letter. Almost crashing into the door, Peter digs around in the plant potter before finding the key and sticking it in the lock. Once he’s inside, Peter hastily shakes off his umbrella before closing it and taking off his shoes by the door. He sits on the floor and allows Dotty to climb on the coffee table next to him. He takes a breath before opening the letter first, excited to read it.

‘Dear Mr. Peter Stark,

I am happy to award you with the Wayne Foundation Scholarship for your outstanding entrance exam submission. This scholarship allows for full tuition to the Gotham Preperatory High School, as well as a budget of 100 USD per week for school-related items. The funding will be sent to your guardian’s bank account: Tony Stark. Your classes are pre-selected based on your exam results, but you are able to change them with a guidance councilor during your first two weeks of school.

Congratulations on your acceptance!

Bruce Wayne’

The wording seems standard, modified only for Tony Stark’s name, which Peter saddens at seeing. He’s still hung up on the fact that Tony isn’t actually with him, and feels guilty about using him in such a situation. But using May would have been worse in Peter’s opinion. At least Tony would understand. Hopefully.

Peter stares at the letter as he traces Bruce Wayne’s signature. He has seen Tony Stark’s signature stamp, he’s even seen it on a piece of paper being sent out to a declined applicant to Stark Industries. This… doesn’t feel like stamp ink.

Placing the letter on the table, he instead tries to focus on the box in front of him holding his uniform. Sinking his nails—which have gotten oddly sharp—into the tape, he easily cuts through it. Ripping the box open, Peter smiles when he sees the black uniform. He stands up as he pulls it out, pressing it against himself to mock-wear it. He doesn’t go upstairs to the bathroom, but he sure it looks okay on him.

“Peter? Is that you?” calls Pennsylvania from the top of the stairs.

He sets down the uniform to go over to the bottom of the staircase to see Penny and nods.

“Ah, I thought it was. No one’s as silent as you are.” Peter doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just turns away in embarrassment. “I’ll come downstairs and we can watch something on the television.”

He looks to the wall on the stairs and notices a box television sitting on a TV stand for the first time. Huh. Didn’t notice that, he presses his lips into a line and squints before shrugging. As Penny gets to the bottom of the stairs, she stops when she sees the box and letter.

“What’s this?” she questions.

Turning around, Peter shows her the crest of the uniform jacket.

“Gotham Prep? Isn’t that exciting!” she smiles. “You know, I had a brother that used to go there. Always used to brag about it when he got his acceptance letter.”

Peter nods in understanding, setting the uniform down and pocketing his letter discreetly. Rustling in his bag, Peter pulls out the pack of underwear he had bought.

“HAVE BUCKET” he asked. “BLEACH”

“Yes, I do have a… bucket.” she thinks for a moment on the last one. “And what?”

“B-L-E-A-C-H” he finger-spells.

“Oh, bleach! Yes, I do have some of that.” Rummaging in her closet, Penny pulls out a gallon bucket and a bottle of bleach for Peter to use. Thankful, he takes the bucket and bleach upstairs to the bathroom. He puts the bucket in the tub and pours in some of the liquid before soaking the clothes in the disinfectant. He doesn’t care about the bleaching duscoloring the undergarment, only caring about if the thing he is going to put on his body is clean or not. Closing the bottle, Peter walks out of the bathroom and closes the door behind him before going back downstairs.

Sitting on the couch, Peter allows for Dotty to climb on him and crawl onto his pillow. Pennsylvania turns on trivia, a game that he could do in his sleep. He lays down as he listens to one of the contestants call out a category.

“Justice League for 100!”

Peter racks his brain for just a moment before remembering the one time he saw it on the Library computer he hacked into with Little Legs.

“How many heroes were founding members, and who are they?”

Peter frowns as he comes to a complete blank.

“Seven in total. Aquaman, Batman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Superman, The Flash, and Wonder Woman,” another contestant answers.

Huh, interesting. Peter thinks to himself. I’ll have to do some research either at school or the library tomorrow.

“Correct!!” the announcer just about yells into his microphone as the bell rings.

Sitting back on the couch and stretching his legs, Peter gets himself ready for a long night of memorizing facts about the world he is in.

After about three hours of watching Trivia and a break to eat dinner, Peter starts to get ready for bed. He rinses out his now clean underwear and hangs it on the shower curtain rod to dry after he painstakingly brushes his teeth. Taking a shower takes him less than 10 minutes, even with all the scrubbing he did to make sure that he is ready for his first day of school at the place where he's attending classes for free, and as a fraud. 

He signs goodnight to Pennsylvania before going back downstairs and putting on the pajamas that he got from her, who said “My husband isn’t using them anyway, might as well put them to good use.”

Peter doesn’t know how he feels about using an old, late man’s pajamas, but he supposes that it’s better than sleeping in his day clothes. After getting dressed, Peter stalls for a moment before opening up Penny’s closet once again. He knows that she should have a couple of art supplies somewhere since she has a granddaughter who’s bound to be into arts and crafts. As he had thought, he finds a couple of college-ruled notebooks (he’s glad they’re not wide-ruled) and a couple of wood pencils. He stuffs them in his knapsack in exchange for his sewing kit and ramen packs. Setting them on the coffee table in front of him, Peter makes sure his bag is closed correctly before lying back on the couch.

Finally deciding to go to sleep, he can’t shake the feeling that something’s off in the atmosphere. Nothing that’s threatening, in fact, quite the opposite. It's almost familiar. How strange.

Chapter Text

His dreams can’t seem to leave him alone. Peter hasn’t sweat in forever, yet he’s drowning in the salty liquid. He’s running, but he can’t say from what. There’s a distorted voice banging on his head, but he can’t make out what it’s saying. Walls pop up out of nowhere and he can’t stop from crashing into them, hurting his nose, hands, knees, chest. His limbs hurt and they’re painless all the same. His Spider-Sense doesn’t tell him anything, and when the floor rumbles and the world tilts he’s blind to the change until it happens.

Waking up at the crack of dawn is not Peter’s specialty. It never has been and he doesn’t think it ever will be. Especially when the place he’s waking up is darker than dark (except for yesterday, which is a weird and rare occurrence). But he shoots up in bed like a gazelle chased by a lion anyway. Checking his limbs, he’s relieved when there isn’t any bruising on him and his couch is bone dry.

Dragging his feet out of bed, Peter starts moving for the day. He gets changed into his uniform in the front room, relying on his Peter-Tingle to let him know if someone is trying to peep through the blinds. He’s surprised to find the suit fitting much better than he imagined. He does know that after thirteen he started shooting up like a beanstalk, so he hopes uniforms are free in Gotham. He goes up to the bathroom for a moment to brush his teeth, leaning far over the sink to not get any toothpaste on his clothes. Wandering into the kitchen, he makes himself a piece of toast and downs a glass of juice while he waits. The bread pops up from the toaster and he spreads butter on the pieces. Looking at the clock as he finishes the first piece, he realizes that it’s already 6:40, and he doesn’t know when school starts.

Sticking the other piece in his mouth, Peter grabs his key and wad of cash—stuffing both in his pocket—and his knapsack before heading to the door. He almost trips over his own two feet as he stops and turns back around, grabbing a paper mask from the things he stacked on the coffee table the night prior. This time ready, he leaves the house and locks the door behind him, starting the walk to the train station. The air is damp and thick, making his uniform stick to his exoskeleton. Soon he reaches the stairs to the subway and he jogs down the steps.

eyes! look!

His Peter-Tingle warns him as he walks to the turnstile without a pass. But when looking around, all he sees are a couple of methheads and junkies paired with multiple people on their way to work. He slides through the turnstile behind a man with, by the looks of it, too much money for his own good. Peter clocks him immediately when he sees the way his shoes shine on the dim underground lights and how his watch looks more expensive than Peter’s entire life. Following closely behind the man until reaching the stairs, he leans into blending with his surroundings as much as he can as he peels away from the businessman’s shadow. It would be easier for him to do it with his stolen outfit and not the posh outfit of Gotham Preparatory High School, but he’ll work with what he has; he always will.

He taps his foot on the platform as he waits for the train, adjusting his headphones anxiously as he puts the paper mask on. As the train comes Peter moves to the end of the platform, following the train. He knows that the middle cars will be packed, so the far ones are a safer option if he wants to get a seat. When he gets on a train car, Peter picks a window seat and folds his legs up neatly on the chair before setting his knapsack on top of them.

He tries not to focus too hard, but he can’t help himself. The puffing and sniffing of addicts bother him, as well as the heartbeats of hundreds of people on and around the train. But neither of those things bother him as much as the intrusive squeaking of the train wheels on its tracks. It’s like it knows it’s getting to him, the way it laughs at him. Using his hands, Peter presses down on his headphones and tries to block out even more of the noise.

I’ll have to ask Grandma Penny to buy some earplugs when I get back, he tries to think over the noises in his head.

45 minutes later Peter is finally free. He lets his head go after the train screeches to a halt, bending his legs in ways they shouldn’t bend to get out of his sitting position. He slings his knapsack over his shoulder with a little too much force as he tries to get out, and accidentally sways his body a little too far to the left.

Peter’s annoyed that he didn’t offer Dotty his shoulder today, but he doesn’t think that a small spider will be welcome on the grounds of a fairly prestigious school. Jumping the turnstile, Peter jumps up the stairs two at a time to make it back to ground level. Walking around for only a couple moments, he finally makes it to the front of Gotham Prep at 7:42 A.M. He’s assaulted with the loudness of heartbeats, fast and slow, from everyone inside. He takes a deep breath and swallows before stepping foot onto the school grounds.

Walking up to the front doors for the second time of many, Peter rings the bell again to be let in. The familiar click of the door notifies him of it being unlocked, and he just about drags himself inside. At the front desk, Peter is met with the same receptionist he talked to two days prior.

“Mr. Stark, welcome back,” she smiles at him. “Congratulations on your acceptance. We have your identification badge and class schedule ready for you here.”

He’s handed a white envelope filled with a sheet of paper and a piece of plastic. “THANK YOU”

“You’re most certainly welcome. We have arranged for a student guide to show you around the school,” she says, gesturing to the side of the office. “This is Mr. Damian Wayne. He has similar classes to the ones you are taking, so he’ll escort you to and from your classes for the first couple of days.”

“HELLO” he signs in politeness.

He does not get much of a sentence in return.

“Be assured, Mr. Stark, that Mr. Wayne does know sign language and will be able to answer any questions you have about the school.”

He nods, sending her a quick thumbs up before turning to Damian Wayne. The boy, seemingly only one year older than him (or several years younger, depending on which Peter comes to mind), only scoffs and starts to walk out of the office. Peter jogs to catch up.

“You have Advanced Calculus for your first class,” he doesn’t phrase his sentence like a question, more like a fact, as if it was written in the stars.

“YES” Peter responds anyway.

When he steps into the math classroom, it’s as if the atmosphere shifted. He assumes this is what it’s like for athletes when they step onto the field. He follows Damian to the fourth row and third column.

“You are required to sit near me,” he speaks once again. “You will take the seat to my left.”

The formal manner in which Damian speaks doesn’t sit well with Peter. Maybe it’s because the last time he heard that formal tone it was paired with F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice, or maybe he has just grown too accustomed to the common accent.

Ten minutes of silence later, students start to file into the room chattering to one another, overstimulating his ears as the noise grows louder. The teacher walks into the room as the bell chimes—which he can pinpoint as a grand bell coming from somewhere in the middle of the school. 

“First order of business,” his voice isn’t what Peter expected it to be. It’s smooth and honey-like. Peter also notices how clean he looks, with the freshly ironed suit jacket and the– this is the person he trailed to get to the subway. “We have a new student. Peter Stark is here on scholarship. Show him the Gotham Prep way.”

No ‘make him feel welcome’ no nothing? Peter rolls his eyes in his seat. How rude. It’s like he’s inviting bullying.

Peter is trying his best not to doze off in class, but the content they’re covering is something he learned back in Midtown High School. He leans back in his seat, doodling on the edges of his stolen notebook. The doodles are symbols, mostly. Captain America’s shield, Scarlet Witch’s magic, Doctor Strange’s sigils. He stares at the sigils for a moment in awe and confusion. Peter has never learned Doctor Strange’s sigil charts.

Damian is out of his seat two seconds into the chime of the bell, and Peter scrambles to shove his notebook into his bag.

“ART” he signs.

“I am aware of your class schedule,” Damian says as he walks out of the door. “Do you think that I am anything less than knowledgeable?”

Peter’s sure that’s a rhetorical question, and if it’s not he doesn’t care enough to give a serious answer.

The Gotham Prep feels like a maze to him. Like Hogwarts, only without the stairs changing. Peter thinks that if he’s allowed to use his spider powers in broad daylight without a mask, he’d cut his time traveling to class in half easily. He almost trips up the stairs, finding his footing easily, but not so much of his dignity. He can feel Damian Wayne’s stare when he does something embarrassing, even if Peter can never catch Damian’s head turned. Peter can smell the familiar scent of an art hallway before they even reach it. Turning a corner the walls look just like every other area of the school, gray and dreary. But what sets the area apart are the classrooms. As soon as they step into one, he’s met with the epitome of art class. There’s paint on the floors and tables, dry clay is stuck on the floor near the two turntables. Peter’s shoulders relax as he loosens his grip on one of his bag's straps.

Peter sits opposite to Damian's seat, where he left his bag to get something.

“Here,” Damian sets a sketchbook and a Sharpie in front of him, another one still in hand.

“THANK YOU” he signs, getting a huff in response. Peter’s starting to learn the language.

Art was filled with silence. Except for the whirring of pottery wheels and scratching of pencils. The Professor comes up to Peter personally during the beginning of class to tell him what his project is during this semester; humans. Peter wishes she told him it was spiders. The only upside is that he can do as many pieces—with a minimum of two—in as many mediums as he wants.

He uses Damian Wayne as his first model, sketching the way his face creases when he’s focused. It makes him wonder what his topic is. Peter spends the whole period doodling, scratching out the pieces that he doesn’t like (which is all of them).

I need a camera, he thinks as he puts his notebook back. Maybe a cheap Polaroid. Just something to get me through this class.

“You have College-Level Chemistry next,” Damian stops in front of the door, making Peter almost crash into him. “I do not. I will meet you here after class.”

Peter nods before going into the class, where he’s met with all the materials he needs for his webfluid. He smiles behind his facemask before going up to the teacher’s desk.

“Yes?”

Peter starts signing but is cut off right away.

“I don’t have time for this, either tell me what you want with your words or go sit down.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten annoyed quicker than he has right now. He stands there before pulling a sticky note off of the teacher's desk and a pen from his pen jar and writes ‘I am Peter Stark. Where do I sit?’

The teacher barely glances at the note. “Sit wherever; I don’t care.”

He rolls his eyes before sitting down at the back, where he’s sure he can sneak out some supplies if he wants to. Peter takes extra care to not disturb anyone, but the person next to him doesn’t seem to take the “shy kid” hints.

“New?” he whispers. “I’m Duke Thomas, he did the same with me.”

Peter nods, looking up. Everyone in his classes seems to be exceptionally older than he is, and he doesn’t know whether to be proud or to be scared.

“P-E-T-E-R” he signs.

“Nice to meet you, Peter.” Duke smiles. “I’ve only just started learning sign language, so bear with me.”

He can’t help but smile in return.

“Alright,” the sudden drawl of the teacher’s voice comes out, and Peter clocks it as a Southern accent immediately. “We gotta new student, everyone welcome Peter Stark.”

He hides from the attention in embarrassment.

“Now that that’s outta the way…”

Chemistry is fun. It’s always been one of Peter’s fortes, along with most other sciences. But it isn’t fun when the person teaching it has the slowest speech pattern he’s ever heard of. He’ll take Tony Stark’s engineering rambling or even Bruce Banner’s biology talk over this teacher. The only person making this class relatively interesting is Duke. Sometimes he says a sentence—or even just a word—that makes Peter smile. Five minutes before the bell, Mr. Barnes stops teaching and sits at his desk, leaving the students to talk amongst themselves.

“Hey, who’s your guide?” Duke props his elbow on the table and sets his cheek on his hand.

“D-A-M-I-A-N W-A-Y-N-E” Peter signs.

“Ah,” his response was simple, but if Peter didn’t have exceptionally decent vision, he wouldn’t have noticed the slight wince on Duke’s face.

“WHAT”

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” Duke says. “Glad to see you aren’t dead yet, though.”

What. he raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, he won’t kill you or anything. He’s just judgy.”

Peter almost laughs, his shoulders shaking. He could tell that from the way Damian Wayne huffs and puffs everywhere like he’s asthmatic. 

The bell rings and Peter walks outside the classroom with Duke Thomas, departing with him to wait next to the doorframe for Damian.

“Stark,” Damian says as he walks up to him. “Follow me. Lunch is next.”

At the mention of getting food, Peter’s stomach rumbles, and he can feel the judgment radiating off of the Wayne. Sheepishly, Peter trails behind Damian to the lunch room, which looks straight out of a Gothic architecture magazine. The entire school looks like it could have come out of a magazine, with the way it’s built and lit. He isn’t complaining though, as he’d rather be surrounded by Gothic architecture than modern architecture, especially in a school.

The echoing of the lunchroom rings in Peter’s ears as he follows behind Damian. Peter tries not to make a scene as he walks through the line of free food, piling whatever he can onto the tray. Getting out of the line, he stops following his guide and walks out of the lunchroom with his tray, trying to find somewhere quieter. He sits down on the floor about a hallway away from the cafeteria entrance and gobbles down whatever he can get his hands on. The only time he stops is if a person is walking by and he has to put his mask back over his face.

Peter sits outside of the lunchroom until the bell rings. He easily spots Damian Wayne among the horde and lightly treads through the crowd until he’s behind him. Tapping him on the shoulder, Peter gets a rude awakening when he is pulled forward and his arm is twisted in an awkward direction with a foot hovering just behind his knee.

“You imbecile,” says Damian when he recognizes who has just tapped him. “Don’t do that again.”

Peter’s laugh is silent as he shakes out his arm. His lips pull over his teeth oddly, but he pays it no mind. He follows Damian to English, which he doesn’t share with him. For the most part, Peter sits alone and in silence in the class. He is given a copy of the book they’re reading—Romeo and Juliet—and is left alone after that. He’s only attacked at the end of class when the teacher makes an announcement that upsets every student in it.

“Since we have a student who cannot communicate with us via words, we will all be taking time to learn American Sign Language to talk with our new student, Peter Stark.”

The room turns into an uproar.

“What?!”

“Why?”

“It’s only one kid!”

“Let him stay silent!”

“No one wants to know what he’s saying anyway!”

“Isn’t that right, Peter Starch?” Bruiser asked. His real name’s Augustus—fitting right into the one rich bully kid stereotype—but everyone calls him Bruiser. He doesn’t think he wants to find out why.

Starch? Really? That’s the best he can come up with? Peter rolls his eyes. Bread does sound good right now, though.

When he passes Bruiser on the way out, balls of paper are flung at the back of his head. He pays them no mind, fixing his headphone’s position on his head. His two last classes aren’t the most fun, Physical Education and History. He has both classes with Damian, and he tries to keep his distance. Peter doesn’t do much in either class, running when he’s told in P.E. and watching the other students answer questions in History. He doesn’t draw attention to himself in either scenario, trying to skirt through classes under the radar.

“Damian, how was school today?” Bruce Wayne asks his son from his spot at the end of the table. “What could you make of Peter Stark?”

Damian doesn’t know what to make of the boy he’s assigned to show around for today and tomorrow. He doesn’t particularly like him, but his silence is a decent quality to him. Peter is clumsy and nosy, glancing up at him for whatever odd reason during art class today. But, he does not know how he was able to sneak up on him so easily and didn’t react beyond the laugh he gave after Damian let him go from what should have been an arm-spraining hold.

“He is infuriating,” was what he chose to respond with because, in a sense, it’s true. It’s Damian’s truth, at least.

“Nothing beyond that?” was Tim’s question. Just his voice irritated Damian.

“No.”

“He’s alright, seem’s fun,” Duke says. “I sit next to him in chem.”

“What?” Tim’s jaw drops. “That’s a college-level course! He’s 14!”

“Yeah, you’d have met him if you were at school today, probably.” Duke stabs the food on his plate with his fork. “But you’re ‘too good for school’ apparently.”

“Just because I have things to do–”

“Uh huh,” Duke rolls his eyes teasingly. “Whatever you say, addict. You were probably here sleeping your years of sleep debt off.”

Tim scoffs and crosses his arms on his chest.

“You’re only acting like that because you know I’m right,” Duke laughs. “What do you have, only 4 more years of debt to go?”

“I don’t have debt! I get a normal amount of sleep like every other person in this house!”

Bruce Wayne laughs once, in what could be mistaken for a cough by anyone other than the people sitting at the table.

“See, even Mr. Wayne agrees with me!”

“No, he doesn’t!”

From around the corner enters Alfred Pennyworth and a blonde girl who follows behind him for all of two seconds before moving to the table.

“Hello!!!!” Stephanie Brown’s voice echos throughout the dining hall.

“Miss Stephanie, please mind your volume,” Alfred chides.

“Yeah Steph,” Tim mocks familiarly.

“Of course, Alfred,” she says in her politest tone as she curtsies jokingly to him before turning back to the table and pulling up a chair. “So, who’s the one with classes with Timber’s new stalking obsession?”

Damian hates these people.

Chapter Text

Peter can’t seem to fall asleep comfortably. Each way he turns, he can’t seem to find a way to drift off to unconsciousness. He sits up various times to pet Dotty with his finger, who is comfortably sleeping the night away on his pillow. Peter itches to get back to being Spider-Man. He hasn’t been in the suit in over 5 days, and he feels like he’ll go insane if he’s stuck at Penny’s house every night much longer. He sighs and pulls the covers off the couch before pulling on some socks and his shoes. Pulling his hoodie over Penny’s husband’s pajamas, he grabs his key before leaving the house.

watch! behind! danger!

Peter’s Spider-Sense tells him instantly that leaving the house isn’t his most ideal decision. He ignores it. He just needs to get out and away. To take a walk. To breathe. He can hear the heartbeat of the person following behind him. The stalker’s breathing is soft, most likely silent to anyone besides Peter.

He doesn’t care about stepping on the cracks of the sidewalk as he walks down it, making a game to keep the cracks that he steps on even to each foot. One for the left, one for the right. Back and forth. Peter distracts himself from everything, the mumbling of little kids as they try not to wake up their parents; the teasing of two teenagers drinking on a house stoop; the slowing heartbeat of an older person who won’t make it to see the next morning; the thoughts of everyone back home, everyone who’s probably laughing without him.

The last one is hard for Peter to let go of. Tears that he doesn’t notice well in his eyes as he thinks about making waffles with Wanda Maximoff and training with Steve Rogers. He doesn’t stop thinking about tinkering in Tony Stark’s lab and recreating his Spider-Suit to be better than before.

A hand reaches out and sets on Peter’s shoulder, and his Spider-Sense immediately flares.

sharp! danger!

Peter doesn’t think as he twists the man’s arm and kicks him several times, once in the knee (he hears a crack and the man screams) and then again in the groin. Coming out of his daze, he’s horrified by what he sees. Oh shit, ohhhhh shit. Peter hops a couple steps back before running away from the man.

He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe and he’s scared.

He can’t breathe and he’s scared and alone.

Peter trips on one of the cracks of concrete, falling to the ground, hands scraping on the chunks of kicked-up rock. He chokes on his sobs, coughing as he’s on his hands and knees. Getting himself out of the way, he pulls himself onto the grass, leaning on a telephone pole. His hands shake violently as he pulls his hood over his head. He can’t sweat, but he would be drenched if he could. Peter stays as silent as possible as he tries to get himself through it, running his hands over his arms to try and self-soothe. Peter hiccups once, twice, three times. Again and again. He aches, inside and out. The noise is replaced by static; no more thousand heartbeats, just the sound of a broken radio. His broken radio.

Sobs are caught in the back of his throat as tears pour down his face. The lump grows bigger and it hurts exponentially. Deep breaths only help for a moment, but it isn’t consistent. Nothing is consistent.

His tears are salty and unpleasant as they run into his mouth and drip down his cheeks. He runs his sleeve across his nose, wiping away the snot. Peter holds his breath, but it doesn’t stop the crying or the hiccups. The taste of metal floods his mouth, and blood pours out of the corner of his lips. He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek and he hasn’t realized.

He’s tired.

He wants to go home.

Peter scrunches into a ball against the pole, screwing his eyes shut and trying and failing over and again to get back to normal.

He realizes too late that he’s passing out on the side of the road.

wake! quick!

Peter wakes up an hour and a half later to the sound of teenagers being yelled at by a man. It takes him a moment to get out of his groggy state, but once he rubs his eyes with his fingers and stretches for a second, he’s up in a flash.

“–keep running!”

hello! familiar!

Peter recognizes the voice right away, Motorcycle Guy. He feels guilty that he ran away from him last time, but he doesn’t think he can bear to face him with the sad, kicked puppy look that he has going on right now. Peter is running on no sleep and pure survival instinct as he starts walking into an old apartment building. It would have been hard to get away if the front door was locked, but it’s Crime Alley. Nothing’s ever locked.

He pulls his hood deeper over his face as he goes up the set of stairs, trying to lose Motorcycle Guy who’s coming inside the building. He doesn’t know why he went inside the complex, as there’s nowhere to go but up. As he keeps climbing, he tries to keep his breathing steady, looking down at his shoes that need to be fixed. When he makes it to the roof, Peter jumps on top of the exit and tries to stay out of sight. Peter puts a hand over his mouth and holds his breath when the man opens the roof’s door quietly, as if not to alert anyone on the other side.

friend! hello!

No, Peter scolds his Spider-Sense. Motorcycle Guy isn’t our friend. Just because he took me back to his apartment because I was almost passed out on the side of the road doesn’t make him our friend. It makes him weird.

“Hello?” his voice is softer than how Peter remembers it. “It’s uh, the guy you ran away from the other day.”

It’s silent on the roof except for the man’s breathing.

“What’re you doing Jason he doesn’t talk,” he listens to Motorcycle Guy, or Jason, talk to himself.

Giving in to his Spider-Sense’s temptations, he hops down to the ground, light on his feet. He stands there awkwardly, not making any type of indicating noise until Jason turns around.

“Oh Jesus fuck!” Jason all but screams when he catches sight of Peter standing next to the door. “Don’t do that again, kid.”

Peter looks down at his feet and debates running, the only thing keeping him in place being the pit of guilt and shame that’s building in his stomach and leaking down into his feet.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Jason walks up to him, and Peter finally takes into account just how tall he is compared to him. “What were you doing on the side of the road?”

“SLEEPING” Peter signs, trying to get himself out of whatever slump he’s in with a painstakingly obvious answer. It doesn’t work so well.

“No shit. I mean why were you there?”

“GOT TIRED”

“You’re the most unhelpful person I’ve ever met,” Jason sighs. “What’s your name?”

“WHAT’S YOURS?” Peter knows better than to give a stranger his information. Except for Penny, she’s different.

“Jason,” he crosses his arms. “Now, yours?”

“SIGN NAME” Peter asks, starting to get a kick out of annoying the man.

“JASON” he signs.

Peter repeats the movement a couple of times before nodding. 

“Yours?” he asks for the third time.

“P-E-T-E-R” he signs. “PETER”

“Why am I seeing you sleeping on the side of the road during two out of our three run-ins?”

“COMFORTABLE” he jokes.

Jason deadpans at him.

He giggles behind his hand, swaying on his feet. Oh shit, he thinks as he finds his footing once again. I must really be out of it. Peter sits down on the roof, pressing his back against one of the brick walls.

“You’re going to give me a heart attack, y’know?” Jason sighs as he sits down next to Peter.

“EFFECT I HAVE ON PEOPLE” Peter teases, looking out at the dark and smoke-filled skyline of Gotham’s Crime Alley.

Jason chuckles in return.

He wakes up on the couch at 4:37 A.M. He said his goodbyes to Jason last night after sitting in silence with him for what felt like forever. Peter made sure he hadn’t been followed home and that there weren’t any trackers on his person. He ended up with Jason’s number to text if he needs anything in the future, just in case.

He sits up in bed and pets Dotty gently before groggily rubbing his eyes. He knows he should go back to sleep, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to if he tries. He pulls his uniform off of the line where he put it to dry the night prior before walking back to the living room to change. Peter, still under the 5’6 threshold to be considered ‘tall’, comfortably sits on the kitchen counter once again. He pulls a banana from its bunch before breaking it in half. He doesn’t have the patience to open a banana from its stem without making it all mushy inside. He puts the peel into the coffee grounds container that Pennsylvania uses as a compost bin before grabbing the box of Cheerios. He pulls out a sandwich bag and pours in some of the cereal for a snack as he walks to school.

Peter sits on the counter for a couple more minutes, bored out of his mind. I wish I had a phone, Peter frowns. He hops off the counter and goes to grab his library book off the coffee table that holds all of his things. He opens it up and starts to read it, turning on the lamp for a bit of extra light.

Two hours later, he’s done with the entire book. But he doesn’t feel like he understands the topic of multidimensional travel at all. Sighing, Peter closes the book and sets it on the counter before grabbing his things and leaving for school.

Hopping the Gotham turnstile has become the norm for Peter, even though he’s only done it thrice. It’s in his blood as a New Yorker to not give any more money to corporate greed. He readjusts his headphones and paper mask as he waits for the train, making sure they’re both on securely. The train comes to the platform and Peter sits down on it, taking the same spot that he had taken for his first day. He fiddles with one of the latches on his knapsack, rubbing it between his fingers as he looks out of the window idly. His brain is trying to recuperate from not sleeping well last night and is trying to force him into a state of unconsciousness. He fights the drowsiness by counting whatever passes the train car he’s in. He just barely wins.

Getting off the train, he checks the clock that reads 7:49. Crap, he thinks as he jumps the turnstile and runs up the escalator. Using his badge, Peter checks in at the front of the school and makes his way to what he believes is his first-period classroom. Stepping into the Advanced Calculus class, he’s relieved to see his seat next to Damian Wayne’s open and waiting for him. However, what he’s not relieved to see is Damian’s ticked-off face.

“You are late,” he says as Peter sits down.

“TRAIN LATE” he signs after he sets his knapsack on the floor. “NOT ME”

“I suggest getting onto an earlier train.”

He just rolls his eyes.

Peter finds it extremely hard to pay attention in math. He knows all the material and he would rather be anywhere else but in a math class at 8 in the morning. His mind drifts off to Nowheresville, and he starts thinking about random things such as: why is Damian in such an advanced math course?

“Stark!” his math teacher calls Tony’s last name, but Peter responds. “Is the integral 0 to 1 of x dx equal to 0.5?”

Peter shoves a thumbs up in the air to signify that the answer is correct. 

“Good.”

He goes back to staring at the wall again after he takes his hand down.

At the end of class, Peter waits patiently for Damian to put away his bag to leave, since he never took anything out to begin with. They walk in silence together on their way to art, the only noise coming from either of them is their heartbeats and the tapping of their shoes on the floor. Sitting down at the table with his sketchbook, Peter hits one of the biggest art blocks of his life. He bounces the eraser of his pencil on the paper sitting in front of him for the entire class period. By the time the bell chimes, Peter has all of three lines on his paper, with none of them looking even remotely close to a human. He almost chucks his sketchbook into its cubby on the way out.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Damian tells Peter as he walks into his chemistry class as if everything will magically go wrong as soon as he leaves. Peter gives him a small thumbs up as he passes the taller boy.

Sitting down next to Duke, Peter slumps down and presses his forehead against the table.

familiar! eyes! behind!

Peter opens his eyes and turns his head around, just for there to be no one in sight. There is, however, a very confused Duke who gives him the strangest look.

“You okay?” he asks.

Peter nods. “TIRED”

“Oh, not sleep well?”

“YES” he isn’t lying to Duke, not really. He did indeed not sleep well. It’s just also true that he went for a midnight walk, slept on the street, and almost got mugged. Twice.

“Dude, you seem dead,” he says. “Like, you’re pale as shit.”

Peter shrugs before resting his head back on the table.

Like calculus, he doesn’t pay much attention to the chemistry lesson. He can hear the breathing of every student in the school and their rapid heartbeats. He can also easily hear the vibration of Duke’s haptics on his phone as he texts, but he doesn’t think it’s nice to spy on the only person who’s being nice to him.

===

BATCHAT

Duke (10:37): peter’s fucking haunted

Duke (10:37): i’m pretty sure

Tim (10:37): HE’S WHAT

Stephanie (10:38): YO THATS INSANE

Stephanie (10:38): also tim’s leaving the house rn 

Stephanie (10:38): nvm he just faceplanted trying to fix his shoe

Tim (10:39): piss off

Bruce (10:40): Mind your language. Thank you for the update, Duke.

===

“Hey, do you want to sit with me during lunch today?” Duke asks Peter during the last couple minutes of class.

“NOT IN LUNCH ROOM” Peter signs as he lifts his head from the table, exposing a red indentation on his cheek. “LOUD”

“We can sit wherever you want to dude,” the 17-year-old smiles at him.

“O-K” Peter smiles, even if Duke can’t see it.

He starts walking to the lunch room with Duke instead of waiting for Damian to show up. In the line with Duke, he piles his tray high—about the same amount as he did yesterday—and waits for Duke to finish getting his food. 

“Where do you want to sit?” Duke asks after getting out of the line.

Peter turns on his heel and leads him out of the cafeteria. Peter uses his enhanced hearing to locate the courtyard, and starts walking through the hallways in its direction. Opening the door, he breathes in the fresh air and sighs it out when he notices that there’s no one in the area. 

“Nice,” Duke smiles at him, going to sit down under a tree.

Peter follows behind him, sitting under the shade of the leaves as he sets down his tray and takes off his bag. He watches as Duke opens his phone for a moment before putting it back in his pocket. He pulls down his mask to bite into a chicken tender. You could never expect this type of food from public school, Peter relishes.

A moment later, the door to the courtyard bursts open and reveals a panting dark-haired boy.

“Tim!” Duke waves from his spot under the tree. 

“Hey, Duke.” Tim says as he walks up to the two of them.

“WHO” Peter looks at Duke when he asks the question.

“This is Tim Drake, a friend of mine.” Duke says as Tim almost falls to the ground.

Peter quirks an eyebrow for a moment before letting it go. Focusing on Tim, he can hear the panting that he’s doing, but there is barely any elevation in his heartrate. Odd. It’s almost as if he’s had endurance training, Peter thinks.

“Tim, this is Peter,” Duke introduces.

“Nice to meet ya,” Tim smiles.

“NICE TO MEET YOU” he responds.

“So…” Tim trails off, as if he doesn’t know what to say. It’s obvious (to Peter, at least) that he does. “What made you come to Gotham Prep?”

“FREE” Peter shoves the rest of his chicken nugget into his mouth before finishing his answer. “SCHOLARSHIP”

“You’re a Wayne Scholarship kid? No way!” Duke smiles. “Tim and I are here ‘cause of Wayne, too.”

“B-R-U-C-E W-A-Y-N-E IS D-A-M-I-A-N W-A-Y-N-E DAD” Peter breaks in his sentence for a moment, “YES”

“Yeah he is,” Tim rolls his eyes while scoffing.

“QUESTION” Peter says before pointing at both Tim and Duke. “YOU HAVE SIGN NAME”

“Huh?” Duke questions.

“He’s asking if we have like… a name in sign language so he doesn’t have to finger-spell like he did for Bruce and Damian,” Tim mutters to him before turning back to Peter. “Yeah, here’s mine.”

“TIM” Peter repeats before looking at Duke expectantly.

“I uh, don’t think I have one?”

Peter frowns for a moment before moving his hands in a sign motion.

“I don’t know that one, sorry.” he frowns.

Tim faceplants for a moment before saying, “He just gave you a name in ASL, dumbass.”

“Okay you don’t have to be so rude about it,” Duke shoves Tim with one arm in a joking manner.

Tim just scoffs in return.

“Thank you for the name, Peter,” Duke smiles at the younger boy.

Peter gives him a thumbs-up in return.

At the end of lunch, Peter looks for Damian, finding him easily. The Wayne, however, is not pleased about being left during the lunch hour and tells him so with some of the meanest posh-sounding words Peter has ever had the displeasure of hearing. During his scolding, he has such a miserable time listening that he wishes to be deaf instead of mute. Even if it is just for a couple of minutes, Peter would much rather take that than be subjected to this.

By the end of the day, Peter felt like he could pass out more and more with every step he took.

“Come on, Stark.” Damian stands next to Peter’s desk at the end of the day. “The bell rang.”

“STAYING LATE” Peter lies to him. “PAPERS”

Damian raises an eyebrow and looks him up and down before scoffing once. “Goodbye, Stark.”

Peter raises a hand and waives in response.

Walking out of the history classroom, Peter wanders the halls slowly until he makes it to the chemistry classroom. After checking to make sure there’s no staff inside or outside the room, Peter jiggles the doorknob and it opens, allowing him access to the chemicals inside. He closes the door as quietly as possible before running over to one of the cabinets and pulling out chemicals and a beaker to create his synthetic web fluid. He listens to his surroundings more than usual—even though he doesn’t have to—as he makes the fluid, sealing it in a small vial to transfer to his web-shooters later.

Putting away the chemicals and cleaning the beaker, Peter leaves the classroom and starts walking at a fast pace to get out of the building without being too suspicious.

“Mr. Stark?” his English teacher calls out. Wincing, Peter turns around to face her. “Is everything okay?”

“YES” he signs. “TALKING TO TEACHER”

“Alright, let me know if you need anything!” her face is cheery as she walks away, leaving Peter alone in the hallway again.

This time, Peter runs out of the building and to the train station, not giving his outward appearance to anyone a second thought. Illegally getting on the next train, Peter slumps forward in his seat in exhaustion, taking an impromptu nap in the train car.

Chapter Text

His dream is different from what he wants to see. In a way it is, but he doesn’t think he’s ready for it. He looks anyway.

Peter watches Tony Stark in his dream, but it isn’t his perspective. And the feelings that he has aren’t his own. The eyes he’s looking through have more height than he has (or had, for that matter). He doesn’t feel the usual admiration and excitement that he usually felt when he saw Tony. It is more of a disdain, but underneath it’s paired with a subtle lining of respect. He can’t make out any of the words that are said, it’s too far away, even though the visuals are right in front of him.

“Peter,” a familiar voice calls out. It’s distant, sure, but he can hear it as clear as day. Yet he can’t take his eyes off of what’s in front of him. “Kid.”

He turns his face to the side, ripping himself away from whoever’s perspective that is. Yet he can’t see anyone.

“Hey, kid,” a finger prods him and he jumps awake. “Get off. It’s 12.”

Startled, Peter jumps up, not fully understanding the sentence said to him. He gets off the train anyway, unsure of where exactly he is. Making it up to the ground floor, Peter searches for a map.

How is it that I always manage to get myself in an awkward area of the city? Peter frowns as he looks at the map. He has no idea where he is. Finding where Crime Alley should be, his frown deepens when he sees a burn on the plastic map where the streets should be. Well, then.

He starts walking back to where Crime Alley should be, his legs protesting every step of the way.

eyes! hello!

Peter’s head cocks to an ungodly degree to look at who’s watching him. He can make out the blue in their suit, and if it wasn’t for his enhanced sight and Spider-Sense, he wouldn’t have known they were there. Turning his head back around, Peter continues to walk back to Penny’s in the dead of night.

Just because the sun is resting doesn’t mean Gotham is, and he finds a speck of comfort in it. It reminds him of back home in Queens where the city never sleeps and there’s always a constant stream of background noise that Peter had to learn to filter out. When he started sleeping in the Avengers Tower he didn’t use the noise-cancelling feature, even if Tony said he should. The noise kept him sane when his thoughts ran rampant through his mind, and Peter tries to find the same solitude that he had back in Queens.

The noise isn’t the same, though, and it throws him off. There’s the bustle of cars and motorcycles, but there isn’t the bustling of his favorite 24/7 cafe or teenagers out in the streets until well after midnight when their parents told them to be back home. There’s no sense of safety, either. Just a feeling of constant dread, that at any moment you’ll be next. He tries to ignore it.

Peter can still feel the eyes of the vigilante as he continues walking, always knowing where they are but never looking at them. Turning a corner rather sharply, his next step is sock-to-concrete with no padding from his shoe. Looking down, he frowns when he sees the front half of the sole of his show completely bent backward. Well crap, he thinks as he places the bottom of his foot down on the ground.

hello! ahead!

Tilting his head back up, Peter isn’t surprised to see the black-and-blue vigilante in front of him.

“HELLO” he signs.

“Hey!” the vigilante signs back. His late-night brain takes a moment, but it finally connects this guy to an out-of-town vigilante, Nightwing. “What’re you doing out here?”

“GOING TO HOUSE” Peter states.

“You should have been home hours ago, kid,” Nightwing gets on Peter’s nerves, and not even for doing anything. He’s just… so in-your-face that Peter can’t help but feel more and more closed off. “Do you need help getting back?”

“NO THANK YOU” he tries to shirk off the offer.

“You sure? It’s the least I can do,” Nightwing insists. “And besides, your shoe is busted so much that I don’t think you’ll be able to wear it the entire way back to wherever you live.”

“SHOE IS FINE” Peter signs unconvincingly.

“At least let me escort you home.”

Peter sighs in frustration and annoyance. He’s not a little kid and can handle himself. He likes to believe so, at least. Everyone back home might tell him that he’s lying. But who are they to judge; they work alongside him.

Peter yawns once before signing, “NO THANK YOU”

The frown on Nightwing’s face is sharing the vigilante’s emotions with Peter quite well.

“Alright,” he finally sighs. “Stay safe though, kiddo.”

He just nods in agreement.

As the vigilante grapples into the distance of Gotham’s night, Peter starts walking again, every so often tripping on his broken shoe. Soon enough, he gets frustrated with it and takes the article of clothing off completely, holding it in his hand and walking with one shoe and one sock.

===

BATCHAT

Dick (1:47): Just saw Peter wandering around

Dick (1:47): Who’s listed as his guardian, again?

Tim (1:48): Tony Stark

Dick (1:48): I’d like to have a word with him

Dick (1:49): Or several. Peter’s shoe fell apart and he seemed like it wasn’t a big deal.

Dick (1:49): Like “this happens often” not a big deal.

Dick (1:50): And there also wasn’t any alert for Peter being missing, was there?

Barbara (1:50): Nope.

Damian (1:50): You know that could just mean that he runs, Richard.

Jason (1:51): its gotham, dick. who do you know in gotham thats going to report a missing kid

Dick (1:52): A competent parent.

===

Eventually, Peter makes it back to Penny’s with a now soaking and glass-filled foot. He has never noticed just how much junk is on the sidewalks of Gotham because his shoes were always keeping his feet safe. Walking inside, Peter exhales in relief as he sits down on the rug in the front room under the couch. He can feel his foot pushing out all the bits of glass, and while it does hurt, he’s glad it’s happening. He doesn’t have the willpower to do much more than take off his school uniform before passing out, barely making it onto the covers.

Peter’s dream is nothing less than weird. This time, he’s in a… library? Not the Gotham Public Library, though. He can see artifacts everywhere from the memory that isn’t his, and when it turns to the right he sees a cape. A red cape is floating on its own. Strange? He thinks.

“Peter,” his name is called again. And this time he doesn’t wake up when he turns.

If it isn't for his voice loss, he would have yelped in surprise when he saw Dr. Strange.  A hand jumps to his chest in surprise, before it melts away into intrigue. What’s Mister Strange doing in my dream?

“This isn’t a dream, Peter.” the sorcerer says. “I’m here, within your mind.”

Peter can’t help but run up to the man, wrapping his arms around him, and crying. He doesn’t care about anything else at the moment, just that someone from home is with him. After a minute or two, he reluctantly pulls back. What is he doing here?

“Great question,” Strange says dryly.

What the fuck? How is he reading my mind?

“Don’t curse,” Strange starts off. “And my reading your mind is most likely an after-effect.”

Jeez, sorry. And an effect of what? Peter crosses his arms.

“Of my magic pulling me to you once I was killed.”

What. The. Fuck.

“Yeah, take a minute to process what I just said.” Strange saunters closer to Peter. “You’re smaller than I remember you being, kid.”

Maybe your magic went wonky when you transported me to hell because I’m thirteen and I can’t talk, Peter thinks bitterly.

“My magic didn’t go wonky,” Dr. Strange is curt with his response. “It might not have reacted well to the environment, though.”

So it went wonky, Peter scoffs.

“I can’t deal with reading your mind any longer,” Strange says moving his hands around. “Your thoughts are so unorganized that trying to find the one that is directed at me is giving me a headache.”

Peter’s heart skips a beat as Dr. Strange’s magic starts to flow in the dark, void-like room with the screen to the magician’s memories. A lump forms in his throat before dissipating.

“Your problem is fixed,” he says after a moment. Peter’s skeptical. “Trust that it will work.”

Peter is even more doubtful now, but he gives it a try (there’s nothing left for him to lose, anyway).

“Uuh-hh.” His voice is broken as he hoarsely speaks, hurting both his throat and his ears as he continues to make noise. “Wh-a-att the-e fucc-k?”

“You’re fine.”

Peter scoffs, thinking, I’ve had my voice back for all of 10 seconds in the past 6 days. Give me a break.

“Six days..?” Strange mutters. “Odd.”

Peter hums, trying to get his vocal cords back to where they used to be. “Wha-at doo y-ou me-an?”

“It’s only been a couple of hours for everyone else since I sent you here.”

Huh. Odd. Peter repeats in his mind.

“I’ll work on that while you’re awake.”

“Wha-t.”

Peter wakes up even more drained than before. At least, he thinks so. He feels like he has just taken several hard drugs and is still high on them. He misses the sun that would wake him up when he lived in Queens. Gotham’s dreary atmosphere is nowhere near close enough to satisfy his need for the beautiful. He can, of course, appreciate a good rainy day when it comes up, but when the atmosphere is this gloomy every day, it’s kind of hard to love.

Rolling out of bed, Peter puts a heavy amount of Lysol on his clothes before putting them on, vowing to wash them twice as hard when he gets home from school today. He stares at his shoe a moment before rummaging through the closet and pulling out a roll of duct tape. Grabbing his shoe, Peter wraps a heavy amount of tape around the sole and top, securing it as best he can with the supplies he has.

“That is not going to stay,” he hears Dr. Strange’s voice in his mind, and he turns around frantically, trying to find the body of the sorcerer. “You aren’t going to find me, kid.”

So the dream was real, Peter thinks. 

“Yes.”

Hell, okay, he sighs, not like weirder stuff hasn’t happened to me. He rips the tape on his fingernail, which has gotten way too sharp for his liking. I’ll have to trim them soon.

He puts the shoes on his feet before wandering into the kitchen, stopping momentarily to put the tape back in the closet. 

“Wha-t to e-at, wha-t to eat,” Peter whispers to himself, trying to get his voice back into working shape. Like any generic person, Peter pulls down the high-sugar cereal he had passed on yesterday and pours himself a bowl. Gulping down the contents, his stomach growls for more. He grabs a banana from off the counter, downing it before rummaging through the fridge. He eats the rest of the smoked turkey slices straight from its container. He’s barely full, but he can make do until lunch.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” Strange mutters from the far-off corner of Peter’s mind. Peter ignores him out of spite.

He leaves Pennsylvania’s house after grabbing his knapsack off the floor, locking the door behind him as quietly as possible. Walking to the train station, he barely makes it out of Crime Alley before he hears the revving of a familiar motorcycle.

familiar! left!

Whipping his head around, Peter sees Motorcycle Guy—Jason, who he should really start getting in the habit of using his name—whipping down the street at the ungodly hour that is 6:50 A.M. His ears hurt even under the headphones as the bike gets closer to him. He keeps walking, and Jason whips past him, continuing into the crime-ridden area. He pays no mind, unintentionally listening as the motorcycle grows distant.

Peter slips behind another unsuspecting traveler at the turnstile, yet again gaining free access to the trains. Getting to school takes a while, but it’s not anything he can’t handle. Walking out of the station at 7:51, Peter books it to the building to make it to class on time. Composing himself before walking through the front door, he is called into the front office.

“Mr. Stark, I wanted to let you know that your ID card is now hooked up to the school's scholarship budget for train passes.” the secretary smiles at him. “You won’t have to use any of your own money on the train during school days anymore.”

Peter opens his mouth to thank her, but nothing comes out. Sighing, he reverts to signing his words. “THANK YOU”

Walking out of the office, Peter notices on the clock that there are about 5 minutes before he has to be in class. Slowing his pace, Peter walks leisurely to get to class on time.

Why couldn’t I thank her? Peter wondered to himself on the way there.

“I stopped you.” Dr. Strange replied.

What? Why?!

“You should keep the fact that you can speak to yourself,” the magician tells him. “It’ll be harder to recognize you during your patrols if you talk in the suit but not out of it.”

Peter frowns at how reasonable it sounds. 

“Of course it’s reasonable. Wouldn’t you have thought of that?”

Just because I have Spider-Sense doesn’t mean I have common sense, Peter rolls his eyes as he walks into his calculus classroom. Calculus is a bore to Peter, as per usual. He spends his time thinking about random things that shouldn’t matter, such as if it’s going to be sunny tomorrow (he hopes so) or if they’re serving salmon in the cafeteria today (he prays it isn’t true).

Peter can feel Damian’s sharp gaze on him. He thinks he’d be able to feel the glare even without enhanced senses and the Spider-Sense. He bounces his leg until class ends, relieved when the bell finally rings. Standing up, he heads for the door.

“Stark.” Damian’s voice calls out, making the brown-haired boy stop in his tracks. Peter turns around and is almost eye-to-eye with the Wayne boy. “What is wrong with your shoe?”

Looking down for a moment, Peter almost laughs when he looks at his poorly fixed shoe. “BROKE”

“You have the worst type of humor, Peter,” Dr. Strange’s voice rings in his mind.

“You didn’t buy a new pair?” Damian asks like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“BROKE” he repeats, almost comically.

Damian squints his eyes before huffing and walking away from Peter. He trails behind him, loosely following him on the way to their next shared class.

Peter grabs a canvas instead of his regular sketchbook before sitting at the art table. He can feel Damian’s eyes on him as he sketches on the canvas with the most insane look on his face (tongue out and all), taking time with each line and somehow barely needing an eraser.

As the end of class nears, Peter is unhappy with his results. Something about it looks… off. And he knows it’s just a sketch, but he fears his vision won’t come out right. Putting the canvas away in his cubby, Peter walks alone to his science classroom. He places his knapsack on the floor next to his chair and Peter’s Spider-Senses are quick to act up.

eyes! hello!

He turns his head to see Duke staring down at his shoe before quickly turning away upon realizing that Peter was looking at him. He shrugs it off and sits down on his chair, getting ready for the utmost boring lesson of the day.

===

BATCHAT

Duke (10:11): Damian did you ask peter abt his shoes

Damian (10:11): Yes.

Duke (10:12): and?????

Damian (10:12): He said they broke.

Duke (10:13): ur less helpful than a bear riding a unicycle

Stephanie (10:13): how do you even make that comparison {skull}

Stephanie (10:14): WHO GOT RID OF EMOJIS IN THE CHAT

Dick (10:17): I used to know a bear that rode a unicycle.

===

“So, Peter,” Duke whispers to the boy while class is being taught. “Do you wanna sit with me and Tim again?”

Peter weighs his options. He could either talk to Dr. Strange alone without looking insane or look weird having lunch with two boys considerably older than him. He chooses the former. “NO THANK YOU”

“Oh,” Duke looks defeated, oddly enough. “That’s alright.”

He doesn’t get the impression that it’s alright, but he takes Duke’s word for it against his better judgment. When the bell rings, Peter is one of the first people out of the classroom despite being at the back of the room. Getting in line, he stacks his tray high once again with different foods—the main entree isn’t salmon, and he thanks the higher lords for saving him—before leaving to go find a quiet spot in the school to eat. Sitting in the halls by himself, he tries to spark a conversation with Dr. Strange. So… what’re you doing?

“You should have accepted that invitation,” is what the magician says. 

He sighs in annoyance. But you’re part of my survival to get back home, and they aren’t.

Dr. Strange doesn’t respond, much to Peter’s dismay.

Walking into his English class, Peter doesn’t know what to make of the situation. There are three people—following Bruiser—standing in between him and his desk.

“Well, well, well,” Bruiser saunters over to the much smaller student. “Look who the cat drags in.”

If Peter could tell him that that was one of the most cringe lines he’s ever heard in his life (and boy has he heard some), he would tell him straight away.

“NO SHIT” he signs, even though he knows perfectly well that Bruiser doesn’t know ASL.

“So extra and for what,” Bruiser grits through his teeth. “Only three days since coming here and you’re already the biggest nuisance that anyone could ask for.”

Peter doesn’t respond, instead looking for a way around him to his seat.

“ Look at me when I’m talking to you,” his hand reaches out for Peter’s face but he side-steps the taller boy easily.

“Augustus,” the teacher calls out. “There is no fighting in the school building. You know this.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes before allowing Peter to walk by. He sticks out his leg as Peter passes him, expecting him to trip, but Peter easily walks over his leg without any problems. By the end of class, Peter is ready to go back to Penny’s house. But even more so, he’s ready to get back to swinging.

Walking into the gymnasium from the locker rooms, he’s excited to hear that the activity for the day is volleyball. As they’re split into different groups of five, Peter notices that he and Damian are on opposing teams. Well, that won’t be an issue, he thinks to himself sarcastically. The teachers tell everyone to start playing, and Peter gets into the hang of things pretty quickly, moving around easily and without any complaint. He is also moving around without sweating, which people on both teams start to take notice of. He can hear muttering over the sound of volleyballs being hit, and he doesn’t enjoy it all that much.

“How is that even possible?”

“You don’t think he's…?”

“Nah.”

He can also feel the weight of Damian’s eyes on him as he dives around, aware but not privy to the critical thinking going on within the boy’s mind. As they leave class, Peter starts booking it to history. Luckily, no one questions him on the subject of him not sweating despite the multiple jealous stares from different classmates.

His last class, history, goes by smoothly. It’s one of the only classes he pays attention to since he knows next to nothing about the world. When the bell finally rings, Peter takes an extra minute leaving the building, taking his time to take in the architecture again. Finally exiting the building, he adjusts his headphones as he walks to the train station, excited to get to Penny’s.

Chapter Text

He doesn’t hop the turnstile to get onto the train this time, and he’s glad he does so when he sees the lone cop sitting right around the corner with his body cam off his body and facing the metal bars. Peter turns the corner and walks to his platform to get on the train he eagerly awaits. Peter doesn’t think he has used any train as much as he has been using this train (that he doesn’t even know the name or line of) for the past 5 days. He realizes now that he’s been in this awful city for over a week. A week without Spider-Man, and a week of being thirteen and lying to the government about the age that he would be in this universe, or that he is in his own.

“You need help, Peter,” Dr. Strange says from inside his mind. Peter chooses to ignore the words that echo in his head. “You can’t ignore me forever.”

He disregards that too.

It’s a nice change of pace, getting back to Pennsylvania’s house at a reasonable time, instead of the late night he had trying to get back previously. He unlocks the door around 4:30 P.M. Penny is sitting on her chair next to the couch. 

“Peter!! Welcome home,” she smiles at him. He doesn’t know why, but those two words do something to him in his heart. Maybe it’s grief, maybe it’s acceptance. He doesn’t want to find out. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it back, with how little I’ve seen you as of late.”

“SORRY” he signs.

“It’s alright, honey,” she says, waving him off. “You’re allowed to have a life and to do things. Speaking of, how has school been so far?”

Peter beams under his face mask, and when he starts signing, he hopes she can feel the energy that goes into his movements. “GOOD MADE FRIENDS I THINK”

“Ooh!! Friends? What are their names?”

“D-U-K-E” he says, before contemplating on signing Damian’s name as well. She takes his pause as a stop.

“Only one?” she questions, before humming to herself. “Well, you are a quiet boy, and this Duke must be a good one.”

He nods to agree with her. Duke does seem like a good person so far, always trying to include him. It scares Peter more than he wants to admit.

“Peter, you really need to work on that,” Dr. Strange’s voice reverberates from inside Peter’s mind, and he winces the slightest bit when the echo doesn’t stop as early as he wants.

He’s glad he’s back in time to talk to Penny. As he sits on the sofa, she turns the television on to Jeopardy. He doesn’t mind, as it gives him some educational background noise while doing some homework thats due by the end of the week. He’s reminded of the fact that he’s supposed to have a rough draft of something (more like anything) turned in on Friday for his art class. He sighs as he continues with his math.

“Peter, I’m going to start dinner, what would you like?” Penny says as she heaves herself from her chair. “Pasta with tomato sauce or quesadillas?”

“QUESADILLA” he flips his hands from side to side as he signs.

“Alright then hon,” she smiles at him as she walks into the kitchen. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t help but feel bad; he’s taking advantage of an old lady by somewhat forcing himself on her and making her give him a place to stay. To him, it felt evil. And he was supposed to fight evil, not be it. His mood worsened as he finished the last part of his homework, a piece of chemistry that he was unable to finish in class (even though he knows everything he’s being taught).

“Your quesadilla’s done!” Pennsylvania calls from the kitchen.

“Who is she?” Dr. Strange asks as Peter walks to the woman.

Grandma Penny, Peter thinks, since he knows Dr. Strange can understand him perfectly fine like that.

“Interesting.”

He doesn’t know what that means and doesn’t think he wants to.

He nibbles on his plain cheese quesadilla slowly until Penny’s more than halfway done before he starts taking actual bites. He wants to sit with her for the entire period and not make her feel like she has to rush at all. When they both finish, he clears the plates and washes them off in the sink, unpleased with the texture and smell but miraculously undeterred.

“Peter, I’m going to go to bed,” her voice is weary as she talks while standing up from the table. “It’s been a busy day.”

Peter waves from his position at the sink, giving her a gentle smile as he watches her leave and head to the stairs. I wonder what she did today, he thinks as he finishes with the pan. Washing his hands clean, Peter turns around and heads back into the front room. He flops down on the couch, but he doesn’t feel like sleeping. Instead, he feels like swinging around and dodging punches and bullets for fun while saving people. But his suit is ruined.

He grumbles in frustration as he pulls the suit out from the bottom of his knapsack. He’s done with just sitting on the couch and counting sheep; he needs to get out and do something good. Grabbing the pieces of material he took from the closet, he does not care anymore about the extra holes that he’s going to put into the suit. He needs something functional and he needs it now. Opening the sewing kit he has, he finds his red thread and an embroidery hoop for his suit to go on to get good stitching on the patches he is about to sew on. He tries to cut the fabric into fun shapes, trying to make the suit seem more friendly than a masked teenager no one has ever seen before swinging around Gotham City for the first time.

Finishing the patchwork (which spends more of his time than he anticipated it would), he is finally ready to leave the house. Well he has to put it on first, but then he’ll be ready. Changing in the bathroom, he stuffs his normal attire under the sink along with his headphones. As he closes the doors he suddenly gets cold feet. What if Karen isn’t working? What if I can’t move like I usually do? What if I—

He’s cut off by Dr. Strange. “Just go already.”

He takes a deep breath in and out before looking at himself in the mirror. He falls into a sense of familiarity almost instantly, and his excitement is back. Opening up the window to the bathroom, he crawls outside. Finally.

He’s running across rooftops before he can even think about what he’s doing. As if it’s natural (which it is), he leaps off a building and shoots his newly made webbing onto an adjacent building. He is so back.

“Karen,” his voice is raspy and it throws him off for a second, his webbing faltering and he gets a little too close to the ground for comfort.

“Yes, Peter?” her voice is a lovely, majestic thing to hear.

“Oh tha-ank gods,” his voice cracks and he winces. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, it appears that all suit functions are operational,” she’s calm, and he is glad she is. “Except for the part where you sewed the suit back together with less than proper materials.”

He sighs at her snarkiness, but he also can’t help but laugh. “Sorry, Karen! Couldn’t help that.”

“I suppose so.”

His senses are turned up way more than he would have liked ever since he took off the headphones he usually wears. “Is there any way to turn up noise muffling?”

“Yes, I’ll do so right now.”

“Thanks.” The world gets quieter, even if it’s only barely. It’s quieter and it’s solace. “Hey, you think you could tap into the Gotham City cameras?”

“I don’t have access to a Stark Industries satellite, at the moment,” she tells him. “It’ll be a while as I have to get into the satellite for Gotham, first.”

“Take your time.”

He swears he can hear her hum in response.

The wind presses against his skin as he zips through Crime Alley, pausing on the side of a building when he hears yelling and screaming. 

go! left! help!

He heads back, trying to locate the noise. Somehow his hearing turns up even more, pinpointing the area the screeching is coming from even easier. Heading down an alley, he frowns from where he is, hidden among the shadows (just like the Batman he hears about). It’s a stripper and a man, one pushing themselves onto the other, and the other of them trying to push them away. He invites anyone to guess who’s doing what.

He allows himself to fall to the floor, barely making a noise as his feet connect with the ground. “Y’know, it’s not very nice to be pushing yourself onto a woman who doesn’t look like she wants to be near you.”

“Hah?” the man turns around, his eyes narrowing when he sees Peter; he technically sees Spider-Man, but that’s beside the point. “Get lost, shortstack.”

“I promise you I’m not going to be,” Peter continues his slow progression to the two. He spares a glance at the woman, who looks scared out of her mind. “Let her go.”

The man scoffs, shoving the woman onto the floor and making her stockings rip. He pulls a knife out from his pants, twirling it around his fingers before finally settling it in his grip. “Wanna go, punk?”

“I’d love to!” Peter smiles, bouncing on his feet. You can’t go too hard. He’s a normal human, Peter, he reminds himself as he takes a large step forward.

below! watch!

He dodges the knife as it swings at his abdomen, flipping backward and settling on his feet next to a wall. “It’s rude to bring a knife to a fistfight, y’know buddy?”

He doesn’t get an answer.

“Gotta fill the stinkin’ silence all by myself, huh?”

“Stop yappin’ and get over here.”

“Fine, fine,” Peter stands up and runs forward, shooting web fluid at the man’s torso to reel him in and make contact with Peter’s knee.

The man coughs as the wind is knocked out of him, slumping over.

“Oops,” is what Peter responds with as the man crumples to the floor.

Turning to the woman, Peter frowns as she stands up and holds her bag as if it were a weapon.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you,” he raises his hands to indicate surrender. “I’m Spider-Man, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Uh-huh…” she trails off, unwavering from her stance.

“Look, you don’t have to trust me, but I won’t hurt you.”

knife! watch!

Peter’s Spider-Sense goes off and he immediately jumps up, barely missing the knife that would have connected to his ankle.

“Woah there!” Peter lands on the man’s wrist, making him drop the blade. “It’s not nice to interrupt someone while they’re talking, is it?”

He picks the man up by the collar of his jacket before tossing him upright and shooting some webbing at him, effectively sticking him to the wall.

“You’re free to go, ma’am!” he looks back over at the woman who still has a fearful look plastered on her features. She walks around the two males slowly and meticulously before booking it as fast as she can out of the alleyway in heels.

“Now, ” Peter reaches out for the man, keeping just out of reach from the man’s swinging limbs. “Do you have a phone?”

He webs down his arms and rummages through the man’s jacket pockets, finding a flip phone buried under plenty of Life Savers wrappers. Opening the device, he dials 911 and waits for an operator to answer.

“911, where is your emergency?”

“Hello! I’m a rapist on uh…” Peter pauses, before running out to the street to look for a sign. “Ah! I’m on Cherry Street in the alleyway between the Lucky Duck Bar and a mom-and-pop restaurant.”

Might have to go there sometime, he thinks to himself. Looks pretty good.

“Sir, are you sure you are aware of what you just said?” the operator says back, and Peter can picture the confusion on his face.

“Yep! I’m a rapist who wants to be put away for what I’ve done. I just attempted to sexually assault a woman on the street.” Peter smiles, walking in circles. “Please come pick me up!”

Not too far away, Peter can hear the soft pattering of what can only be vigilante feet on the rooves of buildings. He hangs up the phone before putting it back in the man’s pocket.

“It wasn’t very nice meeting you, sir! I’m Spider-Man, by the way!” Peter waves before shooting a web upward and flinging himself to the roof of the bar-slash-apartment. Swinging away from the scene, he hears police in the distance grumbling about being called to Crime Alley for something that’s ‘normal and shouldn’t be called in’. He frowns but keeps on his way anyway.

He hasn’t had this much fun in forever: picking up little pieces of trash and sticking them in bins, stopping street fights, and showing kids the way back home after they got lost at a park. It isn’t too long before he accidentally finds himself out of Crime Alley, but he doesn’t mind. He makes sure to stay out of the way of the other vigilantes in Gotham, although he’s sure they’ll find him soon enough. Making his last couple of rounds through Gotham’s richer areas before he heads back to Penny’s, he slows when he sees an elder man using a cane to walk to what appears to be the subway. Landing with a flip, he starts walking over to the man.

“Excuse me, do you need any help sir?” he asks as he approaches.

“You stay back, you!” the man waves his cane in the air between the two.

“Woah there, sir!” Peter immediately backs up, putting his hands up in defense. “I’m not going to hurt you! I just want to make sure you get to your destination safely.”

“I never needed help from you or any other bastard Bats!” the man scowls, putting his cane down only to lift the other hand up to wave his finger at Peter. “You criminals… always stirring up more trouble than you can keep contained!”

“Sir, I’m not a ‘bat’. I’m Spider-Man and unaffiliated with any other animal-type vigilante,” Peter says, using air quotes. “And we keep the city safe, at least that’s what vigilantes are supposed to do.”

“You say that when there’s crazies going around poisoning the water and infecting our air just for their own pleasure,” he chuckles grimly. “Keep your yappin’ to yourself if all you’re gonna spew out is nonsense.”

This is not the first time Peter has met someone against people performing vigilanteism. But it doesn’t mean it hurts him any less.

“Okay, sir. If you don’t need any help getting to your destination, then I’ll leave you alone,” Peter backs up slowly. “Have a good night!”

He can feel eyes on him as he slowly swings back to Crime Alley. Even though his Spider-Sense is going off like crazy every time the gaze changes angles, he can’t seem to place who it’s coming from. That is, until he makes it to the border of Crime Alley when he sees the glimpse of a black suit hiding behind a roof door.

When he enters through the window from which he exited, he puts his clothes over the super-suit and walks out of the bathroom exhausted. Swinging around never used to tire me out this much, Peter yawns. Maybe I was just out of it for a minute.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Peter takes a glance at the clock before flopping on the couch to pass out. Wait… peeking out of his mostly closed eyelids, he reads the clock through blurry vision. 6:25?! Peters is out and ready to go quicker than he would like to admit, taking what is probably the quickest shower known to mankind. He doesn’t think about breakfast (one of his worst decisions known to date) and books it out of the door, barely stopping to lock the door. He makes one of the madder dashes of his life to the subway, fumbling with his ID to get into the platforms, and just barely making it on his train. Walking to his seat, Peter slings his knapsack down next to him before he passes out with his head bouncing against the glass pane of the window.

wake! now!

His Peter-Tingle alerts him when it’s time to get off the train seconds before the doors close. He sticks himself between the closing metal parts, not surprised when his foot gets caught between them. Yanking it from the door’s grip, hearing a rip is not wants to hear at 7:40 in the morning. He sighs as he spots the tear in his uniform leg that he is going to have to fix later.

Walking into school, he sits down at his seat exhausted and with two new dark circles under his eyes. He can feel Damian’s eyes piercing in his back, but the Wayne doesn’t say anything at all.

Peter sleeps in calculus until they receive a pop quiz during the last 15 minutes of the class. He barely puts any thought into it as he scribbles away on the paper, being one of the first students to complete the entire paper. Setting his pencil back down, he rests his head back on his arms and finishes his short nap before the bell rings and he turns in his paper to his professor. Art was different, however. He is sure to stay awake, trying to occupy his brain and body by thinking about nonsense while drawing blobs of nothing. By the end of class, the page he used was filled with empty circles that looked nothing like his prompt.

Duke was the first one to say something about Peters exhausted state when he shows up for chemistry.

“Dude, what happened to you?” Duke’s face creases with worry. “You look like someone dragged you through hell and back.”

Peter’s almost too tired to sign an answer to him, but he finds the will anyway. “HOMEWORK”

“Nuh-uh, no way this was just ‘homework’,” he frowns, refusing to take that answer. “What happened?”

“NOTHING” he tries to shrug the older boy off with vague answers. Even though he knows it solves practically nothing, it does stop the questions from being asked, even if it’s only momentary.

===

BATCHAT

Duke (10:34): Peters like tired asf

Duke (10:34): idk why he wont tell me

Tim (10:35): interesting…

Stephanie (10:36): i cannot wait to see where this goes omfg

Stephanie (10:36): at the manor and i can hear tim tearing his room UP

Cassandra (10:37): lol

===

Peter’s stomach is grateful when the bell rings. It has been growling for the past hour, and his teacher has glared at him several times whenever it interrupts his (slow-ass) teaching. He doesn’t wait for Duke as he speed-walks to the dining hall, becoming one of the first few in line with a tray. He piles his tray even higher than before, grabbing things that he isn’t sure he’ll even enjoy—like an ethnic dish that he’s never had before (but is more than willing to try)—before tapping his ID to ‘purchase’ the food.

He walks into the halls, sitting down a couple of hallways away from the cafeteria before starting to eat. 

“This is why you don’t skip meals, Peter.” Dr. Strange’s voice reverberates in his mind. Peter rolls his eyes, which he feels like Strange knows about.

He finishes every bite of his food, not minding if it got a little too spicy for him. He’s inclined to sleep on the floor right there, but decides against it so hes not bullied even more than he already is. Putting his tray away, Peter sets out to find the library.

It takes him considerably longer than he would have liked to find the room, but he feels like it’s worth it when he opens the door. It looks absolutely amazing inside, stained glass near the ceiling and books on shelves for what feels like miles to him. He wanders through endless racks for ages, going through each of them meticulously. By the time lunch ends, Peter has only looked at a half of the entire collection. He promises that he’ll come back the next school day and look at more of the books.

His last three classes fall into a routine that Peter has started to accustom himself to. English: be slightly bullied by Bruiser and learn nothing of value (he already knows the ASL they’re teaching in the class). Physical Education: try not to exert himself too much to avoid drawing attention or hurt other people. History: absorb as much new information as possible so that he doesn’t seem like he isn’t from this Earth, even though he is.

His ride back to Pennsylvania’s from Gotham Prep is slow, and he prays that someone hits the train with a speed-booster of some kind. He trudges from the station to Crime Alley, immediately fixing his posture once he gets inside to seem tougher.

Once back at Penny’s he lets himself pass out on the couch, barely bothering with the door or his shoes before falling asleep.

Chapter Text

Cleaning his clothes is the first thing he tasks himself with when he wakes up. Peter finds a basement that he wasn’t aware of before in his search for a bucket to hand-wash his clothes again. The stairs creak under him (and he jumps slightly) as he adjusts to the dark before finding a chain to pull on for the light. He is pleasantly surprised with a washer and dryer in the small area, both looking older than old could ever be, but he’ll work with it. Running upstairs, he grabs all of his clothes that have started to gather unwanted smells before going back down to put them in the washer. Pouring some detergent in, he starts the cycle. It doesn’t tell him how long it’ll take, but he supposes that it’ll finish sooner rather than later.

He hears Penny moving around upstairs, and she seems to be slowly making her way down the stairs. Taking the rickety stairs up to the first floor, Peter meets the woman in the doorframe between the living room and the kitchen.

“Peter! My boy, how are you?” she smiles at him, reaching up before kissing him on the cheeks.

He can’t help but smile, her cheeriness infectious. He gives her two thumbs-ups as she lets go, trying his best not to laugh.

“Now, I have to make some food, I bet you’ve had a long day at school, and someone is going to be home soon.” she smiles, lightly pushing around him to get into the kitchen.

Someone? Peter thinks to himself. He taps her on the shoulder before signing, “WHO”

“You’ll see,” Penny winks in a playful nature. She’s much more energetic than usual, and it starts to concern him, even if it’s only by a little bit.

Peter sits down on the couch again and pulls out his homework papers to complete. A lot of his work is in history, surprisingly. It’s also the worst class that Peter could have gotten homework for since he still knows next to nothing about the hero system of this world. The library is the only place where he can learn more about where he is without any holes in his knowledge, but he doesn’t want to leave Penny right now. He listens to the clattering in the kitchen as he daydreams about his home. The place he misses, the people he misses, the things he misses.

He’s startled out of his stupor when Penny calls for him.

“Peter! Food’s ready!”

He gives her a tight-lipped smile before hopping up off the couch and into the kitchen, grabbing the two plates stacked with food (not really both of them are stacked, just one (Peter’s)) from the counter and setting them on the table before Pennsylvania has a chance to do so.

“You sneaky boy,” she laughs before patting him on the back with her right hand, the left one filled with their forks. “Here you are; eat, eat!”

Peter gingerly takes his fork from her hand before digging into the food hastily, burping once with a sheepish look. Penny laughs in amusement.

“You are such a mess, hon.” she giggles before sipping her water. He smiles along with her, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. He’s glad she views him so fondly, even though he’s unsure what else she would see him as. Maybe evil, a monster, fake, or a spawn of Satan or some other morally wrong entity. He’s not sure he would think the same about him if he was in her position.

“Kid…” comes an exasperated sigh from Dr. Stange. Peter tries not to pay any attention.

He takes their plates from the table and cleans them in the sink without being asked, which lets Penny take a break after she just cooked dinner. He listens intently to her heartbeat as she moves from one room to another, allowing for the pattering of the muscle to soothe him as he continues to clean. After putting the dishes on the rack to dry, he cleans the rest of the table up, making sure to wipe it down with some cleaner after getting everything off.

On default, he almost walks back into the front room, but quickly pivots to go downstairs. He unsurprisingly nearly falls but catches himself easily. He swears he could have heard Strange talking about something.

Huh.

He takes the basement stairs two at a time, but he does allow himself some slack when his Peter-Tingle becomes iffy about one of the steps. Switching his clothes from the washer to the dryer, he shivers once or twice (maybe thrice, but he won’t admit it) when the wet clothes touch parts of his body that he isn’t prepared for. Turning the dryer on, he walks back upstairs to the familiar sound of Jeopardy playing on the television.

“You know, Peter,” Penny says as she watches him cross to the opened couch. “You’re such a good boy. I hope your parents know that.”

Peter doesn’t know how to respond. Maybe they think so and are watching from above as he sneaks out of houses, lies straight to people's faces, and beats people half to death. Of course, they think he’s a good kid. Not at all an awful person.

“THANK YOU” he signs, giving her a sad smile. “THEY DO”

Peter and Penny sit in silence, the latter waiting for the clock to strike eight and the former waiting for the older to go to bed. Peter frowns when he doesn’t get the right answer in Jeopardy, but at least he isn’t playing it, he supposes. The atmosphere shifts as Penny gets up from her seat and turns off the television.

She smiles at Peter one last time that day and says, “Goodnight Peter, sleep well.”

“GOOD NIGHT” he signs back to her calmly. “SEE YOU TOMORROW”

“Yes, see you tomorrow hon,” she waves, making her way up the stairs slowly. Peter watches as her hand grips the stairrail tighter than usual. The wood practically screams in his ears and eyes as she moves up. He swiftly makes his way behind her, not making a noise and not touching her. Just to be an extra support just in case something happens. He doesn’t know what, but he’s scared that there could be a possibility.

When she makes it to the top of the staircase, he freezes and she walks to her room, shutting the door behind her.

gone! safe! sleep!

His Peter-Tingle is ready for him to go back to his nighttime activities, but he has to wait for the clothes dryer to be done. His feet don’t make the stairs creak like Pennsylvania’s did as he descends. He brushes his hair out of the way with his hands—his nails also scrape along his forehead—and it tucks neatly behind his ear. He hasn’t been able to do that with his hair, at least not recently. Maybe time does move faster, Peter shrugs, a slight frown appearing on his face. Or maybe my hair just hasn’t been cut in a while. If it grows much longer, I’ll have to cut it with some scissors or something.

He starts fidgeting with the sunglasses he bought, twisting the plastic ever so slightly and pushing the lenses around. They seem sturdy enough, but he still thinks they can be better than they are at the moment. He’ll probably have to sneak into a science lab after school. He pets Dotty some, as well. She seems to be settling well, even though he hasn’t been able to take her to school or his late-night activities. She purrs happily, doing a little twirl on the arm of the couch. Peter’s back goes rigid when he hears the dryer’s bell go off. Practically skipping, he goes down to the machine and pulls out his clothes. He frowns when he sees the tear in his pants that he forgot about. Going back to the main level, Peter finds his sewing kit and a black thread to stitch his pants back up with. It cuts his vigilante time, and his Spider-Sense is not too pleased with it.

As he finishes up the stitch, he runs his finger across the thread to make sure it's secure. He’s never really been the best with sewing—despite making his first suit completely from scratch—so he always feels somewhat accomplished when he does something that he feels should last a while.

His super-suit is still on under his clothes, and he goes up to the bathroom to take them off and store them away in a cupboard. He finds baby powder in the medicine cabinet, shooting a bunch down the neck of his suit which he prays makes it down to the bottom. He puts it back, coughing through the cloud of powder he just made. The switch from his headphones to the mask is somewhat painful, all the sound rushing in before being blocked out by the noise-canceling of the mask. He’ll have to take apart the headphones someday to see what they’re made out of. Exits through the window, sticking to the wall and closing the glass pane before swinging away and around Crime Alley.

“Good evening, Peter,” Karen speaks, sending a wave of comfort over him.

“Hello Karen!” he smiles as he swings. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m doing just fine,” she says, and is she were any more human Peter would have imagined her smiling while she said so. “How are you?”

“I’m alright! Anything on any cameras that we should get started with?” he says, swinging from one building to another and making rounds across the small town within Gotham. 

“Yes, if you take a right here,” she starts, “You’ll head straight and there will be some men harassing a mother.”

“On it,” he turns sharply with his webs, picking up the pace.

When he reaches the area, he’s met with Amelia’s mother being berated by a couple of drunk men. Shooting web fluid at them, it’s easy for him to make quick work of them. They weren’t harmed, and the drunken state of the men made it easier for them to be tossed around. Rummaging in their pockets for only a moment, he conjures a phone smoothly.

“Hello! Is this the Gotham Police Department?” Spider-Man asks when the phone is answered. 

“Yes. Where is your emergency?” the dispatcher asks.

“In front of a bar on Giordano Avenue, me and my friend are both publicly intoxicated and need to be put away for our misdeeds,” Spider-Man says as he walks around, a slight bounce in his step like it wasn’t terrifying to the people staring at him (it’s only Amelia and her mother).

Cancelling the call, Peter puts the phone back in the harasser's pocket before turning to face the two women. “Are you both alright?”

“Uh–” Amelia’s mom stutters before starting, but Amelia cuts her off.

“That was so cool, mister! Where’d you learn to do that? My mommy says that I can do ballet when I’m older, but now I wanna be like you instead!”

“Oh thank you!” Peter gives her a thumbs up. “But I think you’ll be a perfect ballerina instead. You know, I think that when you’re all grown up you won’t want to be like me, and that’s okay!”

“Thank you so much,” Amelia’s mother smiles, her hand coming up to caress her daughter's hand.

“All in a day’s–well a night’s work, ma’am!” he brings two fingers up to his eyebrow before flicking them away in a mock salute. “I’ll best be on my way now, have a good night and get home safe!”

“Wait!” she calls as he starts to swing away. “What do I call you?!”

“Spider-Man!”

Barbara is just as stumped as Tim.

How in the name of all things holy has this… vigilante—if that’s what they even are—gotten around to more crimes in different spots than any of the Robins. Hell, they could rival Bats for a record of how many crimes they’ve wrapped up in one night. 

“First Peter, now this?!” Tim’s voice through the comms is anything but soothing. He’s more than agitated as he sits at the BatComputer in the BatCave. He’s grounded after breaking an expensive vase on his way to get out the door to try and see Peter Stark (whoever he is) again.

“Any news?” Nightwing’s comm indicator lights up as he talks into it. Barbara knows he’s asking about Peter, but she gives him news about Spider-Man instead.

“Spider-Man has been seen jumping back and forth between different parts of the city at lightning speed. They always call the police station when necessary, and have been seen doing different acts of heroism from saving cats to… ‘webbing up men’, as seen in a poorly made police report.” Barbara groans while she tries to read the police’s handwriting that was scanned into the system.

“Mmm…” the latch and release of a grappling hook is in the background as Nightwing speaks. “And Peter?”

“Nada,” a loud bang is heard through the radio, which can only be assumed to be Tim slamming his head on the desk and coffee cups rattling after they jump. “I don’t know how someone can be so unreachable! It’s as if he didn’t exist until he went to school for the first time! I swear Peter Stark, I will find out everything about you.”

“Let’s not get too riled up, now,” Nightwing chuckles through the comms, trying to clear the slightly tense air that Tim just created.

Peter sneezes mid-swing, causing him to lose his grip for a moment. “Huh.”

“Is everything alright, Peter?” Karen asks him.

“Oh yeah everything’s fine, just feel like someone’s talking about me.”

!!! eyes !!!

Peter’s head immediately snaps to where the eyes are coming from, the black suit he saw last night in full view. It seems to be a woman, and her body language says one thing and one thing only to Peter: observe. So in light of this discovery, he turns from the direction he’s swinging and starts heading to her. He can tell she’s trying to sneak away and use the shadows to hide her black suit, but his eyes are a little too sharp for that kind of thing. It seems like a game of cat and mouse to him, with him being the cat (which reminds him of Black Cat (but only a little)).

“Excuse me!” he calls out, hoping that they’ll stop. As he descends, he can see her stop and look back up at him as if she’s daring him to go further.

He makes a step and she doesn’t move.

“Cautious,” she says. “And meticulous.”

Just how long has she been watching me? Spider-Man pauses for a moment, before trying to relax back into his regular stance with loose joints and wide eyes. “Thanks, though I never expected those words from someone to describe me!”

“They’re true,” she says, leaning on the fire escape as he crawls down the walls.

“Only sometimes though!” Spider-Man admits. “I do tend to get myself into a bit of a pickle on occasion!”

“Mm,” she hums in thought. “Orphan.”

“Huh?” his eyes widen before his eyebrows furrow.

“My name. Orphan.”

“Oh! My name’s Spider-Man! Nice to meet the stalker I supposedly had.”

“Yes, of course.”

If it wasn’t for his enhanced senses, Peter doesn’t think he’d hear Orphan’s tiptoeing over the railing.

“See you around?” he asks as she leaves, content with making a possible friend.

“Maybe,” is what she says before flipping off the railing, her cape flying behind her as she shoots out a grappling hook in the distance. 

Lovely, he thinks. And as he swings back into Crime Alley he can’t help but feel eyes on him, even if there aren’t any to begin with.

Reaching Penny’s is easy for him, and is almost muscle memory at this point since he swings by during his rounds often enough. He takes off his suit after he gets through the window and shuts it to take a shower and get all the grime off of him. The shower is quick and putting his pajamas back on is even quicker. Taking the steps two at a time down to the first floor, he stuffs his suit in his knapsack before flopping down on the couch. The clock on the wall reads two-thirty, but his body doesn’t even have the strength to get under the covers.

When he wakes up around three hours later, it’s like his subconscious has taken over. The motion of taking off his pajamas is just as natural as him putting his super-suit on under his school uniform, and only after does he realize that he has it on, but he makes no moves to take it off. The sound of Penny’s heart beating bounces comfortably in Peter’s ears as he finds something to eat for breakfast.

He grabs his knapsack and key before heading out, petting Dotty on the head from where she sits on a web that she seems to have made in her free time (that she has all day). His walk to the train is calm and not at all like the one from the day prior. Well, except for the sound of Motorcycle Guy—Jason—zooming past on his vehicle. It seems to be a somewhat daily occurrence now, but Peter doesn’t mind all that much. The train ride is about the same as normal, the almost empty train car and the ugly train seats inviting him to sit on them during his journey.

But what’s different this day from all the others is that he doesn’t seem to mind Damian’s glare as much anymore. Its consistency is comforting, strangely enough.

Turning around, he hopes that the smile on his face is evident through the black mouth mask. “GOOD MORNING D-A-M-I-A-N”

“Stark,” Damian replies in greeting, curtly nodding his head.

“SIGN NAME YOU” Peter asks, silently hoping that he will no longer have to finger spell Damian’s name every time he talks about him.

“...Yes.” Damian responds, before showing him the gesture. It’s almost soft, the way Damian signs. The tone of voice is not as truthful as sign language, it seems.

Peter repeats the sign a couple times before giving a thumbs up. “THANK YOU”

“Mm,” he grumbles.

As math goes on, and even part of the way into art class, Peter’s feelings about Damian slowly start to change. No longer is Damian the annoying person he was fated to follow his first day of school. He’s a classmate now. A friend. Maybe.

“How’re you doing?” Duke asks him as he sets his knapsack down at the base of his chair in the chemistry classroom. “Your first week is almost over, huh?”

Peter tries to keep his mouth shut as he chuckles, his shoulders bouncing up and down. “TIRING”

“Ahh yeah I get that,” Duke nods his head in understanding. “You ready for Parent-Teacher Conferences next week?”

Peter freezes in the middle of his motion to grab a pencil. Turning around, he questions the older boy “WHAT”

“You didn’t know? Parent-Teacher conferences are next week, since you missed the first couple weeks,” Duke shrugs, “I’m sure yours will be a breeze though.”

That’s not exactly what Peter’s worried about, even though he gives Duke a thumbs up as he grabs his pencil. “MANDATORY”

“Yeah, especially for Wayne Scholarship kids. They want to make sure the kids still deserve them and all that, I think?” he frowns. “I don’t really know, actually.”

Peter doesn’t want to be a Wayne Scholarship kid anymore, not after hearing that awful bit of information.

“We’ll figure something out, Peter.” Dr. Strange tells him, taking a stance. His physical form showing up outside of just Peter’s mind this time, leaning on the chemistry counters.

Yeah, right.

Duke is 100% convinced there is something wrong with Peter. Or if there isn’t something wrong, he’s probably haunted to be quite honest.

There is no other explanation for the man glowing yellow with flowing energy attached to Peter than a haunting. Or a hallucination. Or maybe even magic, but Duke thinks that’s a little bit of a stretch, even though he is a meta and knows that nothing could truly be “out there”. For Pete’s Sake, Damian was trained by assassins and he’s halfway convinced Bruce is some sort of meta who has enhanced strength and endurance. But he somehow can’t grasp the thought of Peter being a magician.

He stares right at the man that’s looking at Peter. That’s probably talking to Peter, but Duke can’t tell whether Peter knows it or not by the way he’s facing to the front of the classroom and seemingly not paying attention to the person standing right behind him.

Turning to face the board in the front, Duke eyes the gold river of… whatever that attaches the two together.

Duke can’t tell whether it’s fascinating or terrifying, but all he knows is that it’s definitely not normal. He throws his pencil behind Peter, pretending like he ‘accidentally dropped it’. When he leans over to collect it, his head flies right into the river, and the man behind the 14 year old disappears from his vision until he sits back up.

Huh, how strange, Duke thinks to himself, his eyebrows furrowing a little bit as he turns to face the front of the room once again. Should probably ask him to sit with us at lunch again.

===

BATCHAT

Duke (10:43): there’s no way Peter isn’t haunted

Duke (10:43): asking him to lunch

Tim (10:44): be there in 15 ish

Duke (10:44): okay

Jason (10:46): since when was the only thing we talked about here peter

===

“Hey Peter,” Duke asks at the end of the lesson, turning to face the boy again.

“YES” he signs. Duke can’t help but feel somewhat bad for Peter, even though he knows he shouldn’t and it’s probably ableist of him. But he wishes he could just talk to Peter, and they could have conversations where he didn’t have to stare at Peter’s gestures every second so that he doesn’t miss a sign, especially since he doesn’t know the language very well.

“You wanna hang out with Tim and I during lunch?”

“NO THANK YOU” the response was almost immediate, after maybe a second of pondering.

“Oh, really? That sucks man,” Duke frowns. “But it’s totally chill! We can just hang out another time.”

Peter gives him a thumbs up and effectively cuts the conversation short, even though Duke is sure he didn’t mean it like that.

===

BATCHAT

Duke (10:58): NVM HE DOESNT WANT TO

Tim (10:58): im

Tim (10:58): this is awful i stopped working for this

Duke (10:59): sorry man

Tim (11:00): might as well take the day off ig

Alfred (11:01): Will you now?

===

Duke waves to Peter as he exits the classroom, leaving behind one small teenager in the middle of a hallway.

Peter waits patiently for Damian to make his appearance in the hallway, which he does quickly. Silently, he moves between the horde of people and reaches the most-likely-older boy in a matter of seconds. He almost taps on his shoulder, but he remembers the last time he did something like that and instead opts to match Damian’s pace into the lunch room.

He watches what Damian picks up in the lunch line, frowning in distaste whenever he finally puts something down on his tray. Peter shrugs before putting down whatever he can reach, barely caring about its contents.

“You know I know you’re there, correct?” Damian says as Peter follows him to a table. He stops, waiting for Damian to start moving again. But he instead turns around to face Peter with an eyebrow raised in unamusement. “You’ve been following me for a while.”

Peter just nods in response.

Damian doesn’t say anything else, but starts to walk back through the dining hall. Peter now remembers why he didn’t want to eat in the lunch room. It’s loud. 

The clacking of trays on tables irritate Peter’s ears as he sits down across the table from Damian. Lunch with him is silent, but Peter welcomes it. Maybe it’ll make a blanket of silence over the entire room and dampen the sound (it’s unlikely, but he still holds out hope). Starting to hork down his food, Peter shoves whatever he can into his mouth. His stomach grumbles once, twice, three times while eating, and he can feel the eyes of one very irritated person on him. When he looks over to Damian, he isn’t too surprised to see how neatly he’s eating. Peter can’t help but chuckle, and then proceed to choke on the bite of food still in his mouth.

But then the singular background noise he always subscribes to turns silent, and his whole world is flipped on a 180.

He stands up, as if on autopilot, and pulls the table with him accidentally.

“What the–” Damian starts, but Peter doesn’t care enough to stay to ‘hear’ the rest of it.

Peter is running out of the school before he can think twice, and rushing back to where he started his day. He needs to get back to Pennsylvania’s. He needs to get back to her. He needs to get back home.

He goes into the subway station before immediately turning around and leaving the underground. He strips himself of his school uniform in an alleyway, leaving him in his supersuit. Pulling on the mask, he pulls himself up and away from the area.

Home, home, home, is the mantra that is stuck in his head. He can’t seem to swing himself fast enough through the streets of Gotham City, and the dreary weather just makes his mood worse. 

Crime Alley looks more depressing than usual as he swings into it, and it makes him want to get back to Penny’s faster. 

And then he’s home. Swinging the door open is awful.

The crack of a wooden door to the head of an old lady hurts. It hurts his ears, his hands, his head, his heart.

He’s on the floor, sobbing and looking at her, trying to salvage the situation.

He knows it can’t be fixed.

Fixing her position so that she’s comfortable, he doesn’t know what to do.

So he does what he knows best.

He runs.

And runs.

And runs.

Homelessness is not exactly the greatest look for a Gotham Prep student, nor is it a good one for Spider-Man. But it’s just fine for Peter.

Chapter Text

Peter sits alone in an abandoned building, curled up in a ball with his back against the wall. Yet again, he is alone. He can’t seem to escape the curse that was passed down from his parents to him. It’s his fault, again, just like every other thing that happens.

Always has been.

Always will be.

Silence overcomes him. For the first time—at the worst time—everything is calm. And he isn’t.

No, no, no, his mind races. I can’t. I don’t. There aren’t any words to soothe him.

He’s alone. Again.

Just when he thought everything might be fine. He’s kidding himself. Nothing will ever be fine.

“Kid?” Dr. Strange’s voice bounces through his head, but Peter doesn’t know what he’s saying. “Peter, listen.”

He can’t.

The next five minutes are long and agonizing. So are the fifteen after that.

Everything hurts. Until it doesn’t.

He’s probably lying right to his brain, tricking himself into thinking that things are normal. But it’s either that or trying to come to terms with the world. He’d rather not.

Standing up, Peter takes a breath in. He chokes and hunches forward, coughing on his spit. Finally, he looks around in the abandoned warehouse, where he is on the second floor. It’ll have to work. He can make it work. He will.

He rearranges the room, trying to focus on the present and not the past (a half hour ago). Stray boxes and beat-up desks make the so-called ‘walls’ of the area he’s constructing.

“You know this isn’t healthy.”

Peter thinks he’s starting to get quite good at ignoring Dr. Strange and everything that comes out of his mouth, even though he wishes he didn’t have to. Standing proudly in front of the fort-like thing he constructed, the adrenaline rush starts slowing down, and his brain becomes active with thoughts again. He debates going back to school, but that means he’d have to explain to his teachers why he left, and he doesn’t think he has the brain power to find an excuse for something like that.

Setting his bag down, he’s glad to still be in his suit. Peter crawls up the wall and out a window, making sure not to leave any trace behind before vanishing off into the distance, leaving one web after another for them to dissolve over time.

PATROL ONE

Spider-Man swings through the outskirts of Crime Alley. Peter does not want to go anywhere near Penny–Pennsylvania’s house. As Spider-Man continues to swing through the area, it becomes apparent that he likes to swing more during the day than at night. Maybe because he feels more like a normal person during the day, and at night he feels like he’s chasing little insects down.

“Peter, you know you shouldn’t be doing a patrol with your heart rate fluctuating this much,” Karen speaks from inside his mask and into his ear.

“I need a distraction,” he says, starting to bite on his lip as he continues to swing.

“You could go back into a panicked state at any point, this is really unsafe,” he can feel the eye-roll that her voice does. “I remember you and Mr. Stark having a tal–”

“Let’s talk about something else,” he says at the mention of Tony. “Any crime calls in the area yet?”

“Nothing at the moment.”

“Huh, weird,” Peter frowns and then winces when his teeth accidentally bite through his lip. “Thought this place was ‘crime-ridden’ from all the news stories I saw at the library.”

That reminds him that he should go back some time, even if it’s only for a moment. He needs to return a book (that’s at Penny’s, which he’d rather die than go to at the moment), and he also wants to see Barbara again, maybe have a small conversation with her or something.

Sometimes, from a distance, he’ll spot a yellow figure—Signal, the vigilante that he saw a couple of days ago—from the roof of another building. But when he gets closer, it seems to just be a trick of the light. Maybe there are still tears in his eyes, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care enough to move up his mask to wipe them.

As Spider-Man moves into the nicer parts of town for his patrols, he notices a lot more younger kids outside. They’re maybe eight or nine, with their parents sitting on a balcony or porch step a couple of houses down, without a care in the world.

“Help!!” he hears crystal clear, his head snapping in the direction of the kids. He draws closer to them, their waving arms like an open invitation.

“What’s up?” he says, trying his best to force a smile into his tone as he goes up to the kids.

Pointing is the main indicator, but he contorts his mask into a puzzled expression anyway.

“Huh?”

“There’s a kitty, in the tree…” one of them mumbles.

Spider-Man almost repeats his ‘wuh?’ before another kid steps up to him.

“There’s a cat, uh…” she trails off for a second before regaining her sentence, “Snarf! He’s stuck in the tree.”

“Oh, I see,” Spider-Man pivots, looking up where there is, in fact, a cat stuck in the tree. “Cats are definitely something…”

Climbing up the tree, he’s careful not to spook the animal that climbed up the tree.

watching

“Here, kitty kitty! C’mere!” he pitches his voice into a sing-song tone, trying to make himself seem sweeter for the cat.

It hisses and backs onto a branch in reply, which is not the response he would have wanted.

“Snarf, come on,” he groans. Cats have never been much of a fan of Peter, but he’s okay with it because he’s never been much of a fan of cats. “Please.”

Apparently, the magic word is ‘please’ for the cat, which almost makes Peter laugh. Climbing back down with Snarf in hand, Spider-Man holds out the cat for one of the kids to take. 

“Snarfy!!!” a girl snuggles up to him. It reminds Peter briefly of Dotty, who he thinks he left back at Penny’s, which makes him even sadder.

“Awww,” three more kids coo.

“What’s your name?”

“That was so cool!”

“Why does your suit look like that?”

“You’re so short!”

The bombardment of questions catches Spider-Man slightly off-guard as he puts his hands up. “One at a time, one at a time!!”

“Me!! Me, me!” the kids all raise their hands, eager for him to pick them to ask their question.

“Uh…” he covers his eyes and points randomly into the small crowd. “You!”

“What’syur– what’s your name?” one kid stutters out.

“Spider-Man!” he replies proudly.

“Spiderman…” they respond.

“No, no!” he waves his hands out. “Spider-Man!! Almost two words!!”

“Spider-Man??” they say, all at different timings.

“Yeah! Like that,” he gives them a thumbs up. “Any other questions?”

Once again, a horde of children raise their hands.

“Yes, you, right there.”

“Why does your suit look like that?”

Peter looks down at the horrible patch job he did on his super-suit, and tries not to give away the sigh that he makes. “I got into a… big fight! And I don’t have the right materials right now because they’re suuuuper expensive.”

“But aren’t you a superhero?”

“Yeah, aren’t they supposed to have money and stuff?”

“Yeah!!”

Spider-Man bends down to their eye level (he doesn’t have to go far, which he hopes will change soon), trying to make the conversation easier. “The material I use is different from the material that your shirt is made of, and I use some technology too. It’s a lot more work than just some pants.”

“Ohhhhh,” a wave of understanding hits the kids. He doesn’t think they get it.

“So– so does that mean you can get electrotooted?” a girl asks, mumbling her words at the end of her sentence.

Peter can’t help but give a soft chuckle before Spider-Man replies. “No, I’m careful not to get electrocuted.”

“Okay,” she responds.

“If that’s all, I have to go!” Spider-Man smiles, waving at the kids.

“Okay!!”

“Bye Spidey!!”

“Bye-bye!”

Spider-Man waves before shooting a web into the distance, but Peter can’t help but freeze at the familiarity of the word ‘Spidey’. He knows it’s just a nickname of his hero name, but it reminds him too much of home and the places he’s left to be comfortable. Of course, the kid doesn’t know that so he doesn’t hold it against them, but it still gives him a startle when it happens.

Up and away, Peter pulls himself into a gentle swinging pattern, adding some flips and low catches to mix up the similarity between the regular swings.

He can hear anything and everything he wants to. For miles and miles, it’s the same. A robbery here, or a domestic dispute being displayed on the street. His stomach growls as the setting sun peeks through the cloudline and blinds him, and he is reminded of how alone he is. Again.

Spider-Man swings through the streets, and he clings to the side of a building when he sees Signal again.

“Karen, could you record all of my sightings of Signal?”

“I’m recording all the time anyway, Peter.” he can almost feel the slight snark coming off of her tone.

He rolls his eyes briefly, “Could you compile them in a folder?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” he says before he starts swinging towards the yellow-clad vigilante.

As he swings he wishes he could do so without his mask on, and have the wind flow through his hair. But he knows that it’ll be awful for his identity. Landing on a roof, he watches Signal walk around on another rooftop. Listening carefully, it’s easy for him to understand what he’s saying.

“The shift is almost done, right?”

It’s harder to hear what the person he’s talking to responds with, though.

“Yeah, any word on Peter, by the way?”

What? Peter raises an eyebrow from under his mask. He’s probably talking about another Peter, one that he knows personally.

“Yeah he left during the middle of the day and it’s kind of worrying.”

Okay this is getting a little freaky you can stop now, Peter smiles awkwardly under his mask. 

“Yeah I hope,” Signal sighs.

Spider-Man is quick to jump across the street and stick to the wall of the building that Signal is on, trying to get a better angle. Ear strain would have been a problem if he didn’t have decent senses already due to the spider bite. 

“I’ll be on my way back in a couple, gonna wrap things up here.”

“Take your time,” Peter now recognizes the person on the other end of the comm as Oracle, otherwise named Barbara. “The others will be out soon enough to help out.”

Spider-Man doesn’t move from his spot, trying to not be seen. He wants more time to watch and more time to assess.

“You know this isn’t the nicest way to go about this, Peter,” Dr. Strange says in his mind.

Do you have a better solution? Peter asks a harsh inflection in his thoughts. He doesn’t bother listening to a response as he hears Signal’s footsteps come closer and closer to the edge of the building where he is.

Slowly, Spider-Man inches his way to the corner of the building, turning to the next wall right before Signal looks over the edge.

“Huh.”

Peter lets out a sigh of relief before swinging out and away. His stomach growls once more, and he frowns, unsure of where to get food from.

The moon rises, and soon there is no more sunlight. It doesn’t change much for Spider-Man, though, as his eyes are perfectly fine in any type of light.

The garbage seems to be his source of food for the night. He doesn’t mind much though, as it brings him back to when he was homeless with his Aunt May. Jumping down an alley, he opens up a dumpster before diving in, not expecting to find much. Exceeding his expectations, he finds a fine cut of meat, cooked perfectly. Pulling his mask up to stop right above the bridge of his nose, Peter stops right before taking a bite and throws it back in the trash.

Lemon, eugh, Peter grumbles as he pulls his mask back down. The whole thing is probably contaminated. I hate this.

His stomach whines as he drags himself away from the dumpster, and as the pain starts to seep into his bones he debates going back and risking his life to satiate his hunger, even if it’s only for a minute. Pulling himself off the ground, the Spider-Man mindset starts to take over once again, and he barely pays attention to the pain growing in his stomach.

The air is cold, and Spider-Man lacks the thermoregulation to keep himself warm.

“I’m sorry, Peter, but I cannot currently turn on the heating function I am programmed with,” he can hear the frown in her voice.

“It’s alright, Karen,” Spider-Man says as he swings. “You’ve done so much already with the limited functions and without the use of Mr. Stark’s satellites.”

“About that,” Karen says, her voice getting distant before returning right up next to him. “I’ve found a satellite that I believe harbors a similar amount of power as Tony Stark’s.”

“Oh, really?” Spider-Man smirks. “Cool. Just make sure if you’re gonna use it to make it untraceable.”

“It’s what I do best.”

He can’t help but laugh a little at that.

When he finally returns to his makeshift room, Peter swears he feels sweat on his face (he knows he doesn’t sweat, but phantom feelings are too real to dismiss, especially when he’s tired). Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, he practically falls face-first on the cardboard boxes he flattened to use as a mattress.

His stomach growls again and he curls himself inwards, forming a ball. Closing his dry eyes, Peter’s mind runs rampant as he tries to fall asleep. Tears form at the corners of his eyes as he drifts to the soft lands of slumber (or in his case the cold ones), and he fails to keep his mind from Pennsylvania’s mangled body at the bottom of the staircase from where she had fallen.

SATURDAY

Peter is not himself when he wakes up. For one his back feels like he just got cut in half, which puts him in a less-than-chipper mood. And reason two is not something he wants to discuss with anyone; it’s the thing that’s holding him back. He shivers as he sits up on his cardboard mattress, autumn being the reason for the change in temperature. His stomach growls and the back of his throat has that awful feeling that he might just throw up if he doesn’t eat.

He pulls his school uniform over his Super-Suit—his regular clothes and pajamas both left at Penny’s house—and frowns at its wrinkled state. Looking back up, he makes one wobbly step before almost falling on the plywood. Huh, I guess hunger does get to ya after a while, Peter smiles wryly. He goes the long way down to the ground floor, taking the stairs and not just jumping down over the metal railing like he would have done if he was less hungry. It takes him a while to understand where he is in Gotham; the warehouse wasn’t a landmark for him during his patrols nor was it one in his civilian life. As he wanders the streets, Peter finally stumbles across the one thing he has known since the beginning of his endeavor in Gotham City. The Gotham City Public Library. He’s ecstatic. Well, as ecstatic as he can be when he’s starving and his insides feel like they’re being scraped thin.

His slumped figure doesn’t immediately alert Barbara of his presence as he walks inside, him being just at the right height to not be seen by her from behind the front desk. But when she finally does notice him, her face is one that he’d wish he’d never have to see again. The look of pity.

“Peter?” she asks, rolling forward slightly to get closer to the edge of the desk.

He stands at the desk counter moving his arms up so Barbara can see them. His hands are shaky as he signs, “HELLO”

She moves back and around the desk, abandoning the vast amount of books she has piled on it.

“What happened?” she asks, a quiet tone betraying her as it comes from her lips.

He doesn’t know how to tell her that he wants to know where the nearest soup kitchen is without alerting her. The ‘asking for a friend’ trick is too common—she’s probably used it once or twice herself. His feet feel light and he can’t help it when he flees from the library.

Peter has never been good at asking for help. Running wasn’t his plan, though. He fully intended to walk in and ask her for help, or at least try and sneak past her to get to a computer. He doesn’t know what he would do with it (probably hack into it with Little Legs like he used to), but he doesn’t feel like it’s right now that he has a library card. Now that he thinks about it, half of what he even owns is still at Penny’s. But the memory is still too fresh to go back.

He walks around the city, looking for food. Smelling for food. Hearing for food. Anything for food. Peter’s senses throw him off every once in a while, making him swivel his head at an unnatural angle to look at something that doesn’t matter.

watching

He turns to see an empty rooftop.

watching

His reflexes aren’t fast enough to stop himself from turning his head down a dark alley.

watching

Peter wishes he had his hoodie to block out the alerts, or at least stop himself from reacting.

hello!

He finally gets himself to not react as he runs into a scrawny man, his face droopy and his skin stuck to his bones.

“Wh-hy hello there,” the man says between coughs, his teeth golden-yellow and worn down.

Peter doesn’t have the strength to fight back as he’s dragged into a side street. He’s shoved (basically smacked) onto the brick wall of one of the buildings.

“Let’s see here…” the man trails off as he starts rummaging through the pockets of Peter’s school uniform. “You rich kids, can’t put anythin’ in your pockets nowadays huh?”

He’s turned around in an instant, his backpack being the addict’s next target. In the back of his mind, he knows that he should fight back. He knows that he’s much stronger than the man. But he can’t move. He can barely even think.

The wind around him is strong, but the whoosh at the end of the alley isn’t the wind. It doesn’t even alert the druggie, still focused on trying to find cash—or at least something sellable—in his knapsack. Peter isn’t phased when a blur punches the man trying to rob him in the face, successfully separating the man from himself. The only thing that does phase him, is the purple that goes along with it. He watches, with his bag in hand, as the man is beat up by a purple and blonde vigilante.

“Hello!” she says to Peter, leaving the beaten and bloodied man heaved over on the opposing wall behind a garbage bin. “Are you alright?”

Peter doesn’t know what to do in this type of situation. Usually, he’s the one on the saving side, helping out other people when necessary. He could have handled that on his own. Probably. He doesn’t have much to sell, anyway. Maybe a textbook, but it’s secondhand and also school property. 

His hands are shaky and weak as he brings one of them up, shaking it up and down to signify ‘yes’. 

“Good!” she says, giving him a thumbs up in return. “What’s your name?”

He shrugs, unsure if he wants to share that with her.

“I’ll start!” she points at herself. “I’m Spoiler! You spell it like this: s. p. o. i. l. e. r. Or, the sign name for that is Spoiler.”

Peter watches as she does the hand signs, copying them once she’s done.

“Alright, now it’s your turn.”

“P-E-T-E-R” he signs slowly, his hands making the signs wobbly and wrong. He sighs in disappointment. “PETER”

“Are you okay?” he can hear the frown on her lips. “You’re shaking a lot.”

“O-K” he signs. Way to point out the obvious, he thinks as a small frown forms on his lips. 

“Sorry, that was rude.” she sighs. “Let's get you something to eat, maybe.”

She reaches out for him, but they both pull away from each other at the same time. She doesn’t say anything about it, and he’s grateful for it. “This way, I know a good food truck that shouldn’t be too far ahead.”

He trails behind her through the streets, keeping his head down as he sidesteps people. They seem to form somewhat of a bubble around Spoilder, but as soon as they pass her the gap closes just as quickly.

“Here we go!” she smiles in front of a truck. Banging on its closed window, the person inside opens it suspiciously.

“What?” a thick accent is overlaid on their voice, almost not pronouncing the ‘t’.

“Joseph, open up! I want a burger with pickles and Colby-Jack cheese, as well as…” she trails off, looking at Peter for his order. Slowly, he points to one of the options on the side of the truck. “And falafel, please!”

Peter raises an eyebrow in suspicion. He doesn’t trust that someone in there is listening to a word Spoiler says.

When she looks back and sees the look on his face, she laughs. “Don’t worry, Joseph’s in there cooking away. He doesn’t keep his window open because of how bad the robbery rate is here, but he’s in there all the time. I might be singlehandedly keeping his business afloat, though.”

He almost smiles at her joke.

The metal shutter on the window opens from the inside, and a hand pushes out their orders. Rummaging in her costume, she pulls out a couple different bills.

“Keep the change,” she says, grabbing the food and handing Peter his falafel. 

“Was gonna anyway,” the man, who Peter can only assume to be Joseph, says before pulling the window closed again.

“Ah.” she stares at her food for a moment, pressing her unoccupied up to her facemask. 

Peter turns around in an instant.

“Oh, no don’t worry,” she giggles. “I have a spare eye mask for situations like these just give me a moment.”

Peter commits her laugh and heartbeat to memory at the same time.

“Alright, you can turn around now,” she says. When he turns, he’s about halfway through his food and sees her take a bite of the burger she ordered. “Oh these are so good, they hit every time.”

Peter nods in agreement. He doesn’t know what to do with the side of hummus, though. He knows usually when people make it they put limes in it, and he doesn’t want to test an allergic reaction today.

“Not a hummus fan?” Spoiler asks.

He shakes his head before popping one of his last couple of falafel in his mouth.

“I’ll have it if you don’t want it,” she holds out her hand expectantly. Unexpectedly, she opens the bun of her burger and dumps the hummus in it, before closing it back up and taking a bite. “Interesting.”

Peter cannot stop being stunned at what she does, although he guesses it’s the same for him and the people at home. When he finishes his food, his head swivels and he finds the nearest trashcan, walks over to it, and dumps it in. The falafel barely makes a dent in his hunger, but he’s grateful for it either way; it’s free food and he’ll take all the free stuff he can get.

“So,” she says as she finishes up her burger. “Are you doing better now?”

He nods his head, “THANK YOU”

“It’s no problem, I actually meant to visit Joseph for a while now, so–”

He waves his hand in front of him, effectively cutting her off, “SAVING ME”

“Oh, it’s not something you have to thank me for,” she smiles at him. “All part of the job Peter.”

“THANK YOU SPOILER” he signs again, this time more vigorously.

“Stubborn, huh?” her smile turns into a smirk. “Still part of the job.”

Peter frowns but doesn’t retaliate with any kind of signing.

“Do you need someone to walk you back to your house?”

“NO THANK YOU” he doesn’t need any kind of attention on his living situation at the moment. That would be counter-intuitive, probably.

“Alright, well then.” she gives him a thumbs up. “I’ll be around. Hopefully, we won’t have any more run-ins like that.”

He nods in agreement.

“Bye~!” she pulls out a grappling hook while pulling her mask up and zips off into the distance.

Peter’s stomach betrays him and growls once she’s out of his line of sight. He frowns, turning away and trying to find a homeless shelter. Or a food drive. Something. Anything, really.

His line of sight is a little wider as he walks, following his nose to the ends of the earth. 

Tim is hyper-aware of everything that Stephanie says. How did he miss Peter wandering around Gotham in his school uniform getting robbed? He should be better at this. Maybe he needs to start carrying around a camera again.

“You’re lying,” Red Robin says into his comm from a rooftop.

“I just saw him,” Spoiler’s voice comes through. “I went to Joseph’s with him too.”

“I’m… what.”

“He got the falafel, by the way. I know you and your stalker tendencies tend to want to know everything.”

“No way you just said that to me,” he squints his eyes down below, looking at the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk and jaywalking across the street.

“I won’t say it when it isn’t true.”

“As much as I love the banter, can we get his location?” Oracle cuts into their conversation.

“Yeah, I left him where Joseph’s truck is.”

“You left him?” Tim has to control his tone. “Sorry, but you left a small fourteen-year-old boy on the side of the road?”

“Well I fed him, too,” Spoiler rolls her eyes. “And I didn’t leave him, I asked if he wanted to be escorted home or somewhere and he said—well, signed—no, so I left.”

“Spoiler, you really suck at this.”

“I am not taking that from you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Red Hood’s voice picks up from his comm. Tim wasn’t even aware that he was listening to the conversation. “I’ll check on him if you sissies are just gonna argue.”

“I’m offended,” Steph says.

“Same here, actually.”

“Alright, Pretender.” Tim can feel the sass that Jason won’t admit he has through the comm. “I’m going anyway.”

“We cannot keep having the same conversation,” Tim sighs at the nickname.

He doesn’t get a response.

Peter hears a motorcycle coming in the distance and he connects it to Jason’s as fast as his tired brain will allow (it’s still quite fast, but he feels like he’s moving at the pace of a snail). He sticks close to the brick walls as he continues to walk, not wanting to see the man yet another time when he needs help that he doesn’t want.

Sure enough, he watches as the motorcyclist flies past, not paying attention to the yellow light he sped through. For a second, Peter’s heart jumps when he thinks they made eye contact with each other. But when he zips by, he thinks it’s all in his head and continues to walk forward. That is, till he sees the motorcycle coming back towards him from the opposite direction.

He starts running, using the evasive tactics that he was taught by Barton, all the while mixing in the same cop-ditching ones he learned while he was homeless. He skirts around people on the sidewalk, ignoring the angry mutters and curses that come from their mouths when he accidentally pushes them. He’s careful not to run into the street when there are cars, waiting behind a parked one for the traffic to clear. Jaywalking across the street, Peter doesn’t know where to go. He starts walking down the street, head facing the floor.

behind!

He doesn’t ignore his Peter-Tingle anymore. He’s intent on not talking to Jason again. He’s seen the man too much already, and he doesn’t think he can handle seeming pathetic in front of the man again. Peter hates confrontation, but what he hates more is people asking if he needs help.

Peter is grateful when he thinks he lost the man. Until he’s left open on the side of the road, with no person to cover him. The motorcycle noise comes to a stop, and he looks back for the person who carried him into his apartment. But instead, he’s met with a vigilante.

“Hey,” the voice modulator inside the helmet is crisp. Peter backs up again. “You okay?”

Peter shoots him a small thumbs up, not missing a beat on giving him a strange look.

“I… heard what happened, ya know?” the vigilante says. “Wanted to check in.”

“I’M FINE”

“Okay,” he says, rummaging in his pockets for a second. “Here.” 

Peter catches something midair with impeccable skill. Bringing his hand down, he opens it to find a small patch in his hand.

“For your protection.”

“WHAT” he signs, as a means of learning what the patch is for.

“Put it somewhere on your clothes or your, uh, bag,” he explains. “People will know not to fuck with ya.”

How does that even work? Peter thinks to himself, but gives him a thumbs up anyway.

“Okay.”

Peter watches as the vigilante gets back on his motorcycle (Peter is still convinced it’s Jason’s, which opens up a realm of possibilities) and rides off, leaving Peter in an air of awkwardness. I think that was one of the strangest conversations I’ve had here to date, he sighs. Putting the patch in his pocket, he decides to sew it on his bag when he has the time to think.

He doesn’t know how he managed to find a homeless shelter by lunchtime. The food that gets put on his plate doesn’t look appetizing. Nothing looks appetizing, but he forks it down anyway. After scraping his plate clean, he rummages in his bag for a moment but he doesn’t find the sewing kit he bought. He most likely left that, too.

The rest of the day is a blur of starvation for Peter. Rummaging through trash, seeing if there are any seconds available at the shelters, and going into stores for free samples of food. 

It’s only when the sun sets (not that there is much light to begin with) that Peter can think clearer. The suit under his uniform rubs wrong where the patches are sewn on, and he knows he needs to fix it. Stripping himself of his uniform back at the abandoned warehouse, he puts it in a plastic bag to keep it with him without bringing his knapsack with him. Swinging out from the building, he sets his path for the richest place he’s aware of. Gotham Prep.

On his way over, his swings elongate and he gets into a rhythm. Left, right, left, right, he thinks along with the swings. He becomes so lost in the rhythm he set that he doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings and almost gets hit by a car on his swing over.

“Holy!” he screeches, yanking on his webbing to get him out of the situation. Hit with adrenaline Peter sticks to a wall and breathes, afraid if he moves he’ll puke.

Looking out, Peter can make out only a couple of buildings in the distance; the smog is too thick in Gotham City for much sightseeing. But what he can see in the background is a building with bright white lettering: Wayne Industries.

Chapter Text

The gears turn in Peter’s head as he looks the building over. It looks… smart. And Wayne sounds like Damian’s last name. It’s spelled the same too, right? He thinks to himself. They won’t miss a couple of things. He’s rich enough.

It almost pains him to swing over to Wayne Industries, and he has to convince himself every part of the way that what he’s doing isn't wrong (it is). He can see the way the buildings look progressively more expensive as he swings to the tall tower. He doesn’t know why the building is even a tower anyway. He figures it should be more like the Avenger’s compound—one level and not in the city—but thinking about the building where he used to spend most of his time outside the suit doesn’t help with his mood.

As Spider-Man reaches the building, he does his best not to fly straight into the glass like a bird, using his fingertips to stick to it like glue instead. He hopes the fabric of his suit doesn’t smudge the glass too much as he scales the rest of the way up, only realizing now how insanely tall the building is. The climb up is slippery, but he catches himself easily each time he starts to notice a slide on the glass (it isn’t really him noticing the drop though, more like a subconscious communication from his Spider-Sense to his nerves). He pulls himself onto the slanted roof, and his stomach growls once in disapproval.

He ignores it.

Finding a weak spot in the glass is easy, especially when there’s a hatch at the top of the pyramid-shaped roof for cleaning. Using his webbing he deescalates slowly, stopping instinctually a couple of feet above the ground.

watch! harm!

Peter frowns, confusion appearing before frustration laces over it. Lasers, he concludes. Starting to swing back and forth, he picks up enough momentum to launch himself across the room and to a wall, making the transition seamlessly. Golly gee I could be a fucking Olympic Gymnast, he giggles silently to himself. Watch out Simone Biles, I’m coming for your spot. He crawls around the walls with ease, making sure to stay well above the perimeter of the ‘danger zone’ that his Spider-Sense has created. 

When he reaches the area the stairs are in, he’s laser-focused (ha ha) on getting past the security to turn it off. A lightbulb goes off in his head: Little Legs. Tapping his chest, the small robot crawls onto his hand and turns to face him, tilting its head in intrigue. He sets his hand close to the wall and allows for it to climb onto it before watching it scurry off to the bottom of the building.

He moves his hand around as he waits, tapping his fingers together, picking with the fabric patches on his suit, or just all around messing about as he waits. He gets frustrated when it takes longer than his thirty-second waiting span. Reminding himself to stop moving is hard when he just wants to get this over with so he can get out of the insanely rich building. He thinks it takes half an hour before the faint tingling starts to fade (it’s only been about ten minutes, but it’s ten more than he should have had to use) and Little Legs begins to return to him. He crawls down the building, looking at the signs hanging from the ceiling and plastered to the walls, trying to find where their fabric labs are. He stops deescalating when he sees a directory. What is this, a mall? He thinks, even as he goes to look at the glass. Luckily, it isn’t a digital one and it’s still on paper, so it’s easy for him to locate the floor that has the room he needs. Fifth floor, okay, he turns and starts climbing down again.

He stops at the sight of a tall figure (tall is relative in this scenario, in actuality, they’re only a couple inches taller than he is). Even though his eyes are already adjusted to the dark, it takes him a second longer to recognize the vigilante suit from a week and a half ago. Red Robin. Figures the richest building in this city has the most advanced tech. How did they even know I was here? Did Little Legs not do a good job with disarming? He should have, I mean, Mr. Stark programmed him. Do they have hidden layers that alert the vigilantes? Hello? I want that. He rambles on to himself as he sticks to the ceiling. Not that I need it, because let’s be for real, where is it gonna go?

Peter’s eyes latch onto the bo staff that the vigilante is twirling in his fingers and his ears notice his heartbeat. The familiarity sets in and he’s inclined to go down and have a friendly chat with him like they’re old friends. But he knows he shouldn’t. He doesn’t even like Red Robin that much out of the suit, so why is he so willing to go down and talk to him like they’ve known each other for years? He ignores it, no matter how strong the pull is. Crawling on the ceiling, Spider-Man watches Red Robin intently in case of a sneak attack. Or anything, really. He actually just wants to know why he feels so familiar; why he sounds so familiar.

Thunder rumbles off in the distance, bringing Peter out of his thinking and back to the main reason why he’s here. Why does he have to be in the exact place that I need to go? How does that even make sense? Peter thinks to himself, annoyed that the laboratories he needs are right behind where Red Robin is. He prays his suit doesn’t make noise or isn’t too bright, or that the vigilante in his way has night vision. Oh, I don’t even wanna think about night vision.  

He almost makes it. Like he’s literally at the threshold of safety in the shadows beyond the door frame. But noooo, he just had to be spotted.

duck!

Spider-Man curls into a ball just in time for a bo staff to miss his body and stick into the wall. What the fuck?

“Y’know usually it’s common courtesy to start a conversation with a ‘hello’,” Peter says as he drops down. “Just sayin’.”

“It’s also nice to not break into a building you shouldn’t be in,” Red Robin responds curtly.

“Well then, let’s redo this with pleasantries!” he clasps his hands together. “I’m Spider-Man, nice to meet you. How about you?”

The vigilante squints behind his domino mask. It doesn’t move too much, but Peter can tell based on how his eyebrows move over the black.

“It’s really rude to not respond to a greeting, y’know,” Spider-Man taps his foot. “Weren’t you taught manners?”

“Red Robin.”

“Yum!” Peter sings.

He gets a frown in response.

“Sorry, automatic response,” he sighs. “By the way, I’ve been wanting to ask this, but how does that stick to your face? Do you have magnets in your skin? Or is it like glue? Tape? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you.”

“Please just fight me or leave,” he’s blunt with it. “I don’t need this tonight.”

“You can leave, I’ll be right behind you.”

“No.”

“Aw darn, has someone already pulled that fast one on you?”

His silence answers Spider-Man’s question.

“We can fight if you want,” he shrugs. “Makes no difference to me.”

Spider-Man sticks up an arm and shoots a web up at the ceiling, effectively grabbing the bo staff in the drywall and pulling it down. “I assume you’ll be needing this, though.”

Red Robin catches the metal pole Spider-Man throws at him and holds it comfortably in his hands as if he’s done it millions of times before. He probably has, to be fair, Peter shrugs. I’ve been doing this for about three years so it seems fine for him to be familiar with it.

“Aren’t you a little… small to be doing this?” Red Robin finally asks.

“Maybe,” he shrugs, pushing a leg out to get into a better stance. “Maybe I’m still growing.”

“True.”

He’s quick to engage in the fight, wanting to make simple work of it and fix his suit. His webs quickly come to life, shooting out to hit Red Robin or his staff. Spider-Man frowns slightly when Red Robin dodges the attacks, but it isn’t unexpected. He’s highly trained, Peter can tell. Spider-Man, on the other hand, fights like someone with much longer limbs. It’s pretty fair, because his false body that is shrunk and small is not as tall as his normal one, giving him a smaller reach even though he’s used to his normal height. This means he catches a few more strays than he normally would and his punches don’t land correctly. Whatever. His web-shooters aren’t out of fluid though, so it’s easy to wrap up Red Robin and tie him to a railing. 

“I cannot believe that fight took so long!” he exclaimed, a smile (hopefully) evident on his face through his mask. “That was fun!”

Red Robin grumbles, “Fun is definitely a way to put it.”

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Peter’s eyes zero in on an earpiece and an alert button on Red Robin’s belt. “Let’s just… there we go! So sorry, but I can’t have you telling on me just yet! That’s mean, you know.”

“What are you, seven?” 

“Nope!” Peter says, setting down the earpiece and transmitter out of Red Robin’s reach before flipping onto the ceiling. “See ya later!”

He doesn’t miss the “yup” that Red Robin mumbles, but he ignores it anyway, for his sake.

Crawling into a lab, he sets—more like drops—himself down on the ground, webbing the door shut behind him. Staring around the room, he rubs his hands together like he’s a fly. “Now… where are the threads.”

Tim is in one of the most uncomfortable positions he’s been in, possibly in years. He takes that back; he was in a worse situation last week, but he swears that the way that he’s tied up has to be up there on his list. His hands are crossed on his chest, pulled in opposite directions, and his legs are bunched together and left sprawled on the floor. And everything is held with some odd component that resembles spider webs. It fits the theme, Tim thinks to himself, looking at the substance. With him calling himself Spiderman and all that. I’ll have to take a sample home. It’s oddly strong.

He’s annoyed that he can’t call for help, but he assumes that at one point Barbara will notice the distinct lack of response about the intruder in Wayne Industries. Or she won’t. Which is fair, since he does tend to turn off his comm to people watch. But he’d still be hurt emotionally.

I basically just got bested by a fifth grader, he groans to himself. But that begs the question… why is he breaking into buildings so young? I know I did it but my vigilante-ism was needed for Gotham. For Batman. What use does he have breaking into buildings late at night? That suit looks lab-made too… what kind of lunatic would make that for a kid? Or did he steal it too?

He stares at his communicator longingly, wishing he could tell someone about his thoughts since he knows he’ll probably forget half of what he’s thinking. Muttering to himself, Tim starts trying to organize his thoughts and commits his questions and observations to memory, anything from Spiderman’s height to the reason for breaking into Wayne Industries.

He knows he doesn’t exactly like Spiderman.

Peter does not like standing in an unfamiliar building with nothing but his mask and underwear on. But if it’s what he has to do to fix a super expensive suit that Tony Stark made for him, so be it.

As machines work on his suit, Peter entertains himself with a finger puppet running around the floor. The whirring of the machine is loud through the muffling his Super Suit is providing him, but he’ll take that noise over a baby crying. Thunder rumbles in the distance again, but he doesn’t think much of it, too focused on his suit and the pretend kick-flips he’s doing with his fingers in the air.

He’s also—accidentally—listening to the movement that Red Robin’s making out in the hall. It’s all background noise to him; the laughing in houses, garbage bags hitting a dumpster, pitter-patter on a roof. It’s all normal to–

Wait. Hold on. Did he just hear pitter-patter on a roof? Noise indicating people who are most likely vigilantes? Getting louder?

He’s quick to leap to the case that holds his suit, tapping on the glass like it’s going to make the process go by any faster (it does). As soon as the last spandex thread feeds into the suit, Peter rips the machine open and pulls his suit on in record time, ready to go. Going back the way he came, he rips the webbing off the door and exits the lab room. He almost passes an almost-free Red Robin without stopping but decides to go back.

“Hey! I’m back, sorry about before!” he’s all smiles, ripping the webbing off of the vigilante.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, because the first thing that happens is a staff being jabbed right where his stomach used to be if he hadn’t moved.

“Woah there!” he puts up his hands. “I know we got off on a bad start but still! I had to fix the suit, you know, all in a hero’s day!”

“Not really,” Red Robin responds.

“Oh, well then!” Spider-Man sticks an arm up, ready to shoot a web to the ceiling. “It was lovely to meet you!”

Before he can get hit again, Peter lifts himself up off the ground and onto the ceiling before scurrying away.

Peter can hear the thunder approaching. It’s close. Almost on top of Gotham.

As he leaves the building, he risks the jump off the top of the building, plummetting down into the dark city below. 

Chapter Text

OCTOBER: SUNDAY

Peter does not want to wake up from his sleep. He feels sick and is most definitely hungry. Maybe a little too hungry. The coldness of the warehouse seeps deep into him and a water droplet splashes on his face, seemingly telling him off for staying in bed too long. His bones would creak as he lifted his arm to wipe the droplet away from his face, save for the fact that he doesn’t have any. It doesn’t hurt to mention that he wishes he was anywhere but here. He wants to be back at Mr. Starks, in bed waiting for the sun to shine through his window. Or maybe back home with Aunt May and Uncle Ben, waiting for the smell of pancakes to waft into his room. Just maybe he wants to be in his racecar bed waiting for his mom and dad to read him a bedtime story.

But that is then and this is now.

He opens his eyes slowly, initially squinting. The sun doesn’t sink into his eyes and he’s again reminded of his losses. Sitting up, he yawns while stretching his fingers and toes. The thin sheet of cardboard he’s using as a blanket limply slides off of him, and he’s left with nothing but his Super-Suit on. He rummages through his knapsack slowly, trying to find where he left his headphones.

Once. Twice. Thrice. Four consecutive times he searches his bag and comes up empty. Sighing, he puts his head in his hands and tries to stop himself from crying. This is not the biggest ‘worst thing’ that has happened to him. But, it’s possibly the most inconvenient thing to take place. 

“What the absolute fuck,” his voice is coarse. Ripping his hands away from his face, he forces himself to stand up. Pushing off the ground, the cardboard that fell off him rocks gently. Peter makes a face of disgust, expecting the worst.

Nudging the sheet with his foot, he’s relieved when he doesn’t find a rat or an otherwise terrifying creature underneath it. Instead, he finds something that makes him forget about everything else for a moment or two. His headphones. He doesn’t waste any time in gawking at them, reaching for them and making the transfer from his mask to one of his favorite electronic devices (it’s a close call between the headphones and Karen). He shoves them over his ears like an addict—because he is one—and sighs at the relief he’s given. 

He puts on his school uniform again, praying that it doesn’t smell too bad. He’s going to have to go get new clothes, with the very limited amount of money that he has. He could probably scrounge a couple of dollars together somehow. Maybe panhandling? Begging? He won’t go as far as pickpocketing, though. He’s done enough stealing for one world. Maybe even three, to be fair. He doesn’t want to go to Pennsylvania’s house (is it still her house if she isn’t really living there anymore?), either. But Dotty’s there, that is if she hasn’t figured out that Peter’s abandoned her. And his clothes that he paid oh so much money for. And stole. His letter of acceptance into Gotham Prep is there, too. His whole life, basically, is trapped within a building that Peter has no desire to go into. Maybe that’s good. Maybe he can just… let that part of his life in Gotham stay there and he can rebuild. He’s lying to himself, though, as the library books that he checked out are in there and he has to return them soon.

Tim debates faking an illness. A serious, debilitating illness that would explain why he got his ass handed to him by a toddler in stretch pants. He groans as he stares at the ceiling of his room as he lays on his bed in despair, reality not letting him get any peace of mind.

His fight—and unfortunate defeat—replays over and over in Tim’s mind. His eyes follow the ceiling molding as he starts to visualize last night. Spiderman was sloppy with his movements, which is something Tim had picked up almost instantly when he started throwing punches at the metahuman (vigilante? villain? fighter? person? human?). He fought like someone with longer limbs, always barely brushing against Tim. Spiderman's sheer strength was something else he had noticed because even though he was barely connecting punches, they still seemed to pack some power in them, even for a tiny kid. He doesn’t know who taught Spiderman to fight either, or maybe he wasn’t taught, since all of his moves are sloppy and disorganized. It’s as if he’s fighting on the fly with no game plan. It does make sense though, since Tim didn’t think Spiderman was expecting to have to fight when sneaking into Wayne Industries. Some punches that Tim had thrown at Spiderman hurt his hand so much that they seemed to bruise his knuckles on the first hit, and his thumb subconsciously runs over his skin as he thinks. It felt like punching straight drywall, not a fleshy human. His interaction with Spiderman doesn’t fail to confuse him as he overthinks.

A knock on the door awakes Tim from his stupor. 

“What?” his voice cracks and his face flushes.

“Can I come in?” Dick’s upbeat voice sounds muffled through the door.

“Yeah,” Tim’s mental image of last night dissipates as the air from outside his room enters. He sits up in his bed glancing up at Dick, trying to figure out what he knows before he accidentally gives it away.

“Your patrol report,” Dick trails off, allowing Tim time to butt in and finish the sentence.

“I thought no one read them,” Tim shrugs. “Not besides Bruce, anyway. And what about it?”

“Usually, yours are more detailed.” Dick says, pulling out the desk chair to sit on it across from Tim. “Was last night okay? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Tim shrugs, trying to play it off. “Nothing major. Just a hiccup. I fixed it, though.”

Tim knows Dick can tell he’s lying.

“You sound like Bruce,” Dick tells him as a frown forms on his lips. “I don’t mean that in a bad way–”

“Yes, you do.”

“–but you can’t just say something vague while moping around in your room all day.”

He glances over at the clock. “It’s only 8 A.M. Dick. It hasn’t been the whole day.”

Dick hums in response, “What was that thing I was always told… ah, if you aren’t up early, you’re late.”

“You weren’t told that,” Tim deadpans. “You just repurposed that one line from that one movie that you made us watch over and over because of the cougar.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Peter stands on the sidewalk in front of the building he had just started to refer to as his temporary home. The door is ajar and there is no police tape near it. It’s been a day, but Peter wonders about the integrity of her neighbors anyway. His knees buckle as he tries to go forward and he falls firmly onto his face. He sees flashes of Penny’s crumpled body and he doesn’t know if he can do it, especially if she’s still there. Doesn’t she have a son? Why hasn’t he visited? He groans as he pushes himself up off the sidewalk.

The weight of the air shifts as he sets a foot onto Penny’s property. The clouds darken—if that’s even possible for Gotham—and Peter feels like he can barely breathe. The smells that were once covered by his own ignorance and grief hit him like a train. The faint scent of death comes from the open door; one that Peter’s surprised no one has broken in from yet. The situation becomes more real with every step he takes on the path. He doesn’t want to come into contact with Penny again, or what’s left of her anyway. He doesn’t think he could do it, even if he had no clue who she is.

“Peter, you should go back.” Dr. Strange says. He hasn’t heard that voice in a while, and he starts to regret blocking him out. He needs to do this. “You can’t do this. You need more time.”

Peter runs and throws up on the road before he can even make it to the door. His nose burns as he spits out the remaining stomach acid in his throat. Choking on air, he debates listening to the Doctor and turning back to the warehouse now. He almost does it, too.

But he misses Dotty.

watching.

He misses his clothes.

He misses Penny.

up.

He misses home.

He turns back to the house, trying to disregard the burning, disgusting taste in his mouth.

look.

Taking a step towards the house, he tries to keep his head up. He keeps his eyes at the top of the doorframe, swatting a fly that gets too near his face. He pushes the door open with his foot and his face makes an ugly contortion. Stepping down carefully, he watches the ceiling as he tries to traverse to the living room where all of his stuff is (or should be).

Peter hisses in pain as he bangs his shin on the coffee table, closing his eyes shut in pain as he hops around on one leg. He can feel Dotty close by—possibly on the floor, maybe on the couch—inquiring about where he was and why he left. Her eyes watching him lift the hairs on the back of his neck, but he knows she isn’t threatening. She’s just concerned.

Opening his eyes he expects to see his friendly companion. He, instead, is faced the wrong way, and he gets an eye-full of the sight he never wanted to see again. He almost pukes, again. It’s her. She’s still here, like he hoped she wasn’t. Why is she still here? What. Why? The fly buzzes around his face again and he kills it swiftly, smashing it in between his palms. He licks it off his skin.

Dotty climbs up his pant leg and reminds him it’s time to go. Books, yes. His eyes are the last thing to move as he turns around. He almost drops the books, fingers not fully grabbing their shape. He stuffs his doodles in the pages, and shoves everything he can into his arms. He feels heavy and off balance.

The ceiling creaks.

He’s not alone.

Why isn’t he alone?

Peter holds his breath (not the smartest thing to do, considering his air intake got shallower 30 seconds ago) as he slides his feet closer to the door. He feels around as he stares at the top of the staircase, and almost chokes on his own spit when his foot hits something. The door creaks open more, but he doesn’t feel safe enough to let out a breath of relief. He books it out the door, careful not to drop anything.

He trips on a crack in the sidewalk, not able to steady himself or break his fall with all the things in his hands, he faceplants onto the concrete. His things splatter across the ground, but he checks on Dotty first. He can feel her tangled in his hair, which has gotten longer since he first set foot in Gotham. Carefully, he pulls her off of his head to get a better look at her.

She’s fine. He heaves a sigh and places her back on his shoulder, before picking up the things he dropped. Standing up again, he tries to not think as he walks back to the warehouse. To be… as cool as a cucumber? Maybe. A goldfish. No, that's not scientifically correct. A dog. Just this once, he’ll try to be a dog who will forget anything. Maybe not Penny’s face though, when he first met her. Just… now.

Damian is not worried about Peter Stark.

He doesn’t care about the fact that he ran out in the middle of lunch. He doesn’t care that he never came back to school. Why should he?

“You look like you have something on your mind, Master Damian,” the house butler (family friend) says.

“It’s nothing of your concern, Pennyworth.” he scoffs, ready to walk away from the training area.

Pennyworth hums, turning back to cleaning the cases with a duster.

Damian walks off, not bothering to stop next to the computer where Tim is doing… whatever.

“What, no snide comment this time?” Tim says, and Damian knows it’s geared towards him.

“What you’re doing isn’t worth my time, Drake,” he jabs. He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a jab, that’s just all he was taught.

Tim sticks up his middle finger in response, which is quickly caught by Alfred.

He gives a smirk as he goes upstairs to the main house.

It hurts to eat. Peter will take what he can, but he thinks he’ll throw it up right after. Digging around in his Spider-Man suit for trash is not what he wanted to be doing. But it’s the middle of the night and he can’t be bothered anymore. Stuffing food item after food item into his mouth, he can’t tell whether he’s still hungry or not. He thinks he’d eat anyone anything he could get his hands on. 

Reaching back into the dumpster, his hairs stand on his neck.

“Karen, is there any unusual activity going on in the area?” he asks.

“Not at the moment, Peter,” she responds back to him. “But we’ll have to be on our way shortly if you want to keep on schedule.”

“Okay,” he says, but he can’t shake the feeling.

Shooting a web, he pulls himself onto the roof of one of the buildings.

left.

He jumps off the roof in search of whatever was drawing him in.

up.

Spider-Man latches a web onto a tall building in front of him and pulls, launching himself up onto the building.

forward.

Peter is against breaking into the rich townhouse. That is until he notices an open window just a story above. Crawling in, he wishes he was invisible. Despite the closed floor-plan, all the connecting doors are open making him perfectly visible for someone awake to see him. Trying to blend in with the wall (it’s hard with his red suit), he climbs up it and looks for anything… odd or otherwise misplaced.

Spider-Man’s ears pick up the faintest clicking noise. Inching forwards, he finds a woman(?) clad in all black standing at a cabinet. A safe, he realizes. He springs into action almost immediately, shooting a web out to her hand. Her head whips around as soon as she hears the quiet fwip! of his web-shooters, moving her hands away from the safe and dodging his attempt to stop her. He falls—gracefully, as if he was a swan (his own addition)—to the ground, and follows her to her supposed entry point with as little ruckus making as possible. Of course, her only goal was to escape, so making a mess for him was in her best interest. Picking up piece after piece that she tosses behind her, he sets them back into place. Maybe that’s all she wanted, and not for the materials to break, because when he put the last piece back she was already sliding down the building.

Groaning, Spider-Man follows after her. Slipping out the window he does his best to pull it into place without breaking it, and chases her trail.

“Karen, could you enhance my visual on… the woman in black?” he asks on his way. “And some intel on her would be nice too.”

“Of course,” she says, “you’re currently chasing after Catwoman, an agile professional thief. She normally steals from rich congressmen, or illegal markets.”

“Awesome, chasing down a thief on a school night.” Peter grumbles. 

Turning the corner, he almost loses her for a moment until she notices her getting on a motorcycle. Aw, fuck.

As she revs up and speeds off, Spider-Man shoots multiple webs in her direction but they’re always just a hair short of actually hitting her vehicle.

“I hate thieves who are actually fast,” he frowns.

“You’ve said that a couple times, Peter.” Karen responds.

“As I should.”

Chapter Text

“That spider of yours almost got me, Batman.” Catwoman purrs, dancing along the edge of a roof that overlooks the streets below, silent except for the distant yelling. “You should fill him in on our… arrangement.”

Batman grunts in response, as he does to many things. She doesn’t mind though, and she hops off the rail to prance around him, her fingers faintly trailing over his suit.

“I might have to eat it, if he’s not too careful,” she whispers.

“You’d do nothing of the sort,” he says, the texture of his voice raspier than the gravelly feel he wants.

“I guess,” she smiles, canines flashing. “He seems fun to toy with.”

A tug pulls down at Batman’s lips for a millisecond, but other than that he just follows her with his eyes.

“Goodnight~” she plants a fast kiss on his cheek before slinking down the side of the building.

Batman watches with narrow eyes as she leaves his field of vision.

“B, we have a situation,” Oracle says out of his earpiece. “Another kid’s missing.”

“Where?”

“Why does no one in this house know anything about Spiderman?!” Tim grumbles, banging his head on the desk he was sitting at.

“What’s goin’ on, Timbo?” Dick says, ruffling his hair.

“Nothing, nothing. Just becoming Spiderman’s number one hater really quick,” he says, swatting Dick’s hands away and running his own through his hair, trying—and failing—to save it from looking awful.

“Well, start with what you know. Height, voice, approximate age, the works.”

“I know how to build a file, Dick. The issue is I have nothing to fill half the sheet with.” Tim pulls up the document that’s been set up by Bruce. The best image of Spiderman has barely any focus and is blurry in several areas, the voice snippets match with nothing in the area, and there’s no material anywhere that makes the webbing he has.

“Eesh.”

Tim’s head finds its way back to the table with a thunk.

“What’s up with him?” Jason asks as he saunters over to the two.

“Spiderman’s giving him a tough time.”

Tim resists the urge to flip Dick the bird. “Not a ‘tough time’, Dick. He’s literally the bane of my existence.”

“Maybe you need to go outside, take a breather.”

“Yeah Timmy boy, go take a walk,” Jason says, giving him a good pat on the back.

He groans as he gets out of the chair and walks upstairs, speaking bad insults under his breath.

“Two different stalking cases at the same time,” Jason chuckles, turning to look up at the screen, “this guy needs to calm down.”

“Nothing he hasn’t done before,” Dick shrugs, his eyes lingering on his brother for a moment more before staring at the screen with him. “You’ve done it before, too.”

“Unfortunately.”

The steps of booted feet reverberate in the cave, indicating the arrival of one black-clad vigilante.

“Ah,” Jason mutters, his eyes grazing Batman’s form. He makes his exit as if it’s staged, the scenario being rehearsed time and time again, allowing Batman to fill his spot in front of Dick as if he was never even there (everyone knows that he was, but no one will talk about it).

Taking off the cowl, Bruce stares at the BatComputer for a minute before grumbling and muttering to himself, “I’ll have to change the passwords, again.”

“What was that, B?” Dick asks, leaning on the back of the chair like he used to do when he was little.

Bruce grunts in response.

“Alrighty then.”

The two stare at the screen together, the only sound coming from the echoing ambience of the cave and the clacking on the keyboard. 

“Another one?” he asks.

“Mhm,” says Bruce, adding another file onto the group. “I’ll have to inform the League.”

“I’m so glad you have friends,” Dick chimes. “It’d kill me if you spent all your time with children.”

“I’m barely 15 years older than you, chum. Hold your tongue.”

“You say you’re barely my age and then say things like Alfred,” he rolls his eyes.

“And whatever do you mean by that, Master Dick? I assume you’re not alluding to my age.” Alfred says from behind the two of them.

They both jump, never immune to Alfred.

“Hey, Alfred!” Dick smiles, recovering quickly and leaning over to wrap a shoulder around the man. “It’s nothing, I promise!!”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Anyway.. I’m going to go upstairs now, say hi to Damian and all that pizzazz.”

Bruce grunts in response.

MONDAY

Peter does not like waking up for school. In fact, quite the opposite, especially when he’s stuck in a warehouse and using cardboard for both a mattress and sheets. At least he doesn’t need to take a shower since he can’t sweat.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want one, though.

His spider suit sticks to his body uncomfortably as he stands up. A shiver runs down his spine and he’s reminded of the upcoming winter months once again, staring down at his cardboard blanket. He shakes out his legs and arms as he puts on his wrinkled, dirt speckled uniform, and wishes that he could crack his joints again. A yawn escapes from his lips and he rolls his shoulders back, ready to get on with the day.

His uniform fits uncomfortably on his body, and when he looks down he notices the dirt stains. What the hell am I going to do now.

“If you stop ignoring me, I can give you a suggestion,” Strange tells him.

“Alright sassy pants let's hear it,” he mocks the doctor. Peter can feel the eyebrow raise that he gets.

“Nevermind then.”

“Sorry Mr. Strange, what is it?”

“I think you’ll figure it out on your own.”

“Noooo Mr. Strange please!!” he starts debating getting on his knees to plead.

“Don’t do that.” Dr. Strange says, a grimace evident in his tone. “A dry cleaner is a good place to start.”

“With what money am I gonna— oh.” Peter totally forgot about his scholarship money. And the P.O. box he had set up weeks ago. “I dunno if they’re going to be much help with the tearing in the seams though.”

“Talk to the front office about that.”

“That seems like a bother.”

“Do it anyway.”

“Oh also what about the Parent-Teacher conference thing?” he asks as he grabs his bag. He tries to shoo off Dotty and leave her there, but she instead crawls up his arm. He supposes that she’s scared he wouldn’t come back for him like he did before. Sighing, he agrees to let her stay with him for the day.

“I’m working on it.”

“Yeah, uh also you’ve gotta be Mr. Stark for that. Dunno if you know that.”

A strangled groan comes from Dr. Strange that he doesn’t think he’s supposed to hear as the mage agrees to the name.

On the way to Gotham Prep, the teen tries to come up with an excuse to give his teachers. In general, Peter doesn’t like lying much; he’s bad at it and usually can’t remember the lie he gave. And the truth… it’s too personal, too much to give to people he probably won’t see in a year.

As he exits the subway doors, he trips on the gray indicators on the tile floor. Cursing inwardly at himself and the stupid ground, he makes his way to the school building.

Opening the front door, he’s reminded by Dr. Strange to talk to the lady at the front office. The smell of the office is warm and paper-like. Not the most appealing thing in the world, but it isn’t as bad as gasoline.

“HELLO” Peter signs, tapping once or twice on the desk.

“Hello, is there anything I can help you with?”

“NEW UNIFORM”

“A new uniform?” her brow creases slightly. “Just have your parents fill out this form and turn it in at the financial office tomorrow, and I’ll get you one. What’s your size, honey?”

“MEDIUM”

“I’ll have one set aside for you.”

“THANK YOU” he gives her a thumbs up and a closed smile.

“No problem at all, have a good day!”

He gives her a nod in return as he leaves the room.

Heading to math, he doesn’t know how to face Damian. Maybe the boy will just ignore him and they won’t talk for their shared class periods. Walking inside the classroom, he understood immediately that that wasn’t going to happen. Damian’s eyes locked onto him like a homing beacon, looking him up and down in what Peter can’t tell is disgust or contemplation.

“Stark,” Damian says as he sits down, “Where did you go on Friday?”

“NOWHERE”

Damian squints his eyes at the lie, “I didn’t take you to be this stupid.”

Damn, Peter thought, that’s a wild read.

“FAMILY EMERGENCY”

“Hn,” Damian hums.

He figures that Damian finds his excuse uninteresting (which is partially true), because he doesn’t ask any more questions.

On the other hand, Duke is practically full of them. And, for some reason, Tim.

“Dude, Damian said you left during lunch, you alright?” Duke asks.

Peter gives a thumbs up as a ‘feeling good’ indicator.

“You sure? You look a little beat up,” Tim says.

I don’t look that bad… do I? Peter squints.

“Mildly,” Dr. Strange’s input just annoys him.

And I didn’t know Tim was even in this class. Peter squints his eyes. How long has it been since I’ve been here? Never seen him a day in my life in this classroom.

“SINCE WHEN D-O YOU HAVE CLASS” he asks Tim in return.

“Since when do I..? Oh, yeah I just get a little busy with things sometimes,” Tim brushes it off like it’s no big deal. “Bruce wants me to finish my last year of high school, and since I don’t want to be here they let me take online lessons when I want to. Pretty sick deal, huh?”

He nods in response.

“Hey, you ready for the conferences this week?” Duke asks.

“YES”

“Who’s coming?” Tim prys.

“DAD” it hurts Peter a little bit to say that, but it comes out nonetheless.

“Nice,” Duke smiles. “What day’s yours?”

“DON’T KNOW”

“I can check for you if you want,” Tim pulls out his computer. “They’re usually with your first period teacher, who do you have?”

“V-A-N-R-Y”

“Alright let me look…” he opens up a spreadsheet and clicks over to the math teacher’s page. “Huh. I don’t see your name on there.”

Shocker, Peter thinks.

“There’s a couple spots open on Wednesday if you want to take one of those,” Tim says as he scrolls down the sheet.

“YES”

“There’s 3:30, 5:00, and 7:30 available.”

“Put down 3:30,” Strange tells him.

“THREE” Peter can feel Duke’s eyes on him as he tells Tim what to do.

“Alright… and there you go,” Tim shows him the screen. It’s pretty boring, no type of information other than the student’s name being put down.

Peter shoots him a nod and a thumbs up, “THANK YOU”

“Anytime.”

Walking to the library with the borrowed books in his knapsack, he gets worried they’re overdue. He stops outside, taking a deep breath in before ascending the steps and walking inside the building. Now inside, he’s met with a familiar face, and an unknown one.

“One second…” Barbara mumbles to the man standing in front of the desk, “Hello, welcome to– Peter! Welcome back.”

He waves at her, before swinging his bag around to open it and grab the books. Setting them on the table, Barbara picks them up and scans them.

“Thanks, Peter.”

“YOU ARE WELCOME”

“Hey, there’s someone I want you to meet really quick, if that’s alright with you.”

As he agrees, she gestures to the man beside him. “This is Richard Grayson, a good friend of mine.”

He eyes the taller man. Isn’t this the guy I bumped into a while back..?

“Nice to meet you,” Richard says, holding out his hand for Peter to shake.

He takes it.

“Dick, this is Peter,” Barbara says.

“NICE TO MEET YOU” he signs, almost giggling at the nickname.

They stare awkwardly at each other a moment before Peter takes a step back to turn around and leave.

“You’re friends with Damian, right?”

Stopping himself from leaving, Peter raises an eyebrow suspiciously. “YES”

“Sorry,” Dick smiles, almost nervously. “I’m his older brother.”

Huh, Peter thinks. Interesting.

“COOL” he glances for a moment at Barbara. “HAVE TO GO”

“Ah, alright. Bye Peter!” Barbara says.

“Goodbye,” Dick gives him a wave.

He returns the wave as he walks out of the library, not realizing just how warm it was in the building until he stepped back outside. Turning down the street, he visits the post office and notices the multiple letters in it. Who knew I was this popular?

“Don’t get a big head, Peter.”

I know, I know, he rolls his eyes as he pulls out the papers. Closing the door, he flips through them one by one and pulls out the envelopes marked with his school’s address. Two checks with 100 dollars each brighten up his day immediately. Looking around, he spots an ATM that he prays will let him cash in a check. Scrambling over, he fidgets with some pins for a moment (that he only vaguely remembers setting up) before depositing one of the checks and hoping it won’t eat it. Somehow he managed to find the best ATM in Gotham, because it wasn’t rigged to steal his money and gave him five 20 dollar bills in change. Pumping his fist in the air—before immediately putting it down in shame and embarrassment—he puts the other one in as well.

Walking out with 200 dollars stuffed in all different parts of his outfit, shoes, pants, bag, even in his hands, he almost starts skipping in excitement. Should I get a sweet treat? He asks himself.

“You should save your money,” Dr. Strange tells him, “For important things.”

Walking into a coffee shop, Peter orders a hot chocolate. For Grandma Penny.