The Trials of a Gotham Spider

by SpaceGorl28

Summary:

After the spell that was supposed to erase all memory of Peter Parker backfires, Peter finds himself having to navigate a world not his own in a city that doesn't take kindly to newcomers.

In a place like Gotham, trials were bound to follow.

Notes:

If you recognise this story you might also have concluded that I tend to get a little trigger-happy with the delete button as this will be the third time I've attempted to publish this story.

I have nothing to say, except that I promise to leave this story up, even if it takes me ten years to finish it. A chapter a week is the goal in terms of updates. That being said, I'm trying not to put too much pressure on pumping out chapters, I want to have fun. Editing will be applied to each chapter, so if you have a photographic memory you might notice the changes.

Anyways, if it starts getting quiet around here, drop into the comments and yell at me to keep my dumbass away from the delete works button. It'll help a bunch I swear.

Shoutout to literally every fanfic about Peter in Gotham because all of them inspired this.

Chapter 1: Lazarus Ponds, Subway Goons and Free Sunglasses

Peter is drowning.

I just wanted-

-like you.

Peter is supposed to be dead. 

He can't tell up from down or what it is, exactly, that he's drowning in, but for some reason that's the thing that sticks; knowing he's supposed to be dead.

Maybe if you were good enough-

There is fire in his lungs and rage in his heart; green, haunting, destructive. Peter wants to let it out -he needs to let it out.

With great power-

-morality is choking you-

The mask malfunctions, opening up to a sudden onslaught of green liquid that burns his nose -long enough to tear a gurgled scream from Peter before the mask fizzles shut and traps the sound in.

Peter, delirious and still drowning, thinks he's back in that lake, left there to choke on his failure as Vulture escapes. But the glowing green reminds him he isn't, that he's somewhere else entirely, and if he doesn't figure it out soon, he's going to die...again.

His hands reach out, up and around, trying to latch onto something solid, something he can use. The pull has slackened enough for Peter to kick out his legs and try to push his body up. After five minutes -an eternity- Peter manages to break through to the surface and scrambles to deactivate his suit, gasping greedily for air.

Peter is vaguely aware of his movements as he wades through a glowing green pond, but there's something else attached to him. Something blinding hot, vengeful...heartbreakingly sad.

All he sees is green, even after he pulls himself out of the pond.

'Everyone will forget, everyone that has ever loved you-'

'I love you -just wait. Wait and tell me when you see me again.'

Peter gasps. There's a painful grittiness in the way his chest moves that he knows means one, if not most of his ribs are cracked.

'I just need to catch my breath.'

Hands trembling, Peter breaks under the weight of his sins.

'May, what are you doing? May, please wake up.'

Peter swings his fists out, vaguely registering the nip of pain when his flesh hits old brick walls that remind him of the outdated tunnel routes he'd spent navigating during the harder parts of his months unmasked in Queens. Chunks of it fly loose, but it doesn't hurt enough for it to feel like justice or an equal exchange of Karma, so he keeps at it, abandoning restraints that reign in unholy strength.

Strength that, in the end, hadn't changed a thing.

'Strong enough to have it all, too weak to take it!'

Peter howls. It starts deep in his chest, just a broken mix of fear and anger and that unshakeable grief he can't ever seem to get off of him.

He throws his fist into the crumbling brick again and again until the sticky shine of his blood drips from his knuckles onto the dirt beneath him. It satisfies the grief -that haunting green- enough to take in a breath, and another until he's sinking into a mix of blood and gravel that stains the white t-shirt and grey sweats he'd been wearing under his suit.

Now this, he thinks, is justice. The echoing trickle of his blood agrees.

"Oracle said the signatures were pinging from this location."

The distorted echo of a conversation disrupts the stiff silence Peter wallows in. He is somewhat present enough to gauge how far away they are, determining that the fast-approaching thud of boots doesn't leave him much time to do anything more than leap away from the weird, toxic pond and find an undisturbed corner of a leaky set of pipes running along the roof. There he stays, shrouded in darkness as two people enter the scene, dressed in... interesting costumes. Flashes of red, yellow and green accompanied by a tall shadow of black Peter only notices when the figure briefly steps through a stream of light bleeding down from an overhead gutter.

That heightened sense of his flares, running along his arms and up the back of his neck -warning him. It was a similar feeling he'd been experiencing over the past couple of months, always so touchy, reminding him to stay aware of his world. Except this warning is tainted in something else, something darker.

This place, wherever this is, isn't home.

Strange. 

The spell. The spell to forget Peter Parker. Somewhere, somehow, it went wrong.

"Someone's been here recently; there's a wet track of footprints." Peter blinks at how young the figure in the colourful attire sounds, but his eyes still sting from a mixture of grit and blood and... whatever that green liquid is that he can't get a clearer image of them.

"Whoever it was, they're strong." The static voice of a woman fills the air.

Communicating through a channel, Peter observes.

"They're still here." A tall bat -the shadow man- says stoically, voice deep and guttural, not wholly human. Peter rubs his eyes to make sure he isn't hallucinating what he sees.

It takes a second for their statement to register with Peter, but when it does, he only has enough time to utter a quick 'shit' before his suit engulfs him and he's swinging.

Amidst the chaos and the fear, Peter questions the decision to run. He knows a vigilante when he sees one, and they tick every checkpoint on his super legit and totally not made-up list, but that pure instinct continues to ring despite his hesitation, and he can't think straight long enough to force his body to stop.

He needs to get to a quiet place to calm himself down.

His pursuers are determined not to give him that.

It doesn't matter how quickly he moves, using that rusty enhanced speed he can't remember the last time he'd tapped into to disappear into hidden passageways or slip through the cracks of ever-shifting tracks he's never seen before, because they manage to be one step behind him.

At some point, Peter thinks 'to hell' with his spidey sense and envisions himself collapsing on the train tracks in surrender when the rumbling of a nearby train and the low hum of a crowd register.

Peter approaches the sound, hoping to shake the weird bat and their child assistant.

The closer he gets, the faster the train seems to shoot forward until there's only a split second left to use. Peter decides to use what is left of the darkness to deactivate the suit and flip his body so that he lands feet first on the platform, right as the subway train rushes past him. However, the momentum from the leap propels him further along and Peter ends up awkwardly gliding across the subway tiles, straight into a pillar.

The sound of bone cracking registers in his ear as he crumples to the ground. A shooting pain follows.

Peter doesn't have time to dwell on it, can't even give himself a second to let out a shaky exhale before he's up and moving again. Using the crowd of suspiciously desensitized people to slip in amongst them, Peter attempts to mask the limp in his walk as best he can and makes quick work of finding a seat before the doors shut and the train lurches forward.

The seat he manages to get is filthy, but so is Peter, who resigns himself to the fact that if his healing factor doesn't kick in soon, he'll contract some disease his body will have to work overtime to burn out of his system.

"Strange, what did you do?" Peter's throat burns, both from having screamed it raw not even ten minutes earlier and from having to swallow the lump in his throat when there is no sarcastic, overly confident wizard to answer him.

Not that he has enough energy to theorise because wherever he's ended up, there is a constant hum of danger that he's never experienced, even in the roughest areas of Queens. No, this place seems to be hovering over the edge of bad constantly. That and the brain-splitting switch between blinding light and piercing darkness does nothing for the migraine blooming behind Peter's eyes.

It's a sensory overload, one that picks and scratches at Peter's head.

It just makes him angry.

That scares him.

"I need to get off this train," He murmurs.

"Oi kid, you got any money on you?"

Jesus, not now.

Peter leans against the seat's metal handlebars ahead of him and closes his eyes. All he hears is the whisper of rage, all he feels is that haunting anger.

It grows.

It festers.

"This kid hard of hearing or somethin'?" Another voice joins the conversation, just as aggravating and condescending as the first.

"Go away, please," Peter whispers. Go be a cliché criminal somewhere else, is what he wants to say.

"Give us your money." Neither goon shows any sign of leaving Peter be, which is unfortunate, because Peter is having a hard time resisting the urge to beat the ever-loving shit out of both of them.

"I don't have any money." Peter grits through his teeth, knuckles a pale white against the handlebars. Peter's pretty sure he hears a screw come loose.

"Give us your fucking money!" What might have made Peter look like a walking corpse back in Queens seems to translate into someone with an endless flow of cash here because these douchebags just aren't getting it.

Peter feels the air around him shift as an arm reaches out to grab him.

Finally, something echoes in his skull.

That barely there leash he thought he had on the anger that had simultaneously felt like his and something else snaps.

Peter lunges from his seat.

"Ask for my money one more fuckin' time and I swear I'll-" Before Peter can finish the sentence, before he can uncurl his fingers from the goon's jacket, he's ripped from him and shoved down the aisle.

"Kid's got spunk." The first goon snickers while the second recuperates, but Peter isn't in the mood for a showdown or his usual routine of snarky commentary or quips.

"Let's do this." He hops to his feet and he swings his fist.

It takes one minute to get both asshole's on the ground, even less to break an arm and somewhere in the haze of it all, there is a voice inside his head screaming at him to stop, to pull back. He might even be aware of the tears streaming down his face, but his senses are shrouded in green and no matter how much of that anger he lets out, it's still never enough.

"Might be a good idea to give them a breather, kid. You won this round."

Peter whirls around, teeth bared like a goddamn animal but ultimately falters under the intense presence of the newcomer.

Clad in a tan jacket about ready to burst at the seams, some insanely buff guy with sunglasses and a white streak in his hair has his arms half outstretched in the air, almost as if he thinks the action will calm Peter down and -yeah- maybe if Peter were the animal he was pretending to be one insane second ago, it might've done the trick. As it stands, it just makes Peter more weary.

The guy pauses -takes one look at Peter's face and steps back, although the action seems entirely subconscious on the stranger's part if the shocked parted lips and concerned scrunch of his brows are any indication.

"Shit," He whispers, "Let's, uh...let's get you back to your seat, yeah?"

"I'm fine," Peter croaks, shoulders still tense.

The stranger tilts his head, but the stoic expression on his face doesn't shift once. "Sure kid, but humour me anyway."

Peter begrudgingly obliges, if only because the rage has cleared enough for him to think about something other than violence. Still, he keeps his distance from the guy and shuffles back to his seat.

"Here, take these too." He hands over his shades.

Peter scrunches up his nose.

"Why?"

"Your eyes," the guy mutters before pausing, long enough that Peter can tell it's not hesitancy but an outright lie, "You flinched at the lights when you got on, figured it'd help with that."

He's full of shit but Peter is too tired to decipher why he's being lied to about sunglasses of all things. All that matters is his spider-sense has lowered to a manageable buzz, so Peter slides the shades over his face with a shaky smile and slumps back into his seat.

"Thanks...?" he mumbles after it becomes apparent the guy isn't going anywhere.

"Jason."

Peter hums, "Peter."

Chapter 2: Ledges, No-names and Vigilantes

 

 

"You got anyone waiting for you? Anyone that might be...I dunno, worried that you look like a walking corpse?"

Peter snorts. Jason is not impressed.

It's just me and you, Peter.

Until it isn't. Until Peter's hands are soaked in Aunt May's blood and her chest stops moving and she isn't there anymore.

"Peter?"

"Hmm?" Peter tilts his head back with all the fake air of nonchalant ease he can muster while pretending he isn't seconds away from a panic attack.

He likes to think he's doing a pretty freakin' fantastic job at it too. 

"Uh no- I mean, they're all probably waiting back home." Peter doesn't tell Jason that he thinks 'home' might be an entirely different universe. He also doesn't mention that half the people who would be worried are dead and the other half have most likely had their minds erased of any memory of him: semantics and all that.

"Well..." Jason drags out the word like he doesn't believe a word Peter has said so far -which is fair. "Maybe you should give them a call. You know, let them know to come pick you up. If you get off at the next stop, Gotham General Hospital isn't far."

What the hell is a Gotham?

"Woah, wait. I don't need to go to a hospital, it's just a few scratches." His senses blare to life, pleading -roaring- at Peter to get up. To fling the shades back at Jason and his piercing gaze and run.

Peter watches the exact moment Jason clocks the stiff tension in Peter's shoulders for what the action implies and resists the urge to flinch back at the way Jason seems to grow around his surroundings, like he's trying to trap Peter in a corner.

"Peter, I don't think-"

"Look man, thanks for the company but I gotta get going."

Peter hops to his feet, cringing when he feels his bare soles touch the dirt-streaked rubber floor of the train. He doesn't have the luxury of being concerned with hygiene at the moment so he forces himself past the rows of seats until he's slipping through the cracks of the slowest-moving door he's ever had the misfortune of waiting on once the train comes to a jarring halt.

Peter's head swirls nauseatingly as he's pulled and shoved into a crowd that seems determined to smother him to death. After months spent limiting basic interactions to four people, Peter finds it difficult to suddenly feel thousands of bodies pressed against him, unbothered about personal space in a bid to be the first out of the subway station.

He notices the stale, almost claustrophobic atmosphere first. The air, the streets, the people. It isn't exactly shocking, considering Peter's gritty history growing up in Queens, but this place is different, heavily laced with something...off.

Gotham, that's what Jason had said. Peter's mind reels as he tries to place the name in his somewhat limited geographical knowledge.

Nothing clicks.

"Get to a higher vantage point, Peter. Then go from there." Peter mutters.

It had first begun as a routine of Peter's; back when the spider bite that hadn't immediately killed him had instead given him abilities no fifteen-year-old should ever have access to. A way to seek solace in the highest corners of his neighbourhood or to scope out vantage points that made it easier to navigate crime scenes. 

It made him feel safe, made him feel untouchable. He hopes it'll do the same here.

Peter wanders for what feels like hours -but is only half of that- and he comes to learn a little more about the people that inhabit Gotham.

One, they're rude. Peter attempts to ask three people in total where he is exactly, or even just the street name but each time he is either met with glares, a strongly muttered 'get lost' or not acknowledged.

The second is that everyone looks shady. It's in the way they compose themselves, the way they walk -like they're hiding something. It's a skill, in all honesty, to come off as sketchy and then look at Peter like he's up to no good.

Overall, it creates a feeling of unease in Peter that, with the added senses of his spider abilities, leaves him feeling as if he's being dangled over the edge of a building. He also thinks he's being followed, and that the person following him is Jason. But that's an easy problem to fix.

Peter reckons one of the few positive -or at the very least useful- things to come out of being shunned by society was the ability to disappear, to throw people off his trail. He uses this knowledge now, weaving a path around a city he has no memory of until he no longer feels the heavy weight of eyes on him.

I'd kill for the power of invisibility, Peter muses as he turns down what has affectionately been labelled 'crime alley' by a local graffiti artist on almost every building.

He doesn't know if he should read too much into it.

Probably, says the voice in his head. It sounds a lot like MJ.

Peter ignores it in favour of climbing the fire escape, conscious that anyone could be lurking in the shadows, so using his abilities to scale a wall in half the time isn't an option. Around him, Peter hears the sounds of shouting and cries for help -hears glass shattering and loud thuds. He doesn't remember his senses being this amplified because they sound so close; like he's standing in the room with them.

It takes every ounce of the limited mental strength he has left to keep his back turned against that trained instinct to run towards the cries -to deny someone the chance to survive, but Peter can't get involved. He's lost, scared and so very much alone, and the last time he meddled he didn't hold his punches and almost killed two men.

"Strange." Peter spits out the name like a curse. The green anger from before flares up -plucks at the twinge of revenge still nestled deep in his heart- and then it is gone.

Deep down he knows it isn't the doctor's fault. Well, not entirely. After all, Peter suggested he get erased from the world. It'd also been Peter who somehow managed to survive a multiversal trip through a wormhole and live to experience the inconvenience of it.

He pauses, blinking back the shock of the memory as it settles into place. That's new.

Peter pushes the thought aside and focuses on hoisting himself over the ledge of the building. From there he moves quickly, hopping from one rooftop to another until he settles on one of the taller buildings he can find in the area; a large worn-out apartment building several stories high. There he finds solace, or at least a quiet corner in this weird city.

The wind picks up around him, tousling the parts of his hair that aren't currently clumped together with sweat and blood. It reminds Peter that he most definitely looks like shit.

Sighing, he moves to the ledge of the rooftop, right where the wind blows the strongest and sits down on it. With his legs dangling over the edge, Peter closes his eyes and listens to the traffic.

If he ignores the thousands of indicators that this place is all wrong and focuses on listening to the traffic below Peter can pretend it is home, that he's watching over a city that doesn't hate him. That his life is fine and not ten feet in the ground.

"Fuck," Peter whispers, working past the lump in his throat and the tears he will not let fall.

"You must be new."

Peter startles at the steady tone of the newcomer and almost flinches himself right over the edge.

"Huh?" He hopes he doesn't look like he's just had the shit scared straight from him and twists himself around to watch as a girl no older than him steps into the soft artificial light overhanging the escape door clutching a box full of something that clatters every time she takes a step forward.

"Well, as far as Gotham rules go, you visit a ledge enough times, it's technically yours. Meaning this is my ledge, newbie."

Peter has no fucking clue what that's supposed to mean. "Uh, sorry?"

The girl shrugs, eyeing Peter for another minute before joining him on the ledge, her box taking up residence between the two. Peter decides that taking a peek into the box is allowed and promptly regrets it when he finds it full of liquor.

I do not have the mental capacity to help us both, Peter thinks distressingly, that is, until the girl interrupts what must be a very expressive crisis plastered across his face with a snort.

"It's my aunts. Whenever she gets too rowdy, I raid her stashe and throw them off the roof."

Peter frowns. "Wouldn't pouring it down a sink be easier than lugging it all to the roof?"

The girl squints at Peter as if she's just realised he's stupid. "Where the fuck is the fun in that newbie?"

Peter shrugs, averting his gaze to the girl's outstretched hand as she readies the first bottle to be thrown. Despite the dark, he can see a jagged ring of a bruise circling her wrist as she flings the glass and quietly concludes she can do whatever she wants.

"What's your name?" He asks.

"Does it matter?" The girl looks up from the road, the fringes of her dark wolf cut pricking her in the eye before her face softens and she offers a small, crooked apologetic smile. "Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but if you plan on sticking around you need to know some things about Gotham."

"First -ok, technically the rule about claimed ledges was first, so the second thing is this. You're only ever one of three things in Gotham. A no-name like me - an average working-class citizen, junkie or goon. Then you've got your villain of the week. This one varies but I like to group the deranged metas, psychopaths and occasional rich assholes into this section. Rich as in born with it or rich as in shady, Mafia-type shit. Either way, you have more money than you know what to do with, chances are you aren't doing anything good."

Peter grins despite himself. "And the third?"

"Annoyingly hopeful vigilantes. The people who think saving this shithole from or for the groups mentioned earlier will make a difference in the end."

"So which one are you newbie?" No-name picks up a half-empty vodka bottle and hands it to Peter.

"Uhhh, undecided?"

No-name grins. "Smart, too many pick too quickly and then get stuck. If you're here to stay, you'll figure it out."

Peter hums and times his toss with No-name, the answering shatter from below oddly cathartic. "You're surprisingly stable, for someone who sits on ledges."

No-name grins, a sarcastic, if saddened version of it anyway.

"What can I say? I had to cement my claim somehow. Stable is the new crazy in Gotham, so it does the job, keeps people off the ledge."

There's something in that knowing look of hers that makes Peter want to shy away from or at the very least assure her that she doesn't need to worry about him.

"Careful, if you get any more saintlike I'll have to class you as a hero."

No-name snorts again and the sound reminds Peter of Ned. Peter hides a grimace at the thought of his friend but No-name thankfully isn't paying attention, already staring down at the pavement below, shoulders tense when Peter manages to pull himself out of it enough to notice.

"Shit, she's home early. Listen, I gotta bounce. You can come with or you can stay, but if you stay out too much longer you'll summon one of those annoying vigilantes I was talking about."

"Speaking from personal experience?" Peter muses.

No-name rolls her eyes but the small smile from earlier keeps her face warm as she hoists the box, keeping it close to her chest the entire walk back to the rooftop door. "Stay cool, newbie."

Peter offers a mock salute despite the genuine tone in his voice when he calls out to her retreating form, "No promises, No-name."

The door squeaks shut, yet even with his body angled back towards the open air Peter swears he can still hear the comforting melody of No-name's laugh long after she disappears.

"Alright there kid?"

"Holy shit!" If Peter couldn't stick to surfaces he would have just fallen off a building. The image that is created makes Peter queasy.

When the erratic fluttering of his heart corrects itself Peter glances over his shoulder, eyes widening when they take in a tall figure clad in black -save for the red bat symbol carved into the armour on his chest and a familiar-looking jacket. A red mask encompasses their face, effectively blocking them from Peter's view.

"How about we move away from the ledge, yeah?"

Peter blinks, clearly confused, until it dawns on him why the figure sounds super anxious. No-name wasn't kidding about summoning one of them.

"Oh, I'm not- I mean I wasn't thinking about-" Peter stumbles over his words as he climbs off the ledge.

"You look like shit." The modulated voice of the figure completely strips the emotion from their voice but it still forces a laugh from Peter, despite the sudden pounding of dread unfurling within his chest.

"Yeah, feel like shit too. Believe it or not, it's kind of on brand for me."

"So is this a vigilante shift? Just doing your nightly run of the city?" Peter's voice begins to slur and he's having a hard time figuring out if it's due to the lack of sleep he's gotten in the past couple of days or if it's another side effect from the toxic pond. Either way, it's flared up without someone like No-name distracting him.

The figure shrugs as they lean against the fire escape door. "Something like that."

For some reason, it's the most hilarious response to Peter, who eases into a steady chuckle that probably doesn't help him look any less delusional and insane but something he can't help, especially when his laugh turns into loud, ugly sobs.

"Just...ah. Just breathe kid," the vigilante sounds so uncomfortable with the situation that aside from the panic attack Peter is ninety-three per cent sure he's in the beginning stages of he begins to doubt just what kind of vigilante they are if the sight of a hysterical kid frightens them.

Peter had seen his fair share of kids going through it back when Peter Parker and Spiderman had been two completely separate identities. He'd talked to quite a few of them, held their hands and sat with them on their ledges.

In the cold, the rain, night or day.

Peter doesn't blame the red-masked vigilante for his less-than-stellar approach though, because he isn't even sure what's happening or what he needs for it to get better. 

A few minutes ago, he'd been fine.

Peter gasps in between a sob, "I can't fucking breath."

He's vaguely aware of hands gripping his shoulders as he sinks to his knees. It's the only thing he feels as the world spins around him, closing in on him, like a heavy weight is being lowered onto him; like he's back under the rubble of that building.

"Peter, I need you to focus on my voice. Can you do that?"

A warning goes off in his head, but that all-consuming panic quickly smothers it.

Peter chokes on it.

"Come on kid. Focus on my voice," The masked vigilante lightly taps the top of Peter's shoulders.

"I can't," Peter sobs.

"You can. Tell me one thing you can feel, one thing you can see and one thing you can smell."

Peter's brain momentarily freezes, "You're messing up the order of it dude."

"I'm pretty sure there isn't a rule book on this kind of thing," the reply is followed by a low mechanical chuckle that Peter finds oddly comforting for all of five seconds before he's dragged back into the panic.

"Come on Peter. Something you can see."

Peter tries to focus, but he can't. His mind won't let him.

"You. I can see you."

"Good, now something you can feel."

Peter lets out a shuddering breath. He wants to pass out. "Shit- I dunno man." Vigilante guy taps Peter's shoulder more aggressively. "Uh, the ground, I can feel little bits of gravel under my feet. Annoying as shit."

"Yeah, you need shoes."

Peter snorts at that. His mind feels less heavy.

"Ok, now tell me something you can smell."

Peter pauses, closes his eyes and focuses on trying to pick up a scent. He smells a lot. Himself mostly, and that isn't the most refreshing scent right now. Scrunching up his nose he tilts his head back towards the direction of the ledge and feels the wind blow through, carrying the aroma of a food van.

"Food, I can smell a food van."

"Great, that's great. Now tell me one thing you can see."

They go back and forth like that until Peter can breathe without it feeling unnatural. Fifteen minutes later, he's sitting next to the vigilante guy in silence as he puts the pieces of the interaction back together in his head; details he'd let slip before that make up a more solid picture now.

"Jason?"

"Yeah? Wait- shit. How did you-"

"I'm so stupid, I should have noticed your jacket. That and I've only told one person my name today."

Jason's sighs merge with the hiss of mechanical wiring as the red mask comes off and his sharp features are revealed. The guy eyes Peter warily before offering the most awkward smile Peter has ever seen -which is wild, considering the title for awkward smile has been Peter's for so long.

"Gonna have to change my whole look now. Can't have random civilians recognising me."

"Maybe just ditch the jacket and you should be good."

They don't say anything for a bit, but Peter is starting to feel a little bit more like himself and with that comes the urge to babble.

'So what does the symbol stand for? You some sort of bat man?"

Jason snorts, "Yeah, fuck no. It's part of a...family thing. I go by Redhood."

"Huh," Peter raises an eyebrow.

"What?" Jason narrows his eyes.

Peter smothers a grin. "Nothing man. It's a great name. I admire the creativity it must have taken to come up with it." Says the kid who chose Spiderman as their hero name.

Jason tsks but even Peter can tell he's trying to hold back an amused grin. "Smartass."

"Yeah well, vigilante names aside, thanks for helping out...before."

Jason smiles again, except there's something sad about the way he does it. "Gotta look out for our own, kid."

Peter doesn't know what that's supposed to mean, but for now, he focuses on the fact that the soul-crushing aloneness that's been clinging to him recently isn't so pronounced. So he nods and says, "Birds of the same feather and all that, right?"

Jason chuckles bitterly, following it up with a cryptic, "Don't let the shadows hear you say that."

Peter hums, but he's not really listening. His mind is calm and despite several hectic hours, this rooftop has provided more comfort to Peter in the last couple of minutes than he's had in some long months. So he basks in the silence and the mysterious company.

And Peter breathes.

Notes:

There will be the addition of an original character in this story. I've tried to make sure No-name isn't just some self insert that takes pre-exhisting characters personalties or character arcs. She serves a purpose that I think Peter will need in Gotham. At this point she won't appear a lot, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up incase that might be a dealbreaker as the plot developes.

Chapter 3: Big Chunky Rats and Unresolved Trauma

As far as nights go, Jason isn't having the best one.

First, some shithead new villain of the week comes along and ruins a stakeout Jason had been planning for weeks, then his motorcycle gets caught in the crossfire of an especially drawn-out fight with said shithead so he has to tough it out on Gotham's crappy ass subway only to come face to face with a small kid throwing punches that knock out men twice his size.

There is, of course, the whole Lazarus pit 'glaze' in the kid's eyes that has Jason thinking he's watching his reflection in a mirror, but that's neither here nor there.

"Jason?"

Yet, as much as he wants to pretend he's gotten better -that the sight of that particular green doesn't trigger an onslaught of delirious, manic laughter and that all-consuming anger that chokes his lungs; squeezing, dragging until he's pulled back to a past he'd rather forget, he knows the things he's managed to outrun so far might have finally caught up to him.

"Jason?"

Jason blinks, no drowning in the Lazarus pit, praying, wishing, hoping to return to the embrace of death.

I should take up alcoholism.

"Jason?"

"What's up, kid?"

Peter's nose scrunches up at the word 'kid'. "I said, I assume you have a normal day job. Unless you're one of those 24/7 vigilante guys."

Jason knows a 'piss off' when he hears one, and hey, any other time -any other person- Jason would have gladly taken his leave. But the last few hours spent keeping an eye on a kid who shows clear signs of taking an extended dump into a Lazarus pit have made him weary; even if Peter appears to be faring way better with the side effects than Jason ever had.

Still, he can't stick around all day.

"Right, I'd better hit the road than. You're sure you can make it back home?" He isn't sold on Peter having a home to go back to, but he figured there was a high chance that straight-up asking the kid if he was homeless would be a no-no.

All Jason could glean from his brief time with Peter was the acknowledgement of a widely known fact -normal people don't wake up in a Lazarus pit and whatever Peter was keeping to himself, well, unless he made it Jason's priority to know, Jason didn't think it was any of his business.

He'd also never dealt with a fellow Lazarus pit survivor before.

Not like this.

There is a split-second pause from Peter that Jason catches, an involuntary flinch he quickly covers up with a smile he thinks is meant to come off as charming. Jason wonders if he'd ever looked like that when he was younger. "Get out of here, big guy. I'll be fine."

Jason rises to his feet, dusting off small bits of rubble clinging to his gloves before clicking the mechanisms in his mask back into position. He heads towards the fire escape just as dawn begins to bleed into the skyline, purposefully taking one last look back at Peter before disappearing over the ladder.

"Oh and Peter, the whole identity thing-"

"Keep it under wraps. Don't worry, I uh, know how to keep a secret. Promise."

Jason doesn't understand the ease with which he accepts Peter's words as truth -can't seem to make sense of the belief that the kid's promise is enough. All he can do is nod before using the fire escape to launch himself from the apartment building, feeling only slightly guilty for the tracker he leaves with Peter.

Buzzzz...Buzzzz...Buzzz

Airborne and halfway between the ground and the next rooftop, Jason slips his phone from his pant pocket and taps on the screen. The small pinch of his feet hitting the concrete of the neighbouring ledge does little to break Jason's attention from the screen as he gets a better look at the incoming message.

Old Bat: We need to talk. Pit sighting. Meet at the subway station.

"Shit," Jason mutters under his breath. Then, because he's feeling dramatic, he contemplates 'accidentally' losing his footing so he doesn't have to deal with whatever Bruce seems determined to involve him in.

He doesn't because half an hour later, after narrowly avoiding several chunky ass rats on his journey through the abandoned tunnel, Jason is stuck staring at the Lazarus pit as Batman's demon spawn dumps an entire case's worth of information on him.

"We've picked up massive abnormal power signatures around the pit, but they don't read as chemical, thermal or environmental signatures. Could be magic-related?"

"Then shouldn't you have someone like Constantine sniffing around here? Why am I here?" When can I leave, Jason wants to ask because if he's being honest, the bubbling green liquid is starting to make him a little nauseous the longer he stares into it.

"We thought you might've seen some activity around the city relating to the pit," Batman adds his two cents worth of the conversation and Jason has to close his eyes and breathe in a little deeper for having heard it.

Being here, hearing the voices creeping back in, being so close to another fucking Lazarus pit and having Bruce of all people want him in the middle of it all again is too much. It's all too much.

-Tick, tick, tick-

-"Wow. That looked like it really hurt."

-The trail of blood he'd left as he'd crawled to the door. His lungs were on fire, his body aching. Batman... Bruce, he'll come for him; he needs to.

-"Which hurts more?"

-tick, tick, tick-

"A?"

-but it's too late.

"Or B?"

"Redhood?"

Jason opens his eyes and tries to reason with the pounding in his chest that he isn't back in that warehouse. That he's actually standing in a dark puddle that's probably some mix between rat piss and half of Gotham's diseases as Batman does a shit job pretending he isn't hovering over Jason like an emotionally constipated mother hen.

Jason thinks of Peter and the panic attack and wonders if Peter is still sitting on that roof, being buried under the weight of the pit's anger.

Because Jason remembers what that feels like...

And he wishes he didn't.

"Redhood?"

The solemn timbre of Bruce's voice is enough to snap Jason out of it.

"I have to go." This is all Jason says and then he's walking away, only mildly curious to note the pile of bricks and dirt that Damian seems to be swiping something from before the shadows swallow him up.

Notes:

Short and not exactly sweet for our pal Jason at the moment, but unresolved trauma will do that to a guy.

Chapter 4: One Good Deed.

 

Long after Jason is gone, when the sun has finally relinquished its hold on the sky in favour of a heavy downpour that washes the streets clean, Peter concludes that nothing will change if he keeps himself stranded on the roof of this random apartment building.

After all, there are things he needs to figure out.

So, he picks himself up and puts one foot in front of the other -repeating the motion until he can do it without thinking too hard about it -even when the whispers tell him not to, especially when they do.

He walks until the blocks surrounding Crime Alley are familiar to him and then moves on to dumpster diving.

He tries not to feel so small, rummaging around in people's trash. He tries not to remember all the times he'd done the same when he was much younger, back when it had been the only thing keeping May and him on their feet after Ben had been shot dead; a broken radio, an old AC unit, easy fixes if one was desperate enough. He'd gotten good at it back then.

He's lost his touch if the half-hour's worth of nothing is anything to go by.

Privilege will do that, I guess.

He perseveres anyway and soon scores shoes that, while damp and peeling from the sole, fit him more or less. Reeling from a high, Peter eagerly moves on to the next dumpster, where, under a slightly more dry block, he finds an old windbreaker hidden under two smashed TVs and a cardboard box.

He can't remember the last time he's felt this relieved.

He wants to cry.

He doesn't.

Sighing, Peter shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, frowning when his fingers brush against something in his left pocket.

He extracts his hand and glares down at what appears to be a type of tracking device -Ned's face momentarily makes an appearance, the teasing lilt to his voice as he sings 'training wheel protocol' on a loop whirls around the empty cavern in Peter's head. Peter shakes the memory loose and glares down at the bug. The longer he fixates on it, the louder the soft ping it emits grows until it's grating on Peter's eardrums and his hands itch to crush it into the small creases of his palm.

Jason, Peter thinks darkly. That old, mystic anger is back again, green and haunting. It attaches itself to Peter's anger, warping it into something else.

Control it. He wills himself to calm down and tries to remind himself that Jason was probably doing it to keep an eye on him -make sure he was okay. Besides, even if he wasn't, Peter doesn't know Jason well enough to warrant feeling much about the invasion of privacy.

Of course, thinking with logic and actually believing in the truth of it with your heart are two completely different things, so that nasty stab of betrayal is still there even though Peter knows it doesn't need to be. He's just fortunate that it's not enough to spiral. 

He takes a long, deep breath, lets the tracker fall to the ground to be washed away and moves on.

From that point on, most of the day consists of mind-mapping the streets, eavesdropping on people's conversations in the hopes of finding useful information, and trying to scope out a food source. He only accomplishes the first.

That is until his spider-tingle fires up and he catches sight of an older man attempting to juggle several grocery bags and a box across a busy street half a block away from him. In the distance, Peter can hear the faulty screeching of a bus and knows what the warning was implying.

Without hesitating, Peter advances as fast as he can without raising any alarms from the people around him. He can feel the muscles on his leg tensing under the strain of holding back, of not moving faster like they know they can. 

He gets there, just in time to throw himself onto the road and cradle the man into his arms before he sends them hurtling towards the neighbouring pavement.

The bus breaks only seconds after Peter and the man are safely off the road, but when the driver stops just long enough to realise no one is dead, they continue on their route like they weren't seconds away from committing manslaughter.

"Wow, ok," Peter mumbles under his breath, then unclasps his hold on the old man before pulling them both to their feet. "Are you ok sir?"

"Bloody hell, are you ok?" Seemingly still recovering from the shock of it all, the old man -british, Peter notes almost deliriously- brushes away Peter's concern by holding him in place with a look that Peter can only describe as paternal concern. He knows because May looks at him like that all the time.

Use to. She used to look at you like that.

"I'm fine," Peter croaks.

The older man doesn't appear to believe him, but Peter can't find it in himself to care. He only has enough energy to straighten himself up and wipe the emotion from his face. "Well if you're alright Mr, then I guess I should be-'

"-Fred."

Peter frowns. "Huh?"

"I'm Fred. I think saving my life means you can drop the formalities and 'sir' makes me feel as old as I look."

Peter can't help but snort and Fred's face lights up at the sound of it which makes falling into a shared moment easier, smiling like dorks, before Peter is hit with an idea.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find a local library? I'm...I just moved here, last-minute decision kind of thing, and I didn't read up on this place so I'm having trouble-"

"-fitting into it?" When Peter nods, Fred offers a sympathetic smile. "You picked a hell of a place to settle into. Gotham isn't for the faint of heart."

Peter doesn't even try to stop the scoff. "Yeah, I'm starting to realise that."

There is a split-second pause where Peter feels like his soul is being stared into by Fred, but then Peter is sleep-deprived, starving, and surviving off of bouts of adrenaline, so he could just be a little spacey.

"Well, you're currently in Old Gotham now so if you take the train to Robinsons Park, you'll want to get off at that stop, make your way south past Griffin's field and keep going about five blocks before turning right. You'll find Gotham Library there."

Peter blinks dumbly while his brain struggles to catalogue the instructions away. Fred laughs at the blank expression on Peter's face and extracts a small notepad and pen from the breast pocket of his jacket. He then quickly scribbles down a step-by-step list, rips the paper out and delicately grabs Peter's hand to place the paper into his hand.

"You'll need a MetroCard card too. Take mine," Fred reaches into his pocket again and pulls out a small wallet. Seconds later, a plastic card is given to Peter.

"Are you sure?" Peter is hesitant to accept it, but he knows he'll need it.

"If you've made a spontaneous move to Gotham, I assume you had no time to apply for a MetroCard yet. Besides, consider it repayment. A good deed for a good deed."

Peter can't explain how grateful he is for Fred, and while he knows it's pushing it if he suddenly tackles the old man into a tight, lung-crushing hug he settles for an airy laugh that he's pleasantly surprised to find is genuine.

"If you give me an address, I can mail it to you when I'm done with it," Peter offers.

Fred shakes his head and says, "Don't worry yourself about it. Besides, the card only has enough for a couple more rides -should get you there and back."

Peter wants to argue but Fred merely urges him to get going, explaining that if he moves quickly, he can catch the next train before it leaves. He then wanders back to the road to try and salvage what survived the narrowly avoided accident.

Twenty minutes later, Peter waits on the platform of the same subway station he'd bolted from last night, with a MetroCard Fred had lent him gripped tightly in his hand, drumming the fingers of his other hand against his leg in a vain attempt to appear somewhat normal. Just a scruffy kid anxious to see a library.

In the distance, Peter can hear the screeching of steel against steel and can feel the rumble of the fast-approaching train. He flinches and whatever illusion of normalcy he had hoped to portray falls away.

-It's easy to fool people when they're already fooling themselves.

"Shut up," Peter grinds his teeth together, closing his eyes only to be met with the sinister grin of Quentin Beck.

The moment the train comes to a jarring halt Peter discovers his lungs have lost the ability to draw in oxygen.

-You are just a scared little kid in a sweat suit!

"Be quiet," Peter whispers to himself. A kid and his mother look at him like he's gone mad. Peter thinks he has.

-You need to wake up!

"Move kid, you're blocking the way." Someone knocks him in the shoulder, startling Peter.

Scurrying into the train, Peter quickly finds a seat, winding the open flaps of the windbreaker tighter against his torso as the doors slam shut and the train lurches forward. Once he's sure no one will bother him, Peter slips the shades Jason had lent him on and closes his eyes as he tries to calm his heartbeat down to a normal speed.

You're ok Peter. You just need to keep it together long enough to find the library.

Don't think about- don't think- stop thinking.

God, stop thinking.

He chants it over and over like a mantra, dividing the task into five-minute intervals that he hopes last the time it takes to get to Robinsons Park. He spends the first five minutes reassuring himself that while he's in a city that seems determined to send him spiralling, he's still very much ok. At the next interval, he reminds himself that he'll find what he needs from the library. The last five minutes are spent trying not to think until it all blurs into the word 'stop' being muttered repeatedly.

Peter knows it isn't healthy, the constant flicker between being fine and then descending into whatever mind-numbing madness he seems to have fallen into, but he has little choice but to ride the rollercoaster.

"Next stop, Robinsons Park," the automated voice echoes down the train cart. Peter flinches back at the sound.

Gathering his wits, Peter jumps up as soon as the doors open and then joins the rush of people up the stairs and out into more rain. He doesn't let the weather deter him, following Fred's instructions right down to the letter until he finds himself staring up at a large building with the words 'Gotham City, Public Library' etched into the front arch of the roof.

Climbing the steps two at a time Peter reaches the front door and yanks it open in record time, fast enough to miss the surprised yelp of the person leaving, but too slow to stop himself from barreling right into them.

For the second time that day, Peter ends up on the floor, only this time a large array of stray papers litter the floor around him and a cup of hot coffee splatters all over his already filthy jacket. Jason's shades are suddenly nowhere to be found.

"-I can't believe it's happened again." A gruff, tired voice says behind Peter.

Peter scrambles to his feet and then begins picking up whatever is closest to him as the boy continues grumbling to himself.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," Peter exclaims.

The boy waves Peter's apology off. "No. My fault. Always happens. Shouldn't have had another coffee," His words come out clipped, and Peter isn't sure if the boy usually speaks in chopped sentences or if Peter's hearing is mucking up, but he doesn't want to be even more rude and ask them what they're on about, so he simply hands the papers back to them.

"Well, I'm still sorry. Really." Slowly, Peter begins to back away, but the boy finally looks up and fixes his piercing blue gaze on Peter. The boy scrutinises Peter until he reaches the dark patch seeping into the windbreaker and then grimaces.

"Shit, sorry about your jacket."

"It wasn't exactly the cleanest before the coffee spill, trust me." Peter attempts to diffuse the guilty look on the boy's face with a small smile. It does the trick because they return the gesture with a tentative smile.

"Still, are you alright?" The boy directs the question back to Peter.

"I'm good," Peter assures them.

The boy merely nods, offers an awkward grin and then goes to leave, but not before holding out Jason's shades. "I think you dropped this before."

Peter stares at the glasses, a sudden swell of emotions awakening before he stomps them back down and quickly swipes the shades from their outstretched hand. "Thanks," Peter mumbles.

The boy tilts his head, squinting at Peter momentarily before he shrugs and then turns towards the door.

Once alone, Peter exhales shakily and attempts to clear his mind.

Homework time.

Chapter 5: Here lies the grave of Peter Parker, 'Can survive a multiversal trip but croaks it after being hugged by a peppermint plant.'

 

'Gotham City was founded in 1635 and is home to -Arkham Asylum's notorious...Joker on the loose -Justice League members involved in -the infamous Batman's latest showdown took several...people have reported strange-'

Peter's head swirls with snippets of news articles and various history books he'd plucked from the shelves, eyes beginning to droop as a library staff member briefly stops by to inform him it's closing time. Shit, he hadn't even realised how dark it had gotten.

Cracking the sides of his neck, Peter switches off the computer he'd had to get a staff member to log him into, but not before his eyes snag on the first line of the last article he'd been researching. 'Zatanna... Mistress of Magic personality returns for a surprise show in Gotham theatres this autumn...'

Peter had written down the address of the theatre hosting the event earlier, yet, as he makes the walk back to the subway he questions whether or not it's a shot in the dark, assuming that a magician actually operates with real magic, or that she'll even be open to talking to him. When he found the article, Peter had fallen down a conspiracy hole of a few articles that linked the Zatanna lady to mysterious events reported over the years but never fully confirmed by the public. Even then, the sightings were always described in ways that didn't allude to much.

Still, it's all Peter has and even if Zatanna ends up being a dead end, Peter hopes that she can point him in the right direction; after all, a crumb isn't nothing. 

That and Peter's slow descent into desperation really can't afford him to be picky.

So he gets on the train, using the time to plan out how best to go about having a conversation that sounds utterly insane even to his ears. He comes up with a simple 'hey' and gets no further. He figures he's got at least three days to come up with something better than that, and compared to the growing list of things he needs to be concerned about, a prepared speech falls significantly low.

Half an hour later Peter finds himself wondering the streets of 'Old Gotham' -as Fred had affectionately, or not so affectionately, called this part of town- and is in the middle of debating whether or not the warehouse rooftop is an acceptable enough place to crash for the night -and whether or not Jason will be waiting for him there- when a bone-chilling scream echoes off the brick walls of the alleyway.

-Mj in Mysterio's grip, scared, afraid. The illusion of her body falling- then she does fall. Her screams echo against the front of his skull.

"I know this isn't real."-

"It's not real Peter, you know this," Peter whispers. A car's headlight momentarily runs across Peter's face and he flinches up against a wall. Another scream reverberates down the alley and Peter fights the urge to dig himself into the cracks of the walls.

-"Do you though?"

I don't think you know what's real."-

Get a grip, someone needs your help.

Peter moves, one hand reaching for the wristwatch to activate his suit, but the suit never activates, just glitches and fizzles out. By the time he's made it around the corner and down the narrow aisle, his suit is nowhere to be found and the screams have turned into one long continuous screech that Peter can't ignore, that he won't ignore.

Keep to the shadows, don't let them see your face.

It's not exactly hard, considering it's Gotham and it's almost always dark even during the day, but the shadows give him time to assess the situation. What he sees is...interesting, if a little creepy.

A menacing gang of clowns -well, guys in edgy clown makeup- all surrounding a lady...who also looks like a clown.

"What the fuck," Peter whispers to himself.

"He wants you back, Harley Quinn." The tallest clown thug looms over the woman's body, voice deep and slightly maniacal. A small, yet surprisingly hunky guy stands behind the woman, holding an insanely large mallet. The woman spits out a concerning amount of blood.

All in all, not the most inspiring picture of positive communication Peter has ever had to witness.

"Well, you can tell Mistah Jay that he's too fuckin' late!" The clown lady spits upwards and somehow manages to get blood across the tall clown's brow. It'd be impressive if it weren't so disgusting.

Honestly loving how everyone announces their names around here. Peter almost snickers at the thought, but upon reanalysing the severity of the situation, silently makes a vow that he needs to have a conversation with himself about his use of humour in highly inappropriate situations.

"The Joker ain't gonna take kindly to your refusal Harley."

"If I gave less of a fuck I- wait what are we talkin' about?"

Damn, they must have roughed her up more than I thought.

The guy with the mallet swings it right into the side of the Harley lady's head as if he's heard Peter's thoughts, setting off a chain reaction where the others take to dogpiling clown lady in a mess of limbs and swinging fists. It reminds Peter of those old cartoons the channel used to play when he was younger, with the 1950s characters and old jazzy music.

Now is not the time Peter.

Peter swears and then stalks forward, using the shadows as a cover, wincing when a loud thump echoes against the alleyway's walls.

"Lay off the lady." He plays loosely with his Brooklyn accent, altering his usual tone as best he can without a mask muffling it the way it usually would, because that's all his circumstances will allow for. It distracts the thugs long enough for the lady to take a breath and shuffle away from them as they slink closer towards the shadows.

Peter's spider-sense goes off again, alerting him to another presence separate from the gang of clowns. He thinks they might be watching from the building rooftop to his right -if he has to guess- but the exact location is lost to Peter's senses when the tallest clown of the bunch pounces into the shadows with Peter.

He goes to punch with his right fist so Peter dodges to the left, crouching down low and swiping his leg out to knock them to the ground. Tall-e lands with a grunt but Peter doesn't let them recover and instead delivers a strong enough punch to keep them knocked out and out of the way.

"Kids got strength," Peter hears Harley's voice pipe up. Unfortunately, that reminds the other five clown thugs that she's still there and the majority of them switch up on Peter in favour of creeping back towards Harley.

Before Peter can panic, Harley grabs hold of the mallet Buff Guy had dropped when Peter called them out, cackling to herself as Buff-e realises his slip-up and sprints towards her. Peter manages to catch the moment she swings it down and up with an insane amount of strength that shocks Peter as the man is lifted by his jaw from the momentum and Peter hears the exact moment their jaw breaks.

Jesus Christ, does everyone in Gotham know how to fight?

Peter snaps out of his shock just in time to dodge a clown with a crowbar. "Where the hell did you get a crowbar from man?" They hadn't had one before, Peter knows that and from the looks of things, there isn't anything else lying around that warrants a spontaneous crowbar appearance.

He must have pulled it from his a-

A hand wraps around his neck and yanks Peter into the light. Peter reacts blindly, twisting out of their grip before balling his fist up and keeping his body tight as he twists around to deliver an uppercut. One clown falls, but the one with the crowbar uses the time it takes Peter to recover to strike a blow across Peter's temple.

In the seconds between feeling the pain and not, Peter's vision flickers between blinding blues and purples that set the world into clearer focus than Peter is used to -spider powers included- and then his vision is wiped out completely.

The last thing he is aware of is Harley Quinn's voice.

"Oh, you fuckers!"

-

When Peter comes to, he finds a whole set of new problems to add to his never-ending list.

First, his head is pounding, like someone took a bat, wrapped it in chainsaws, glued rusted nails along the ridges and then bashed him over the head with it, type of pounding. Second, his vision is doing something weird, flickering between his already enhanced sight to an ultraviolet kind of vision, where his eyes can pick up on most of the room without moving his head from side to side and if he concentrates enough, his eyes zero in on a specific point of the room in an almost nauseating, detailed way. It doesn't help that whoever's apartment he's been dumped in is cluttered with various knick-knacks that, while reminding him of his and May's old apartment only slightly, really do overload his senses.

He thinks he sees a beaver waving at him, but decides that keeping his eyes open is making him hallucinate things so he closes them.

"Harley, babe, we've been over this," A woman whispers. Well, Peter calls it a whisper, but what it sounds like is a voice shouting down his ear, causing the already intense pounding in his head to kick up a notch.

What the hell is happening to me?

"I know, I know. But he was just a little sweetheart, tryin' ta help me with Mistah Jay's goons. Stupid, but sweet." Harley cooes. Harley. She's alright.

Peter tries to move but almost vomits over the couch he's been placed on. However, considering he can't remember the last time he ate, all he manages to do is a pathetic couple of dry heaves.. Loud enough that by the time he's controlled the urge to gag, there are two people in the room with him. One of which is Harley and the other...a green lady?

Hulk's long-lost cousin? If Peter didn't feel like death reincarnate, he might've laughed at his pathetic joke.

"You ok, kid?" Harley asks, sounding equal parts genuinely concerned and mocking. Peter reckons it's just her voice.

"I don't feel too good."

Harley snorts, but the sound grates on Peter's hearing and she mutters a quick apology when she notices his hands fly to the sides of his head.

"Gettin' a crowbar to the head'll do that. You should be dead, in all honesty."

"Yeah, I should be," Peter manages to grit out.

Peter is afforded a small window of silence, just long enough to centre himself, and then Harley speaks again.

"Look kid, as much as I appreciated the help, you really gotta get better at being aware of your surroundin's."

Peter snorts and then immediately regrets it. "I usually am. I've just...moved to Gotham, and haven't adjusted just yet, but-"

Peter pauses, body rigid as his senses flutter to life. But this is different from every other time. It isn't filled with anxiety; it isn't a warning of impending doom.

It feels more like a call. Like a rope being tugged on.

Peter moves his head around, peering past Harley and the green lady, vision narrowing in on a small jumping spider on the wall behind the women. Once he sees it, his eyes zoom in on the spider and Peter watches in real time as it clicks its fangs together.

"Woah," Peter breathes out, zoned out to the point that he isn't paying attention to his hosts or that he's most definitely acting bizarrely.

"Hey kid, what are you- ew a spider! Kill it!" Harley squeals when she clocks the spider and immediately moves to take her shoe off to squish it but both the green lady and Peter yell at her not to.

Harley stops, but Peter knows it's more for the other lady than for him.

"Ivy baby, you know how I feel about them," Harley whines. Ivy -after shooting Peter a look- raises her hand, and Peter watches as a plant resting in a pot along the windowsill across the room grows outwards, twirling and twisting in the air as it makes a clear line for the spider.

Peter has to admit it looks super cool, but the minute the plant's leaf brushes up against the wall the spider scurries back and Peter feels a twinge in his head.

"Stop, it doesn't like peppermint." Peter falls off the couch, attempting to crawl towards Ivy, or the spider. Peter isn't entirely sure what is happening right now, or why he knows what the spider is feeling. All he knows is that the spider is overwhelmed and doesn't want to be near the plant.

"I was just going to give it a ride out of here," Ivy protests, but Peter isn't listening all that much, especially when the spider jumps into his open palm.

The spider communicates through a series of vibrations that fizzle out through its legs and Peter hums back at it. Because...he understands it?

"No problem, now let's get you out of here." He walks towards the window, head finally clear and vision back to normal as he opens the latch and pushes the window up. The spider happily jumps from his hand, looks at Peter and then disappears.

The smile deems when Peter remembers he isn't alone, and it's completely gone by the time he turns back to the two suspiciously quiet people.

"I can't believe you brought a meta kid here, Harley. Honestly." Ivy growls. Turning back to Peter she makes a fist with her hand and the peppermint plant she'd left growing up the wall doubles in size and wraps tightly around him. The smell of peppermint, which had once been a comfort, now makes Peter want to claw his skin.

"Yeah, 'cause I knew he was a freakin' meta."

"Who are you?" Ivy ignores Harley in favour of adding a second stem to the bindings.

Peter attempts to break out of his binds but the smell still overpowers him, and his injury throbs uncomfortably across his temple.

"Uh, I don't..."

Ivy tightens her grip. Peter gasps.

"Jeez lady, I'd be happy to tell you just loosen the freakin' plant." The more stressed Peter gets, the worse his accent is until he's babbling almost as much as Harley had been back in the alleyway.

It appears to have some sway because Harley's eyes soften the tiniest fraction and she leans in to whisper something in Ivy's ear. Ivy's left eye twitches but not long after she sighs and unclenches her hand.

"Fine," she grumbles, fixing Peter with the nastiest glare he's ever seen -save for the time Mj had caught him trying to steal a couple of Cheetos from her bag. Safe to say the infamous week of silence had almost turned Peter insane. What he would give now, to have that be his only problem.

"What's your name?" Ivy repeats the question.

"Peter Parker."

"Are you working for the Joker?"

Peter makes a face. "I have no idea who that is."

"I'll know if you're lying." Shit, is that one of her powers? Peter doesn't know, but he isn't going to risk being smothered by plants because that would be the most embarrassing tombstone read. 

'Can survive a multiversal trip but croaks it after being hugged by a peppermint plant.'

"Honest! I'm from Queens. I don't know what a meta-human is or what a Joker is supposed to mean here. I didn't even know this world existed until yesterday."

"Ivy, you haven't been messing with those toxic plants again have you?" Harley tsks.

"No, I think this kid's got a few screws loose in his head."

"I'm telling the truth!" Peter shouts.

No one believes me. I'm telling the truth and no one is listening. Peter closes his eyes and tries to imagine being anywhere but here, trying not to let that anger off its leash. The only place he imagines that makes his mind go quiet is the nothingness he'd been floating around in when Strange's spell had gone awry.

Is he looking for me? Does he even remember me enough to want to? What about Mj...what about Ned? Oh god, who's going to bury May?

"Calm down kid, you're going to pass out if you don't," Ivy warns but Peter continues hyperventilating.

"I can't...I just- I need it to stop. Please make it stop." He's sobbing now; big ugly sobs that wrack against his ribcage and choke the rest of the air out of him.

Something in Ivy's expression changes and then she's calmly striding up to Peter's hunched-over form on the couch and blowing green dust from her palm into his face. Whatever it is has his shoulders sagging forward and his eyes drooping, but he doesn't have the strength to fight against it so he follows the whispers into the dark, soothed by Ivy's deep tone as she quietly murmurs, "Sleep, we'll talk in the morning."

And if he hallucinates just a little harder, he can pretend he hears Aunt May's voice somewhere in Ivy's.

He goes to sleep believing he's home and that he is safe.

Notes:

The amount of times I caught the words 'and', 'but' and 'so' in the editing phase is atrocious and not only do I have to apologise for the acknowledgment but also for not doing a single thing to edit those words out. Best I could do was three attempts to write it out and the rest you'll just have to deal with.

So......Sorry 2x