Peter was nervous as he waited for the Red Hood. He hid in the shadowy embrace of the steel girders supporting the overpass that threaded down from Gotham County. The vantage point overlooked the top of the subway station… though to call it a 'subway' felt aspirational. At best, Sheldon Park Subway was a sunken pit, with buildings that loomed over it from every side. Not very busy, though that wasn't much of a surprise, considering it was ten PM on the eve of Halloween eve.
Doubtful that Hood would enter stage left from the train, Peter kept an eye out for potential entry points. There were a few contenders, including the rooftop of an old ventilation station just to the north of the subway. Built in the familiar Gotham style that Peter would vaguely define as 'art deco but grunge', the stepped structure was a windowless and imposing shape in the dark. The lower parts of the building however were the ideal place for a Bat to appear.
He kept his eyes peeled: for once, Peter wanted to be the one of come across Hood, instead of Hood coming across him. After two batches of… well the diplomatic way of putting it would be 'heated discussions on morality', Peter wasn't sure how tonight would go, but thought he'd feel better about it all if he could have the upper hand for once.
Anger and betrayal were his first reactions last night, after Hood had sent him out, though the feelings only stewed over when he'd crept back into the silent apartment. As soon as his feet alighted on the bedroom carpet, Peter contemplated leaving. Peter had never appreciated being manipulated but the feeling only grew after Beck and the whole Mysterio disaster.
It wasn't just an ego thing: manipulating Peter was one thing. He was just a guy. But Spider-Man wasn't just a guy. Beck had proved that Spider-Man had the potential to deal a hell of a lot of damage and Osborn proved he had the capacity for it. These days, even the idea of someone manipulating Spider-Man for their own purposes tended to send Peter into a tailspin.
And Red Hood was brutal, with his words and his violence. Peter struggled to reconcile the Jason Todd that dwelled in the apartment with the Red Hood that existed on the streets of Park Row. It hurt to think he'd been had so thoroughly. To realise Jason — the Jason who doted on Dog and loved poetry and could laugh so warmly — was capable of such violence… it was startling. Terrifying, even. All those rumours about the savage Red Hood were now out in the open, with blood on his gloved knuckles and violence in his masked eyes.
But even as Peter reached for his backpack, he stopped.
Jason had, Peter begrudgingly thought, brought up some good points. And it wasn't as if Peter was arrogant enough to come prancing into Gotham — a complete shit-show of a city that New York even at the worst of times could barely hold a candle to — and act like he inherently had the moral high ground. He thought of the number of aliens he'd possibly killed when fighting against Thanos. Peter was pretty sure they were sentient, and while sure, Peter didn't exactly have complete control over those stabby legs in Instant Kill Mode, he'd still made use of them. And no one even questioned Mr Stark's killing of Thanos. Not even Peter. Though of course, he'd have preferred they could have done something about Thanos before he'd murdered half of all life in the universe.
So Peter stayed. And he planned out a conversation — this time, on his terms. It left him with more food for thought. Though he still believed there were flaws in Jason's perspective, there was one point he got stuck on.
Because… part of Peter did agree with Jason's statement that some acts deserved no chance at redemption. That some people were simply incapable of doing so, their ledgers too seeped in blood to ever hope for forgiveness.
… But then he would think of Norman Osborn, the man who murdered his aunt, and Peter thought of the rage that burned through him like hot oil, and the weight of the glider in his hands and a smile full of bloodied teeth… and then the dread that crossed the old man's face after Peter 2's serum, and the quiet, scared words 'what have I done?'. And then suddenly, Peter wasn't sure of himself all over again.
Because… if a monster like the Green Goblin could be rehabilitated… what might that say about the Gotham rogues?
Then again, perhaps the Green Goblin wasn't half the monster that Gotham had to offer. Perhaps it wasn't comparable at all…
Peter was still contemplating Jason's arguments as they walked Dog, and later as they had dinner. Jason, for his part, didn't push him about it: he seemed to understand that Peter wanted to stew in his thoughts. When Jason left for 'work' (which Peter belatedly realised was an excellent cover for the Red Hood's vigilante work), he'd smiled and waved Peter goodbye as if he wasn't expecting to meet Spider-Man a handful of hours later.
Not willing to be outdone, Peter threw himself into his spider-suit, then climbed out his window and up onto the roof. He sat for a time, perched on the ledge and listened to the city. Embedded deep in the web… Peter could get lost in Gotham for years without resurfacing. When he closed his eyes, the world turned into a wildfire, broiling with humanity. An ocean of sound washed over him as he crouched there, latched on only by the balls of his feet and his fingertips. As he breathed in, the familiar taste of blood and exhaust fumes coated his tongue as Gotham settled in his bones.
Peter jumped off into the night, ready for whatever the city could throw at him. Which as it happened, wasn't much: by the time ten o'clock came around, he was antsy for something. The city was uncharacteristically quiet despite there still being a fair number of people out. But there was a feeling of expectation simmering away in Gotham. A sense of something terrible to come. It crawled across Peter's skin with sticky fingers. Left him itchy and twitchy.
He turned up twenty minutes early to Red Hood's rendezvous and sat in wait beneath the motorway, somewhat quiet this time of night, nerves brewing over how things would go with Jason and the sensation that something big was going to happen, and soon.
Fortunately, Peter didn't have to wait very long: at twenty-two past ten, exactly where he expected it, a shadow became less of a shadow and more of a fully realised demon in black and red on the lower roof of the ventilation station. Peter let him loiter on the rooftop for only a few minutes, before he crawled along the overpass and launched himself across the divide to somersault through the air and land neatly on the station a few feet away.
Peter shouldn't have been surprised — it was an entirely building dedicated to ventilating the subway after all — but the rooftop rumbled beneath his feet with the purr of a hundred (maybe?) industrial-sized fans.
Hood regarded him impassively (big surprise of course, what with the mask). "You're a show off, aren't you?"
"A show off?" Peter cried in a show-offy manner. He gestured at the blue and red suit. "What about me says I'm a show off?"
Hood's shoulders twitched in that way Peter liked to interpret as a laugh. "I look forward the day you meet Nightwing."
Nightwing, Peter was aware, operated mostly in Blüdhaven, but still turned up frequently in Gotham. Most of the forums agreed he had been the first Robin, child sidekick to the Batman, owing to their shared acrobatics skills. Peter had… some suspicions as to who Nightwing was, considering which of the Wayne sons lived in fucking Blüdhaven.
He didn't know enough about Dick to confirm the acrobatics, but he did recall Dick saying he'd grown up in a literal circus, which was as good a confirmation as anything was.
Peter settled but couldn't stop himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet. Even in the presence of the Red Hood, he couldn't shake the ants from his skin. "So, what's on the plan for tonight, boss?"
"Oh, it's boss now, is it?" Hood drawled, arms crossed in a way that did very nice things for his biceps. Sandra's comment about Jason's arms came to mind and Peter had to look away.
"It is for tonight. But I warn you, I'm a terrible employee. Chronically late, rebellious… and I've a nasty habit of sending my employers to jail."
"Oh yeah? That a threat, Bitsy?"
"I don't know, Hood. Should it be? Doing anything illegal the law might like to know about?"
"Spider, we're vigilantes. Everything we do is illegal."
He had a good point there, actually. While the Justice League and a couple of their affiliated groups received official endorsement from most governments, the work of the Bats and many others like them was widely understood to be extra-judicial. The only reason the Bats weren't arrested on sight seemed largely to come down to the GCPD having given up, but across the country, a lot of the evidence picked up by vigilantes was thrown out in court unless collected under very specific circumstances that Peter was yet to entirely wrap his head around.
Little wonder then, that Jason would be so anti-cop when they were the only ones whose evidence was routinely accepted by the courts, while equally they were rife with corruption and apathy.
"Doesn't answer my question," Peter said, rather than falling down the rabbit hole of vigilante legitimacy. "What's on the menu today?"
"A manhunt," Hood said. "What do you know about Professor Pyg?"
— + —
Far too little, as it turned out.
— + —
After Hood gave Peter a rundown of Pyg and his modus operandi and Peter shook the horror from his psyche (because holy shit, was Pyg fucked up or what? Forget Green Goblin after all, Pyg was horrifying), they got ready to leave. Hood had the vaguest of leads from someone called 'O', who wanted them to investigate a warehouse down in the Bowery.
Peter was immediately leery, remembering Batgirl's warning about the other Bats. "Does O know I'm working with you?"
"They do," Hood said. He fished something from a pocket on his cargos and tossed it to Peter. When he opened his hand, he saw it was an earpiece. "O works with the Bats, but they're not beholden to them."
"And this?" Peter held up the earpiece.
"Secure to just you, me and O, if they deign to grace us with their presence."
Peter was hesitant to take it. Hood jerked his head as if rolling his eyes. "Put the damn thing on. It's a hell of a lot easier to stay in touch than using a cell phone."
"Fine."
Despite knowing that Jason knew who Peter was, he still turned around as he lifted up his mask to slip the comm over his ear. It settled neatly into his ear canal, though the faint dimming of his hearing that followed was unsettling. Like getting water in the ear after a swim. Peter had been prone to it as a child and had strong memories of shaking and jerking his head like a dog to try and dislodge the maddening sensation. It was only his desire not to look like a lunatic that kept him from reflexively doing it again in front of Hood.
Once Peter had settled his mask back in place, Hood gave him a quick rundown on how to use the earpiece — nothing ground-breaking, though it was reasonably out of Peter's realm of experience, since for most of his time as Spider-Man, he'd either gone without comms entirely or had Karen integrated into his mask.
"I'll be riding," Hood said once satisfied. "I assume you've got your own way of getting there?"
"Aw! Not gonna offer me a lift?"
Hood was silent for a handful of seconds. "… Do you need one?"
"Nope!" Peter rolled onto his heels gleefully. "But it's polite to ask! You Bats don't think much of manners, do you?"
"I am not a Bat," Hood growled.
Peter squinted, confused. "But I thought—" he cut himself off. If Batman was who Peter thought he was, it made sense that Jason wouldn't want to affiliate himself with the Batclan, good relationship with his siblings notwithstanding.
"Aren't I what?" Hood echoed, challenge clear in his straightened posture and clenching hands.
"Nothing." Peter shook his head to reiterate. "It doesn't matter."
It did, though. Peter dreaded to think what must have happened to cause the rift between Jason and his father. Red Hood and Batman. Nothing good, Peter was certain.
Perhaps one day, if they ever reached a point where their honest stories were laid bare, Jason would tell all.
Of course, for that to happen, Peter would have to find the guts to relive the worst night of his life. That… would probably never happen. What was the point? Even if the weeks had dragged on, it wasn't like Peter was going to be sticking around in Gotham for much longer.
Probably…
The reminder that these interactions had an expiration date was a sobering one. Peter… liked it here. God help him. But he did.
But staying isn't an option.
Red Hood shifted on his feet and tapped gloved fingers against his thighs. He cleared his throat, an awkward, garbled mess of sound through his muzzle.
"Follow me," was all Hood said in the end and stomped over to the edge of the building.
Peter threw him a lazy salute that was matched by a middle finger from Hood, before he launched himself into the air, landing on the neighbouring building's fire escape with far less noise that a body his size should have achieved.
Peter watched Hood sling down the stairs of the five-storey building in about fifteen seconds.
"And you call me a show off."
Hearing him through the comm — Hood had demanded Peter keep it open at all times since he was 'a Gotham greenie', which was only marginally less insulting than just straight up being called a newbie — Hood flipped him the bird again as he jogged around the corner.
Moments later Peter picked out the rumble of an engine. His earpiece gave a tiny crackle and Hood's distorted voice drilled itself, crisp and clear, into Peter's ear.
"We're heading south-east. See if you can keep up, Bitsy."
That was all the warning Peter got before Hood's black-red motorcycle peeled out of the shadows at a speed that could not be safe. Peter laughed back and gave chase, the thrill of the hunt flickering to life in his veins.
When he wasn't the one clinging on for dear life, Peter found he could appreciate Jason's driving. The man was fearless, tilting corners and weaving through traffic with a leisure that juxtaposed the speed he travelled. For all Peter's performance of arrogance, he had to work hard to keep up, utilising his webs and freerunning to the best of his ability.
The level of focus required had Peter instinctively slipping into a state of hyper-fixation, centred wholly on Jason and his bike. Awareness of the cold was drowned out by the rush of his adrenalin; his jaw ached as his lips pulled back in a grin or grimace or something in between; sound and vision narrowed in on the man and his motorcycle below and just ahead.
Peter barely had to pay attention to his route — his instincts had a stranglehold over him and he followed their whims and orders without question. He was caught up in the thrill of the chase, pulse pounding, ready to catch up, to leap down and catch and——
!!!
— and suddenly Peter narrowly missed a corner, instincts blasting haywire and he nearly lost hold of his web.
He slammed with a yelp into a wall. Moments before, he'd used the apartments to slingshot through the hairpin turn Jason led him through. Now, he was rolling to prevent his landing from shooting straight through the brick, feet just barely missed a window. It wasn't enough to conceal the thump of the impact and he winced at the startled shout from inside. Peter might have poked his head into view and apologised but his attention had already been stolen by something else.
Like a bloodhound on the scent, he swivelled his head one way and the other, searching for the thing that had torn him so rudely from his hunt.
Without thought, Peter crawled down the building until he was level with the streetlamps where——
"Bitsy?"
Peter hissed at the sudden intrusion, half tempted to tear out the earpiece in spite.
"Spider-Man? You good?"
"I—" he broke off. Looked around, disoriented.
At street level, a couple of teens out far too late were speaking excitedly and pointing up at him. Peter shot a web across the street to get away from them and their scraping attentions. Their dismayed cries were ignored as he landed on another wall of rough brick. His heart was hammering with shivery adrenalin. Red Hood was still demanding a SITREP from Peter, but his focus was elsewhere.
"Quiet!" Peter finally snapped.
Hood fell blessedly silent.
Peter strained his ears — was it—? "There!"
"What is it?" demanded Hood, dark with concern. "I'm heading back to you, just—"
But Peter wasn't listening. His world had narrowed again.
This time to the sound of desperate, terrified weeping.
Peter took off without thought. The urgent need to locate the weeper had buried itself beneath his skin, dug in behind his teeth like a hook that dragged him off the wall and into the air, shooting out a web with limbs that had a will of their own.
Find them, his instincts ordered and Peter barely managed to grit out a strangled, "Someone's crying," before he surrendered himself to the hunt again.
With a need Peter had never felt before — not even on the battlefield, Thanos' enormous gauntlet in his arms and half the invading army at his back — he chased the crying. It was as terrifying as it was thrilling.
They sounded young. Peter bet it was a child. He dreaded to think of what would happen if he didn't get there in time.
Air roared past him, night bright and icy fresh. It cut straight through his suit but went ignored. As before — no, more — Peter was zeroed in on the weeping. The city blurred as he whipped around corners and flew through the straights—
And then he fell to an abrupt stop. For a moment he was disoriented again, the world still rushing past even though Peter was motionless, then he blinked and the earth resumed spinning at the same pace as it always did. Peter was stuck to the side of a three-storey arcade of shops, like the ones that speckled the south of the Bowery.
The weeping had abruptly stopped, but Peter knew they were still there.
Still alive.
Shaky and slightly out of breath, Peter reached out to the only other person he thought could help. "Hood?"
"Spider! Fucking fuck, stay the shit where you are!"
He breathed in deep and held the naked frustration and concern in Jason's distorted voice close in his chest. Slowly, he let it out and grounded himself. "Sorry. I — heard something."
"Some fucking hearing! It merited you booking it like the hounds of hell were on your ass?"
Peter thought of the high pitch of terror in the child's weeping. The way it had suddenly cut off. It took everything in him not to simply jump down and fight his way to them.
Because there were people in the darkened arcade.
"Yes. It was a child, Hood."
More colourful cursing from Hood, though at least this time it wasn't directed at Peter.
He could hear the roar of Hood's bike now, and moments later the vigilante appeared, slowing down half a block away rather than blast in with his conspicuous vehicle. Peter wondered how Hood had managed to follow him and was embarrassed to realise it was probably something as simple as a tracking device in the earpiece.
An issue to deal with later. For now, Peter forced himself to drop off the building, slowing his descent with a last-minute web to land light-footed on the sidewalk. He tucked himself tight against the security grates that blocked off the arcade as he waited for Hood to join. The street wasn't exactly thrumming with life, but it wasn't empty either. Cars lined the sidewalk for the few residences still remaining on the strip and even as he slouched, a rattrap rattled past, blaring cheery pop music that did nothing for Peter's nerves.
He was tempted to climb back up the wall onto the roof but caught Hood jogging towards him. Peter kept himself still. The urgency hadn't abated, but the siren's call had eased enough that Peter could formulate complete thoughts again. But he was still breathless and off-kilter and desperate to chase the sound down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Because it was at the end of the arcade.
Peter knew it was so as securely as he knew the strength and give of his webs. It was only courtesy that kept him rooted in place until Hood reached him, and then he was off before the man could even stop for breath.
He ignored Hood's, "For fuck's sake!"
Ignored Hood's demand to, "Slow the fuck down and explain what you're after!"
Ignored Hood's curse and his, "O, you got any idea what he's after?"
Even when a new voice — altered and conspicuously androgynous — sounded in his ear, asking for him to explain, Peter didn't bother answering. He was caught by the hook behind his teeth that practically dragged him away from the arcade but not awayfrom the arcade.
Something that wasn't quite instinct but wasn't reason either, pulled him along and Peter knew with the certainty shared only with the divinely inspired and the mad, that if he didn't let it lead him to its as yet unknown conclusion, he would regret it. He was terrified that stopping again would break the thread and be lost to him forever. An ending that would be unforgivable.
The hook yanked him around the corner of the arcade to an access point for deliveries: a grimy driveway and a large garage-style door. Wrapped up in his compulsions, Peter was about to punch a hole straight through the corrugated metal when a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Let's leave the theatrics for later," Hood said when Peter rounded on him, teeth bared ineffectually behind his mask. The other man remained impassive but dropped his hand quickly.
A flash of regret zipped through Peter, but he was too caught up in the tenuous grasp he had over instinct and reality to do anything about it. He forced himself to step aside and let Hood do the work. Subtleties were beyond Peter in the moment.
Hood made quick work of the lock — it wasn't anything special. Something even Peter with his admittedly mediocre picking skills could have managed. They slipped inside.
It was a space poorly lit by EMERGENCY signs. Concrete: lots of it. Floor, walls, ceiling. A parking bay for a truck with a raised platform and ramp for deliveries. Peter was familiar with the set up from the various jobs he'd worked post-Erasure.
He bounded across the space and jumped onto the raised platform but paused by the exit, spreading himself across the web. To the right, he could trace the cluster of people — adults, he was certain from the strength of their signals. Frozen in place as he concentrated, Peter carefully counted out the shivering balls of life.
The number hadn't changed. Thank God.
"There's thirty-five," he said eventually, reopening his eyes to see Hood watching, having joined while Peter was distracted.
"Of what? Geese, villain[1]?"
He scowled. "People."
"And how the fuck do you know that?"
Had Hood been anyone but Jason, Peter wouldn't have bothered answering. Wouldn't have trusted them. But recent disagreements or not, it was Jason, and he did trust him.
"I can sense them."
"… You hear them?"
He shook his head. "I can feel it."
"You're not being anymore helpful there, Bitsy."
"Pretty sure the explanations can wait, Hood."
To prove his point, Peter went to leave but Hood's hand shot out and gripped his forearm. "How can you be sure?"
"You're just going to have to trust me!" Peter snapped. The urgency might have eased a little as the crying died away, but it still took a hell of a lot of restraint to not wrench his arm free and take to the ceiling anyway. "Just like last night!"
A garbled sigh. "O, you heard that?"
"Thirty-five possible hostiles," that androgynous voice repeated. "You need back-up?"
Hood's gaze was impassive but heavy on Peter's shoulders. "Can you handle that many?"
Feeling vicious, Peter grinned. "With my eyes closed."
Espionage might not be his strength, but he knew violence and he knew how to restrain.
Others or himself.
"Hm," Hood said neutrally, then to Oracle: "Keep 'em on standby."
The tight and painful knot of anxiety, guilt and resentment that had lingered ever since their first disagreement eased a little at Jason's lukewarm concession. For all that he'd tried to scare Peter off — and in hindsight Peter'd realised that was his plan last night — it meant something that Jason was willing to put his — however tentative — faith into Peter's alter-ego.
"Those senses of yours tell you where they are?" Hood asked once Oracle had agreed to his request.
"They're clustered down that way—" Peter pointed to the right, deeper into the arcade.
"Any on the prowl?"
Peter closed his eyes to check, but— "No."
"A meeting?"
"No. They're… gathered in smaller groups and—" eyes still shut, Peter frowned. "I think some of them are… on a second floor? They're…" His eyes popped open in surprise. "They're asleep."
"You can tell that?"
"Yeah. They're less active."
Hood was quiet for a moment, then he nodded. "We'll scout the area. See what kinda terrain we're working with."
Peter swallowed. "You believe me?"
"Should I not?"
He knows you're Peter, Peter had to remind himself. "Right. No. I mean, you should!"
"Swell," Hood interrupted before Peter could further fumble his way into mortification. "O, are there any blueprints or floorplans for this place?"
"None that I could access so fast," Oracle groused, distinctly displeased. "I've got an old map from the mid-noughties, though. Looks like there's an old gym at the end of the arcade, though it's been closed since 2012."
"I hate that you call it that," Hood grumbled. Peter agreed, but made a mental note to only ever refer to the 2000s as the noughties in Jason's presence regardless.
"Deal, you killjoy," O said, unrepentant. "They were pretty big; they had a lap pool, hot and cold plunge pools, a sauna, along with two floors of gym equipment."
"Kinda big for Robinsville."
"Gotham Globe speculated the owners scammed some not so nice foreign investors. They came to collect when they weren't receiving the promised dividends. That, and one too many legionella outbreaks."
"Nothing says body positivity like pneumonia," Hood drawled and despite the circumstances, Peter snickered. Hood twitched as if in surprise.
"It was a funny." Peter shrugged.
Hood's answering throat clear sounded like glass through a garbage disposal. "Kay. Since you've got that freaky sticking thing—"
"Just sticky."
"—Sure… I want you doing recon — strictly recon! Work out what they're doing, then you come back and let me take care of them."
"I can take people down, you know. From a distance even." Peter waved his hand and gave a demonstration.
Hood stared for several silent seconds at the patch of web Peter shot at the wall. The milk crate he'd aimed at was flattened against concrete and covered in white webbing.
Without a word, Hood walked over and gave a tentative tug. Then a harder yank. The web stretched but only a little. Peter watched, inordinately pleased, as Hood took a knife from his boot to the rapidly hardening polymer. He laughed outright when the blade got stuck in the still-sticky underlayers.
"Not bad, right?" Peter said smugly.
Hood abandoned the knife with a vicious string of curses. He rounded on Peter, irate. "Is that it gone forever? Am I gonna have to burn it to get my dagger back?"
Peter shrugged. "It'll decay on its own after a couple of hours." Even if it was Jason, he was unwilling to part with any weakness by admitting that fire would, in fact, do a great deal of damage to the polymer. He didn't have access anymore to the kinds of chemicals Mr Stark had added to make it semi fire-retardant. And he definitely wasn't going to say anything about his shortcomings while Oracle was listening. "It's good at defusing situations quickly and from a distance."
"I bet it is," Hood muttered. A not-insignificant part of Peter preened at the impressed tone that not even a modulator could hide. "But I ain't letting you throw yourself untested into Gotham's deep end."
Peter squinted. "… Was that a pool joke?"
"Recon only."
"It totally was!"
"Recon only."
Peter tried to rally. "You know, I've been doing this for years. I've fought—"
"Fought what?" Hood asked when Peter cut himself off. His tone was carefully neutral, and Peter had to remind himself who he was really speaking to. Jason. The man he was living with.
He shifted uneasily and went to tear Jason's knife from the webbing. He knew he shouldn't, but like that day at the zoo, he was caught up in the need to confess and purge himself of the truth. Resolved, Peter pivoted on his foot and squared his shoulders…
But even with the heft of the blade in his hand, he couldn't shake the feeling of nakedness beneath the other man's regard. Peter Parker was buried behind so many layers of obfuscation and subterfuge at this point that any confession — however vague — felt like he was laying himself bare.
"I'vefoughtinnawar," he blurted out, syllables tripping over themselves. He forced the rest out piecemeal. "The big, world-ending kind. Twice. I—"
He couldn't bring himself to finish and this time, Jason didn't push. Instead, he took the knife from Peter with gentle hands. Peter was unable to hold that red-eyed stare. His mouth was full of the remembered taste of blood and dust and bitter-sweet relief.
"I believe you," Jason said as he slipped the knife back into his boot. Relief flooded through Peter, but it was short-lived. "Still not letting you fight 'em."
"But—!"
"Don't push me on this," Hood growled. "You're a wild card both of us and whoever's in there can do without. I ain't having you in any fights until I can confirm you're capable." He let out a grating chuckle. "And we're not fucking testing you now, so don't even ask."
Peter snapped his mouth shut unhappily. Not that he would have demanded that anyway: the urgency of the call may have settled but it hadn't left and he didn't want to waste more time. But he didn't like the feeling of not pulling his weight. Thirty-five people — hostiles or not — didn't sit well with him.
"If you absolutely have to," Hood continued, "you use those—" he pointed at Peter's wrists, "and you gum up anyone that moves. Out of sight. Capiche?"
"Fine," Peter conceded. He could have rebelled further, but the longer they argued the more time was wasted. He jumped up and gripped the concrete ceiling, then swung his legs up to stick. The whole time, Hood watched. "I'll let you know what I see."
"Confirm numbers, weapons if you can, and if you see anyone even remotely close to a ringleader, you fucking leave."
"Sure, sure," Peter agreed, then skittered out of the shipping bay and into the arcade. It was a two-storey affair, though there was no walkway around the second floor. Most shops probably just used the extra floor for storage, since the rest of the arcade was empty of human life. Walls of glass glittered in front of indistinct shapes in shop windows, turned menacing by the dark and the sickly green emergency lighting. The familiar Gotham glow bounced off the low-hanging clouds above, seeping in through the skylights that ran the entire length of the arcade. Peter stuck to the roof, hopping between steel struts like they were a jungle-gym made especially for him.
As Peter neared the quiet blaze of life gathered at the far end of the arcade, he listened carefully, trying to catch another snippet of the weeping that had caught his attention. But all he heard was the hushed overlapping conversations of men. Or… mostly men. He tried not to be worried: just because the crying had stopped didn't mean they were too hurt to cry anymore…
Of course, with that many adults around, it couldn't mean anything good either.
He halted when the boarded entrance to the gym materialised out of the dark. The walls and doors of glass were a mess pf scratched white paint and taped up, yellowed newspapers. The original lettering was gone, but the name Waterstone Gym was still legible where the sun had bleached around the positive space. A yellow hazard sign was taped to the front doors beside a notice that Peter was too far away to read, but he assumed was warning about the biohazard that remained inside.
There was no one to be seen, but there were a handful of cameras directed into the dark arcade, and curiously, up to the glass roofing.
Beware of Bats…
Peter held back, hidden amongst the steel beams, though he was certain the camera wouldn't pick him up: it didn't look especially impressive. At best, it would catch a grainy impression of him unless he was up close.
The average observer might have thought their addition a standard security measure, but tapped into the Web, Peter knew there were five people asleep on the top floor, while the rest were spread out through the ground floor, about ten of them buried deeper into the gym. Even if he couldn't do anything more than pinpoint their locations, Peter was grateful for the Web: without it, he'd have no idea how many were inside.
He tapped the comm. "I'm still clocking thirty-five. About ten of them are deeper in the gym though."
"How many upstairs?" Hood's voice came through much cleaner over comms.
"Five. And they're definitely asleep."
"There an entry point straight to the second floor?"
Peter eased himself closer, contorting into awkward shapes to keep out of the Bat-cam's view. "There's a few windows that look like they might open, but they're more like vents?" He was frowning as he calculated the angles caught by the cameras. "There's only one I could get to without detection."
"Anyone watching?"
"Cameras. But there's one in a blindspot. I could probably squeeze in—"
"No bueno, Bitsy." Peter pouted. "Hold tight; I'm coming to you."
Peter was still pouting even as he partially ignored Hood's order to hop back a few struts, until he realised Jason had also somehow gotten up into the roof structure. So he waited, curious, to catch Hood materialise out of the shadows. Not for the first time, he was struck by the man's ability to blend in with the dark. It bordered on the supernatural.
"Take this," Hood said without preamble, and tossed something at Peter across the empty space. It was a small gas canister. "Put it through the window where they're sleeping."
The canister was deceptively heavy as Peter turned it over between his hands. "What is it?"
"A mild but fast-acting sedative. Enough to disorient most, but not enough to lead to accidental overdoses. Pull the red pin, give it a good shake, then pull the yellow pin. You'll have a five second head start. Send it through before that window ends. It'll keep 'em outta the picture while I mop up downstairs."
Peter hesitated. "You… you're not gonna shoot anyone, are you?"
"Only if they ask nicely," Hood drawled. Peter didn't laugh and Hood sighed. "Chill." He nodded behind himself to the weapons strapped to his back. "These days, I'm usually in more of a hands-on kinda mood."
Remembering what Jason's idea of 'hands-on' meant, the sentiment wasn't any more comforting, but Peter kept his opinions to himself. He wasn't interested in trying out a third debate on morality and ethics within twenty-four hours. Not when there was a child at stake.
They parted ways again and Peter took the long way around to avoid the Bat-cam. It required some more awkward posing, and Peter ended up poised upside-down on the glass wall, glad there was a barrier of white-out paint and paper between himself and the people asleep inside. He gave the window an experimental tug with sticky fingers and was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't locked.
"I'm in position," he breathed.
The was a brief pause, then Hood gave the go ahead. "Keep outta the fray," he warned Peter again. "Web up any fucker who tries to get past."
Peter double tapped the earpiece in acknowledgement, just as Hood had shown him earlier. Then he pulled the first pin, gave the canister a vigorous shake, pulled the second pin and lightly tossed it inside. It tapped lightly on the floor, and as Peter pushed the window closed again, he heard it begin to hiss.
Ear pressed to the glass, Peter listened for any shouts of alarm from inside, but there was nothing. Just the continued quiet breathing of the men inside.
"It's done," he whispered.
"Good. Watch my back."
"Yes, dear," Peter sighed. "Break a leg?"
Hood snorted but didn't give any more response.
From his vantage point, Peter watched Hood re-appear from the darkness — this time on the ground floor — and casually stroll up to the front doors, crowbar glinting meanly in his hand. It was a bold as brass move: almost immediately there were shouts from inside, but Hood sauntered up with such practical grace that they had no time to organise themselves before he was kicking down the glass doors with a savagery that took Peter's breath away.
Now… Peter wasn't a poetic person. But he was pretty sure he could have crafted something that would have impressed even MJ while watching Jason Todd AKA the Red Hood break through those doors.
The twist of a heel. The fluid rise of a leg. The flex of muscles through his shoulders and back.
It was… a lot.
And then it was even more.
Chaos exploded with the shattering of glass. Men in janky animal masks swarmed out of the bottleneck Hood had effectively created, only to be taken out with brutal efficiency by Hood's fists and steel. Peter watched, dry mouthed, until he snapped out of it and webbed up two goons with chicken masks (seriously, who was dressing these guys? Surely they couldn't see a thing through those masks!) who tried to come in at Jason from behind.
Hood didn't even pause, though the surprise attack did catch out a few of the goons. Peter and Hood took them out without mercy and—
And then Peter froze.
The crying returned. With force, desperate and bleeding quickly into hysterical, terrified screams. They hooked bitter claws back into Peter and without thought, he jumped off the glass, bounced off the shoulders of an unsuspecting baboon and used their momentum to throw himself through the broken gateway Hood had made.
"Shit!" he heard Hood cry, behind him now. "Spider! Stand the fuck down—!"
Peter ignored anything else he said. He shot a web and hauled himself up onto the ceiling, effectively circumnavigating the rest of the goons.
"They're crying again," he grit out to Hood as he flew across the ceiling tiles. They reeked of mildew, bleach and cigarette smoke. "I can't — I have to get to them!"
"Like fuck you can't!" Hood snarled, furious. Peter dreaded the consequences of disobeying Jason, but he dreaded ignoring those screams even more.
What he couldn't ignore however, was the sudden screech of his tingle and Peter swerved to the right a fraction of a second before gunfire cracked through the old gym and suddenly the ceiling tile he'd been about to pass over was no longer there.
"Spider-Man!" Jason screamed, voice overlapping through comm and reality. But Peter didn't even spare a thought for the explosion of fiberglass and gypsum. Had already skirted around it and shot a web blindly — but accurately — behind himself. There was a startled shout and the tingle simmered back down and then Peter was through the chaos of the gym, scuttling past empty changing rooms and blasting through a set of locked doors.
He landed on his feet the right way up and the screaming slammed straight into his chest for real, high-pitched with the horror of a child begging for their life.
And Peter froze, half-crouched with the force of his own momentum as he took in the tableau before him—
And Peter saw nothing but a too familiar shade of red.
[1] This is a Macbeth reference, and I will not apologise for it:
MACBETH: The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! / Where got'st thou that goose look?
SERVANT: There is ten thousand--
MACBETH: Geese, villain!
SERVANT: Soldiers, sir.