Jason rushed to his safehouse after watching Peter reluctantly disappear into the apartment block. He threw on his civvies and washed out the hastily reapplied black hair wax in record time. Hopefully, he could pass off the residual damp to running around hunting for Peter (not entirely untrue, after all). Peter was as spacey as they came, but he could be observant about the strangest (and most incriminating) of things.
Then again, Jason was increasingly certain Peter had been through the wringer even before his arrival in Gotham. It would explain why he clued into the kinds of things the average vigilante would be sweating about.
As he sped back on his motorcycle, his phone pinged from the devil himself.
I'm sorry. I'm home, the message read on his helmet overlay.
Jason gunned the engine even harder. He didn't trust Peter's promise to Red Hood one bit: all it'd take was a minute too long listening to those too familiar thoughts of self-recrimination and guilt, and Peter'd be out that window and on the lamb all over again.
Jason would know. He'd been guilty of the same behaviour at least once before.
(Read: many, many times before.)
A fraction of the tension in his chest eased when he roared around the corner and saw that the lights on the top floor were on, seeping into the night through the blinds. It was a promising sign, but he couldn't shake the echo of Peter's aborted sentence that bounced around his skull. 'Before I—'
It didn't take a genius to fill in the rest of that line.
A quiet part of him wondered why he even cared. Big bad Red Hood, chasing after some meta? Didn't he have bigger things to care about?
But Gotham wasn't kind to its metas. The soft ones even less. And he knew if he allowed himself to untangle the mess of thoughts snared around the topic of Peter Parker, he'd probably find some self-pitying tripe like just wanting to help someone the way he wished he'd been helped in the years before Bruce. A raggedly child without a home. Alone and scared and hurting, failed by every adult that crossed his path. Someone just hoping for a kind hand stretched his way.
He'd found a hand like that (never mind that it sometimes felt like a poisoned chalice. For all his ugly feeling towards Bruce now, he couldn't deny the family they'd had then. Before). It was just the decent thing to pass on that kindness.
It did make him wonder though… was he doing this for Peter's sake? Or his own?
In spite of his doubts, Jason was flooded with immense relief when he burst through the apartment door and found a sheepish Peter pinned to the couch by a snoozing Dog. She barely even twitched at the drama of his appearance.
"Peter," he breathed, not even trying to hide the naked relief from his voice. The same relief he'd not allowed himself to show when he saw Tim turn the corner with Peter on the back of his bike. Red Hood had a reputation to maintain. "Thank God."
"Um… Hi." He sat up, dislodging Dog in the process, but she simply resettled on his lap with a disgruntled sigh.
"Are you okay?" Jason shut the door and kicked off his boots. "Hood said you seemed fine, but you ran out without your shoes!"
Not to mention his running away started with him jumping straight out of a sixth-story window.
Interestingly, Peter's cheeks pinked. As they should for his damn lip. If he was like that with the Red Hood, Jason could only despair at the menace he'd be in front of an actual rogue…
Or worse: Batman.
(Though Jason had chosen to interpret it as a good sign at the time... If Peter had the wherewithal to be a mouthy shit again, he'd evidently walked himself out of whatever deep hole he'd fallen into when he'd run off.)
"I really am," Peter reassured him.
Jason relaxed slightly: Peter certainly thought he was telling the truth. But Jason also remembered the amount of force he'd had to put in to hitting Peter just to get him to snap out of it. And that was with the butt of his knife, since Peter had done more damage to Jason's hands the first few times he'd fought back.
Still… he was pretty sure Peter's ribs were bruised. If not cracked.
He'd bring it up once he was certain Peter wasn't going to run off again.
"Jason…"
"Mm?"
Peter had set his shoulders back, looking up at Jason determinedly. He was struck momentarily by the sight. Sure, Peter was roughened around the edges from his run, and rumpled and wind-tossed from the ride back, but there was no mistaking the rod of steel that suddenly appeared. The stare of someone who'd been forced to make the kinds of decisions that would have made the layman baulk.
If Jason hadn't already suspected Peter had been involved in things far more remarkable than the average eighteen-year-old, he certainly did now.
Because that wasn't the look of some chip-on-the-shoulder teen. That was the stare of someone who'd been chewed up and and spit out by life, emerging from the giant shit reality had taken on them snapping and snarling for more. For justice. For better.
It was the same kind of look he'd seen in too many of his siblings. Tim, Duke, Steph… him. All of them, children who'd been through far too much but chose to carry on in sheer defiance.
"You wanna drink?" Jason blurted out before Peter could apologise. "Tea? Hot chocolate?"
Shit... Did he even have hot chocolate?
Peter's mouth snapped shut. He looked vaguely frustrated but nodded anyway.
"Any preference?"
"… Whatever you want."
Jason made them chamomile tea by rote; no caffeine for Peter, they'd learnt their lesson. He caught Peter watching in heavy silence multiple times but chose not to comment.
He just didn't want Peter to leave, he realised as he poured boiled water over the dried flowers. He didn't want to be left alone again.
Two weeks, he reflected. Less than, in fact. Twelve days to find himself attached. Roy would have laughed himself stupid. Probably followed it up with something like 'you've gone soft'. Ass.
It was only as Jason stirred honey into their mugs — more for him than Peter, whom he'd learnt had an aversion to many sweet things — that Peter finally spoke again.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice soft but unmistakably lined with steel. "For hurting you. I'm sorry."
Jason took his time setting the honey jar aside and putting the spoon into the sink. He could see Peter watching him out his peripheral.
"Did you mean it?" he asked eventually. He knew the answer but was curious to see if that would change.
"… My apology?" Peter returned. When Jason glanced at the young man, he looked vaguely offended. "Of course I did."
"Not the apology." Jason waved off his offence dismissively. "I know you're being sincere. I meant you hurting me. Did you mean to do it?"
Peter shook his head immediately. "I was caught up in a — a nightmare. I thought you were… someone else."
Jason could take a solid punt at assuming it was someone who'd hurt Peter. Profoundly so. Asleep or not, Peter had looked furious as he'd overpowered Jason.
"Then you're forgiven."
"What?"
"You're forgiven." He shrugged as he picked up the mugs. "You had no control over your actions. Can't blame you for that." He grinned, sheepish himself. "I should say sorry, too. Should've been more careful. I knew you're stronger than me. Shoulda anticipated you'd react badly if I tried to wake you."
Never mind that Jason had only tried to shake Peter's foot. If there was a next time, he'd chuck something at Peter from the door.
Peter didn't appear convinced. Jason handed over his mug and settled on the end of the couch.
"Next time, I'll—"
"There won't be a next time."
Jason shut his mouth with a click. Peter's glare was fierce, but not necessarily directed at Jason.
"I… Staying here was a mistake," Peter carried on. "It's not that I'm not grateful — I am! It's just that… I'm dangerous."
"I know how to handle metas, Peter."
"I nearly bit you!" Peter snapped.
Ah. So that's what he'd been about to do. Jason would admit, he'd been a bit thrown there for a moment. Then Peter had woken up from his nightmare and Jason had pushed it aside in lieu of the more immediate concerns, like where the fuck had Peter gone and what kind of God forsaken disease he'd pick up running around barefoot in Gotham and how fast he could get to his safehouse and go hunting as Red Hood.
"I'll admit that would be a bit off-putting." He smirked at Peter. "Next time I'll invest in a NERF gun. Shoot you from afar."
"This isn't a joke, Jason! I could kill you!"
"And have you? Killed someone, that is."
The question threw Peter off. He blinked. The skin around his eyes flushed, like he was about to cry. Jason took pity on him.
"You're not the devil, Peter," he said softly. "Not even close."
Peter looked away. Stared down at Dog, who had scarcely even twitched at Peter's shouting, the lazy slug. "I've got people hurt before. Got them ki—" his voice broke. Jason watched as Peter swallowed down his grief. "Got them killed."
"I'm sorry to hear that." He hid his wince. Even to his ears the words felt insincere, even if they weren't. Jason wrapped his hands around his mug to avoid doing something stupid or awkward like patting Peter's shoulder. Fuck. He really wasn't made for this comforting thing.
"I've hurt people. Deliberately."
"So have I."
Peter shot him a sharp look. "It's not the same. I could literally punch a hole through your chest, Jason."
Jason grimaced at the image. But it wasn't as if he'd never thought the same thing about Bizarro or Superman. It took a lot of faith to trust people with such power. Knowing how deep the goodness in them ran, like a coal seam burrowed deep into the earth, helped a great deal. He'd known Peter for less than two weeks, but he was already building a picture of the kind of man he was. Could trace the sweetness, past the fear and the grief and the guilt, to find someone so overwhelmingly bright, that Jason was scarcely better than dirt in comparison.
(See. This was why Jason felt more at home with the flawed types. The last thing he needed was to fuel the inferiority complex of a homeless thief thrust into grandeur at a far too tender age.)
He swallowed down those thoughts. "I know you'd rather punch your own heart out before you did that to another person—"
"You don't know that!"
"Pete, you jumped out of a six-storey building because you got a bit too clingy—"
"Because I nearly killed you!"
"Because you were having a nightmare. You were acting on a dream."
"That's exactly the problem! I wasn't conscious — what happens if the next time, you don't wake me up in time?"
He shrugged. Artemis had her share of nightmares in the few instances they'd slept together. Same could be said for Essence. And he wasn't even sharing a bed with Peter. It was scarcely a concern. "I've learnt my lesson."
"You don't understand!" Peter's attempt to jump off the couch was thwarted by Dog and his mug of tea. Score one for the Todds. "I can't stay here."
"Peter," he spoke as calm and as neutral as he could manage, certain that the slightest flicker of sentimentality would trigger a defensive reaction in Peter. He seemed intent on denying himself even the most rudimentary of kindnesses. Who did that sound like? "A nightmare doesn't mean you don't deserve help."
"But—"
"If our positions had been flipped tonight, would you have blamed me? Kicked me to the curb?"
"If our positions were reversed, I would have been fine." Jason doubted that, but he kept the thought to himself. It was clear that Peter was just clutching at straws, and his comeback was weak.
"Stop trying to punish yourself for something you had no control over," Jason said, and firmly ignored the hypocrisy of his own statement. "I'm telling you, a bad reaction after a nightmare doesn't make you a monster. And it doesn't change my decision to let you stay here."
If anything, it solidified his position. Peter and the rest of Gotham was safer with him here than elsewhere.
He held his breath as Peter seemed at war within himself. When Peter's shoulders slumped and he hung his head, Jason let it out slowly with relief,
"It should," Peter sighed, but the fight in him was gone. Now he just looked sad. And tired. It aged him. "This can't happen again."
"Then we make ourselves some more ground rules."
Peter finally sipped at his tea and nodded, resigned.
They spent the next ten or so minutes drawing up more 'rules of engagement' (Peter's words, not Jason's) for their house share. Jason forced himself to be a fraction more open about some of his own triggers, just so it felt like more of a two-way street for Peter. He didn't enjoy pointing out his own weaknesses and took care to mention only minor things. The kinds that anyone with a history of violence (victim or perpetrator) might share.
As expected, it was enough to sooth Peter's ruffled nerves.
With Peter talked back from the proverbial ledge and the crisis averted, Jason felt he could breathe a little easier.
That was until Peter piped up in a deceptively innocent tone: "By the way, why does the Red Hood think we're dating? And how does someone like him owe you a favour?"
Jason blinked. Ah. Yeah. He should've known he wouldn't have gotten away with that 'your man' comment. The opportunity to fuck with Drake was too perfect to resist, but of course Peter wouldn't understand the significance.
"The club I work in falls under his jurisdiction."
The misdirect seemed to work. "Isn't he a crime lord?"
"Ehhh." He grimaced. "I don't think anyone here could accurately describe what the Red Hood is." Least of all himself. "Crime lord, vigilante, local investor and benefactor… he has fingers in a lot of pies."
Peter tapped his finger against his mug in thought. "Including night clubs?"
He bit back a smirk. "Can't be that surprising, can it?"
"I don't know…" Peter's face pulled something complicated, then smoothed out as he settled his ideas. "You know, the mafia in New York used to have a stranglehold over gay clubs? They tolerated queer people for as long as they made them money. But really, it was just exploitation of a marginalised group who had little power in society[1]."
Something squirmed unpleasantly in Jason's gut beneath Peter's neutral stare. He ruthlessly shoved it down. "If it wasn't Hood, it'd be the Penguin. Or worse: Black Mask." Long may he rot in peace[2]. "At least Hood acts out of necessity, not greed. I think it's a safe bet who most in Park Row would prefer."
"A necessary evil…" Peter hummed, gaze distant, before his clever eyes sharpened once more. "Don't think I didn't notice you not answering me. How's a guy like you earn a favour from a guy like him?"
Jason sighed. Scratched the back of his head. "Pete… some things just gotta stay hidden under a veneer of respectability."
Peter raised a scruffy brow. "Bold of you to suggest you're respectable."
Jason had to hand it to Peter: he couldn't hold onto low spirits for long… that, or he was just very good at masking them. Were Jason not used to similar behaviour from Dick, he might have been unnerved by how swiftly and thoroughly he could complete the switch.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Jason retorted, aloof.
Peter glanced pointedly up at the roof space where Jason had hidden the most dangerous of his gear. Huh. Guess he'd have to find a better hiding spot.
In the meantime: avoidance take two.
"Sorry Peter, it's not my sordid tale to tell."
That was better. And it wasn't even like he was lying. He wasn't about to reveal that the connection between him and the Red Hood was that he was Red Hood. Not only was it absolutely not something you tell a guy you've known less than two weeks, it'd jeopardise the identities of every bat connected to him.
"Still doesn't answer my first question."
Damn. Jason had hoped he'd forgotten that one.
"You guys must be pretty chummy to have told him about our… plans."
Think fast. "It came up in conversation."
Perfect. Idiot.
Peter's brows rose. "You have regular conversations with the Red Hood." He leaned over Dog's substantial head to get closer to Jason, half amused, half genuinely concerned. "Are you sure you're not in a gang?"
"I wouldn't say they're regular…."
"But it had to have been in the last week or so!"
Okay. Vague wasn't working. Jason's mind circled back to his prior observation: Peter could be perceptive about the most incriminating of things. Fucking inconvenient when trying to hide an alter-ego.
"Look. The guy knows everything that goes on around here. He wanted to know that the person he saw as an outsider wasn't a threat."
Jason didn't enjoy Peter's flinch at the 't' word, but it served its purpose.
"Is that…" Peter chewed on his lip. "Is that why you offered? Because you thought Hood would want it?"
"No!" Jason was as surprised as Peter by the vehemence in his voice. "I offered because you looked like you could do with some kindness." Even if I'm the drop dead last person who should be offering it. "Anything else was secondary."
Peter looked like he was close enough to the edge that he wouldn't even have minded if his suggestion was his original motivation. Not much of a surprise: it wasn't the first time Peter had voiced such opinions. Jason resolved to never let him know just how much his own sheer curiosity held weight in his original decision.
"… Right."
There was a hollow note to his response that set Jason's teeth on edge. Not for the first time, he wondered what horrors Peter had survived. Besidesthe obvious universe transplant Peter was yet to admit to. The temptation to ask — to demandanswers — was at the forefront of his mind. But he'd only just managed to convince Peter to stay. Again. He wasn't about to threaten that delicate treaty to find out Pete's sob story.
Without warning, a cracking yawn tore through his jaw. Peter winced.
"You should go to bed," he told Jason.
He hummed in response but didn't deny it. "You gonna do a runner while I'm asleep?"
"Only with Dog," Peter huffed, embarrassed. "I've got work today."
"Ah. Not gonna skive your responsibilities."
"… No."
Jason stood, satisfied. He didn't imagine this would be the end of Peter's commitment issues, but for now he was confident Peter wasn't lying to him. "Then I'm gonna hit the sack. Before it's actually daylight."
Peter glanced out the window and winced. The first traces of dawn had crept into the night during their conversation. "Yeah. Good night. Or. Morning. Good… whatever."
"If you're taking Dog for a run, make sure you lock the door behind you this time."
"Yes, mother." Peter had the audacity to roll his eyes, like he'd not forgotten to do exactly that two days ago when he'd left for work. Jason expressed his doubt with a stare and a tilt of his head. Peter glared back mulishly. "Go to bed, dear," he said when Jason made no move to leave.
He couldn't help but smirk in return. "Enjoy your day, sweetheart. I'll be sure to have dinner ready!"
He didn't cackle at the pink that suffused Peter's cheek, but it was a near thing, and Jason left him be, plodding across to his room. He was calculating when to set his alarm to get a solid six hours when Peter called his name. Jason paused on the threshold of his bedroom and turned to wait expectantly.
Peter had taken on that serious expression Jason had caught him wearing far too often for your usual eighteen-year-old. "Thank-you."
"You've already said that. Plenty."
"I know… but I…" Peter's face screwed up in a grimace. "I just think it deserves to be said again."
"Don't sweat it."
Jason slipped into his bedroom, but still managed to catch Peter's muttered 'too late for that' as he shut the door.
— + —
"Okay, I'll admit," Peter admitted, staring deep into the other's eyes. "This is getting kind of ridiculous."
They blinked. Waited patiently for him to carry on.
"It's been nearly two weeks. I know things about me have… changed. I'm not the same person I was before… but!" He glared up at the sky — cloudy but not grimly so — until his eyes watered from the brightness. When he couldn't bear it anymore, he glared back at his companion. "It's ridiculous that I've not properly investigated these — changes. I am a scientist!"
They titled their head.
He pointed a finger. "Don't give me that look! I may be a high school dropout, but I'm a scientist, dammit! It's shameful that I haven't investigated things yet! I can't live the rest of my life with my head stuck in the sand!"
"Whuf."
"Don't give me that!" he cried and buried his head in his hands. "I'm traumatised! You wouldn't understand!"
"Whuf." A cool and wet nose poked at his hands. At his forehead, not swallowed by said hands. Blindly, he reached out and buried his face in Dog's neck. She chuffed and snuffled at his ear.
"It's just… it's been hard. It makes me feel like I'm not me anymore, you know?"
Dog did not know. She made this sentiment clear when she licked his ear.
"Eww!" Peter let her go and flopped backwards into the overgrown grass. She quickly settled down beside him, happy to join in on floor time.
The long grass wasn't the most comfortable thing to lie in. It was itchy and tickled where it swooped up over his face to brush against his cheeks. The on and off showers from the last couple of days left it damp. Moisture was already seeping through the seat of his pants. But Peter couldn't bring himself to move. Dog had flopped down onto his arm, and she was a steady, warm weight pinning him down.
He'd walked her to the usual park, empty of children as it was a school day. That was fine: Peter wasn't sure he was prepared to be sassed at by Jennie or her cronies. His delicate ego wasn't prepared for its inevitable evisceration at the hands of an enterprising Gotham pre-teen. After running enough laps to tire out Dog, Peter felt loose and calm. More settled than he felt was allowed after his disastrous freak-out in the night.
But things felt… safer in the daylight. Hopeful. Solid.
It was a comfortable temperature: mid-morning (work started at eleven), right on the cusp of verging into 'warm' and perfectly tempered by the light jacket he'd slipped on. Today was another 'grey day'. Gotham was apparently allergic to sunlight, and that first day he'd arrived had been an unusual phenomenon that had only been replicated one other time in the (almost) two weeks he'd been there. Today, though there was an unbroken blanket of clouds, there were a few patches that thinned and shone white as the sun and blue sky tried desperately to pierce through.
He closed his eyes against the bright glare. Dropped his free arm over his face.
"It scares me," he confessed. He felt safe doing so, senses telling him the only creature nearby was Dog and the odd surly Gotham pigeon. "I thought I'd given up everything. My family. My friends… my name." He swallowed. "My face. But at least I could see them! MJ and Ned. Even her grave. And I was still me."
He twisted the wrist of his free hand. Felt the strange tug of unfamiliar shapes embedded beneath his skin and muscles. And when he poked at his teeth with his tongue, he thought maybe they felt a little sharper. The thorough inspection he'd conducted in the bathroom mirror when Jason had gone to bed had led to inconclusive results, but with the way Parker luck turned out, Peter wouldn't be surprised if the fangs he'd nightmared up were just lying in wait for the best time to throw him into yet another crisis of humanity.
More than likely, it was just the leftovers of his nightmare leaving him paranoid. But Peter knew he couldn't go on like this. Couldn't just live in ignorance of how things had changed.
"I just gotta accept it," he murmured. "This is me. For however long I'm here for."
Still… he couldn't quite bring himself to start on his… spinnerets. It felt like too much of a jump when he was already struggling to come to terms with all the changes that had taken place. Better to start small.
Better to start with his Tingle. Which had become less of a Tingle since he'd landed in Gotham, and more like an outer-body experience at times. The number of instances he'd sensed something, only to twitch towards it like a marionette, was frankly embarrassing. And faintly alarming. While Peter's instincts had been finely honed before, since falling through realities it felt like they'd been sharpened into something that could possibly even be weaponised.
He didn't understand the why or how of it, but it was about damn time he sorted out the what.
Of course… how he was meant to do that was another thing entirely. So far, the changes to his senses had resulted in an instinctual and uncontrolled reaction. A PING! You have a notification and it's over there! Move NOW!
But that wasn't a viable use of his senses. What if he was in the middle of a fight and his Tingle misfired? How would it react to multiple threats at one? He could get himself or someone else seriously hurt. Peter couldn't afford to be unwittingly controlled by his senses. Getting them to work for him back home had taken time, but it felt natural. He was controlling his reactions to the Tingle, not the other way round.
Landing in Gotham was like having the rug pulled out from underneath him all over again, and he needed to go back to his senses running in the background like an antivirus. Instinctual, but trained instinct. Instincts he knew could trust his reactions to. And that was a far cry from whatever crap his head had landed in here.
A burst of warmth fell over him as sunlight sliced through the mottled cloud cover. Peter threw his free arm onto the ground. Wove his fingers through the razored blades and slowed his breathing down. His vision turned pink-red through his eyelids, then faded as the sunlight was swallowed again by clouds.
Falling into a meditative state was his best guess at getting his head around these new senses. He'd attempted it plenty of times in the past out of a not entirely misguided desire to gain some modicum of mindfulness. But usually, his brain was too jumbled and distractible. Before long he'd find himself circling around ideas he couldn't afford to think about or giving up at the first sign of disorder.
Today felt different. Maybe because this time there was a purpose.
Or maybe it was just the soothing weight of Dog pinning his arm down.
As his body slowed, Peter let himself be swallowed up by the city. The cacophony of humanity blundered into him with all the grace of a tire iron: tires roaring over asphalt, an orchestra of speech and the ever-present thrum of electricity. A jumbled mess of the familiar and foreign. As it always was, the experience was overwhelming and his pulse picked up with the stress of it. The sensitive flesh between ear and jaw ached. His skin grew taut and hyper-sensitive.
It would have been easy to clap his hands over his ears and haul himself out of the moment. He wanted to. But Peter was determined. He hunted for more. Sought out the gentler, natural world the city had interposed itself over. Dog's slowing heartbeat. Birdsong bursting through the chorus of a million radios. The susurration of wind through dry leaves and dying grass. And in the ground below, he found the damp scrinching of a trillion ants, beetles, worms and creatures infinitely smaller.
On instinct, Peter's searching mind chased the sounds downwards. There was something strange about the descent, almost like—
He gasped and snapped open his eyes. Bright light immediately seared his over-sensitised retinas and the world snapped out of hyper-focus.
"Fuck!"
Dog twitched at his side but otherwise didn't respond to his outburst. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed away the gathered moisture. His ears felt like they'd been stuffed full of cotton. Digging his knuckles into them did nothing.
Okay then. Again.
He didn't allow himself further thought. It took more effort than before, now that he knew the price, but there'd been something… bright? The word was right and wrong all at once, but to his blindly grasping mind it had felt like holding onto a live wire. The shock of it, sharp and clear and fizzing, had snapped him right out.
But… it had felt startlingly similar to the alerts that made him twitch in place without warning.
Peter sank down — tentatively, this time — into that dark, infested place, now with a destination in mind. He wasn't sure how, but there was a connection, travelling between him and the… thing below.
It was a shivery and indistinct connection, like a thousand gossamer threads cast in the wind. They twitched with the slightest of movements. He lunged at them but they sprang out of his grasp the moment he so much as thought of them. Instead, Peter imagined holding out his hand and letting one of the threads float into his palm. The connection zipped through him but this time he didn't let go. Almost instantly he thought he could feel it thicken and strengthen.
Emboldened and excited by this (and he'd take the time later to freak out about the weirdness of it all. A Future Peter Problem: Current Peter's favourite thing), he followed the thread down and this time wasn't shocked by the effervescent network he found. Brushing his awareness against it cast a shimmering ripple outwards, like dropping a stone onto a sheet of silk drawn taut.
Peter was fascinated. He'd never experienced anything remotely similar on Earth I. It made him think of mycelium. A delicate mat of connections weaving in and out of itself, or like a—
Oh.
Idiot. He laughed and fell out of the connection. The return was just as disorienting, but he was better prepared for the drop.
It was like a web. A messy, chaotic one, closer in resemblance to a tangle web than the carefully engineered webbing on his suit. But the more he thought of it, the more it made sense. It used to be that Peter would get a general tingle across his skin — a physical sensation — or indistinct to sharpening feelings of wrongness. But recent reactions felt more like his awareness was plucked right out of thin air. Just as a spider sat in its web would feel the shiver across the silks as prey blundered across, unaware of the trap they'd stumbled into.
"Spider-Man," he murmured. Laughed wryly. "Figures."
New spider-adjacent anatomy (thank God it came out of his wrist and not his… elsewhere). A very real terror of some brand-new dental work. And a complete re-wiring of his alarm systems.
He rolled onto his side and rested his free arm over Dog. "It's exactly what I was afraid of, girl. A total rewrite."
Dog's tail thumped lazily. She was entirely uninterested in his impromptu pity party.
But really, it wasn't so bad. Peter could recognise that the only reason he was so distressed about the changes was because he'd had no say in the matter. No autonomy of choice. And worse: nothing left to call his own. Had these changes happened on Earth I (Peter's new term for his home universe. Peter I, Earth I) he would have been excited.
But Peter wasn't on Earth I anymore. He was on Earth G(otham), with no clear way of getting home.
… Home to what?
He shoved aside the familiar spiralling feelings of despair and replaced it with ruthless objectivity. If Peter ever wanted to get back to Spider-Manning, he needed to properly understand these new parts of himself. His senses and instincts were one of his greatest strengths, given how limited his actual combat training was. Peter needed to return to that state, where he could act on instincts he could trust. Not the reactionary nonsense he was currently dealing with.
Resolute, Peter closed his eyes and chased after that web once again.
[1] True fact! Learn more here: https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/06/27/mafia-stonewall-inn-riots-lgbt-rights-pride-new-york-gay-bars/
Or here, if you'd rather listen: Stonewall and the History of Mafia Owned Gay Bars by Kaz Rowe
[2] In the end of RHATO (Rebirth) Vol. I, Black Mask injects himself with a techno-organic virus in order to control the Bizarro clone. However, this ends up destroying him by effectively leaving him catatonic (Jason could have given him the antidote, but choose not to, seeing this as a work-around for Bruce's no kill policy). The volume ends with Jason leaving Roman under the tender mercies of Ma Gunn.