We're Sitting Outside of Time and Space
There’s another bang outside, this time it’s definitely a gunshot, and Carrie resists the urge to look in that direction. The teen in the super suit flinches at the noise, green eyes the same color as Jason’s flicking between her and the outside wall. There’s a strip of white in their otherwise brown hair, bright even in the faint light from the alleyway, and they’re coated in drying green goo that’s almost definitely Lazarus Water. Carrie marks them down as the prime zombie suspect. The other teen doesn’t react to the shot, but they wrap their arm around the likely-zombie and stare her down with eerie blue eyes. Faint sounds of shouts and fighting filter through the wall and Carrie makes an executive decision that will get her yelled at by the actual executives of the operation.
She holds up a finger to her mouth to tell them to keep quiet and closes the door silently behind her, sitting down against it. They watch her warily, the blue-eyed one—who she’s sure is actually older than zom-maybe, now that she’s looking closer—with way more suspicion than she feels is warranted. Yeah, sure, she’s only been out as Catgirl for a few months (in Gotham, at least), but c’mon. Even if they associate her with Catwoman, civilians aren’t all that worried about her anymore. Unless they’re rich assholes, which these teens are not.
There’s a shout and a resounding thud from the alley below. Carrie hopes that means Bruce and Dick got Jason knocked out and not the other way around. Zom-maybe’s hand twitches in their lap and Blue Eyes pats their arm, trying to comfort them. She watches them as intently as they watch her, or at least as intently as Blue Eyes watches her. Likely-zombie keeps glancing at the windows, more concerned with the mess in the alley than her.
“Catgirl,” Dick says, breathing harshly. Zom-maybe turns to look at her, head slightly tilted. She sighs and brings her hand up to the comm in her ear.
“What’s up?”
“Hood’s been subdued,” he says. There’s a noise in the background that must be the Batmobile’s door closing. “Go to the Clocktower, I’ll come get you and Red Robin once Hood’s contained in the Cave.”
“Got it,” she says with full intent to not do that. There’ll be at least thirty minutes between now and Dick getting to the Tower, and she’s going to spend that time here. Potential-zombie-ness of the one kid aside, the teens obviously need help and she didn’t put on a cape, traipse through the desert with cat ears on, nearly die, and refuse to apologize for any of it to just ignore that.
“Go now, Catgirl,” he says firmly. She’d complain about the Bats always knowing her next move if she didn’t always know theirs. Zom-maybe frowns, hands twitching in their lap again as their eyes dart from her comm to the window. Super hearing, maybe?
“I got it,” she repeats with even less sincerity. Blue Eyes leans over and whispers something to Zom-maybe, not looking away from her for even a second. Come to think of it, have they blinked at all?
Dick sighs, a crackly sound accompanied by another door closing, “Just be there by the time I’m there, alright? And be safe.”
“The safest,” she agrees, aware that her proximity to Zom-maybe is putting her in danger. She clicks her comm off. Babs will turn it back on if they need her, and the camera feed from her lenses is definitely still up on one of her many, many screens so she’s not in all that much danger.
The rumble of engines starts up outside and quickly fades away, leaving Carrie alone with two scared teens. One of which may be undead and the other who’s a total wild card.
“So,” Blue Eyes says, leaning stiffly against the wall in a fake show of confidence. Zom-maybe gives them a side-eye and slouches down, actually relaxed. Well, as long as she doesn’t piss them off she might actually be as safe as Dick wants her to be. Nice. “What d’you want?”
“To help,” she answers honestly, not seeing a point to obfuscating here. She extends a hand and introduces herself, “I’m Catgirl, she/her.”
“Cool,” Zom-maybe shakes her hand with a goofy smile, “I’m Peter, he/him.”
Blue Eyes just raises a hand in a pathetic, half-assed wave, “Danny, he/him.”
“Nice to meet you, Danny and Peter,” she smiles. Would it kill them to give her last names, too? “What’s got you two hanging around here?”
Danny opens his mouth to respond, then glances at Peter—Peter’s super suit, to be precise—and sighs heavily. “Saw Peter slipping out wearing that and thought I’d follow him. Try to get him to come back and leave the crime-fighting to the professionals.”
Peter scowls at Danny, probably at the implication that he’s not a professional, because the rest of the lie isn’t anything all that notable. Still, he protests, “I wasn’t even going to be out long! Just a couple of hours.”
“That’s long enough to get you killed!” Danny snaps back. She’s honestly impressed at how good they are at this. If she hadn’t found them by following Peter’s Lazarus trail she might have bought it. Or at least let them keep talking, just to see how long they could keep going.
“I wouldn’t—”
“This is a great yarn y’all are spinning but it’ll be pretty hard to help you if I don’t know what’s actually going on,” she cuts in. They stop bickering immediately and Danny lets out another long-suffering sigh, which is accompanied by Peter’s own, more done with everything sigh.
“Look, it’s great that you want to help, but we’re fine, really,” Danny says with a reassuring smile that does not assure her at all. “We were just about to go home when Red Hood showed up.”
The dedication would be admirable if she wasn’t getting fed up with it. “Right, except you’ve got an accent from somewhere in the mid-west, he’s got one from New York, and I followed a trail of glowing green footprints to this room.”
Peter winces and Danny just stares at her for a second. She stares right back.
“Have you considered walking away?” Danny says. Peter groans and drops his head into his hands.
“Have. Won’t.”
“Well. Damn.”
“Okay!” Peter says, throwing his hands up. “Okay, just…don’t call the cops on us or anything, alright?”
“I figure you’re not doing anything worth getting the pigs involved,” she nods, shifting so she’s sitting with her legs crossed. Danny’s squinting at Peter like he’s trying to set him on fire with his mind, so that’s probably fine.
Peter takes a deep breath to brace himself, then says, “We ran away from our foster home a while ago. It…it was really, really bad there, so we thought we’d just…leave. It was great—well, as great as being homeless teens can be, I guess. But it was fine, for a bit.”
“Peter got snatched,” Danny says. He’s shifted his gaze to the windows, jaw clenched. The hand in his lap is gripping his jeans tightly while the one still around Peter is purposefully loose. “I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Peter mumbles, watching his hands twist around what must be the glove that isn’t on his left hand. Carrie hums encouragingly to get them to continue. She’s not sure she buys this any more than the first story, but she’ll wait this performance out and come to a conclusion then. Worst comes to worst, she just rounds up Timmy and they do some good old fashioned detective work.
“I was going to camp out here for the night when Peter came crashing in with the same idea,” Danny continues, briefly glancing away from the windows at her. Trying to see if she’s buying it? Maybe. Worried about the reception to a story that might be bringing up painful memories? Also a possibility.
“I got away from the guys that took me and needed somewhere to hide.” Peter shrugs, letting the glove in his hands settle in his lap. He scratches at the dried Lazarus Water on his arm, watching it flake off. “Didn’t realize I was leaving a trail.”
“So,” Carrie starts when it becomes clear they’re not going to say anything else. She sorts through what they’ve told her, matching it up with the pretty damn solid recreation of events she’s pieced together on her own time. Her own time like fifteen minutes earlier. The story doesn’t necessarily contradict anything, but it doesn’t necessarily fit everything together perfectly. “The guys who took you are the ones who dunked you in the green?”
They glance at each other for just a second before Peter nods.
Hm. Either a tell for a lie or a check to see how much they want to share with her. Regardless, she and Tim are going to investigate now. Either they’ve got to figure out the real story behind these teens or they have to figure out who knows about and has access to the Gotham Lazarus Pit, and what they were doing with Peter. Hopefully this whole thing is a lie, because she super doesn’t want to have to go snooping around the League of Assassins again.
She nods in agreement, “S’pose they’ll still be after you, then? If you give me a description—”
“I don’t remember what they looked like,” Peter says, too quickly. Even Danny gives him a look for it. Carrie props her chin up on her fist and fights the urge to smile. Peter picks up on their general skepticism and protests, “it was dark!”
She glances at the computer in her glove. Fifteen minutes left. “Okay, let me level with y’all.” they look at her warily, Peter deflating now that his lies aren’t cutting it. Not that they ever were. “You saw what was up with Hood, yeah?” they nod. “That’s what the gunk you were dunked in does, Peter. Figure you don’t want to go around attacking people at the drop of a hat.”
Peter stares at her, eyes wide, the cogs in his head turning. His face slowly crumples into a devastated frown as it sinks in. After a beat he opens his mouth to say something and—
“We’ve got it handled,” Danny interrupts with all the confidence of someone who’s hubris is going to get them mauled.
“We do,” she agrees, “as long as you let me help you.”
“You couldn’t help Red Hood,” Peter points out, still frowning.
“Hood doesn’t like me on the best days.” she waves the very valid concern away. “And he’s built like a tank. You’re more of an al dente noodle, so I could probably knock you out if needed.”
“You’re not even a little suspicious that he’s got training or powers or something?” Danny asks, leaning forward and steepling his hands.
“Do you?” she asks Peter.
“Uh—” he looks at Danny, who squints and shrugs. Peter turns back to her and stammers a little bit, “I-I can stick. To surfaces.”
“So in the event of disaster I just snipe you with a tranq while you hiss in a ceiling corner.” she does finger guns at them. Peter drops his head into his hands as Danny laughs.
“Okay, okay, here’s what’s up,” Danny says as his laughter fades into the occasional giggle. “I—”
“I woke up in a pool of glow stick juice and I’m still not sure where I am,” Peter whines into his hands. Danny blinks down at him, mouth open.
“What’s the last place you remember being?” she asks. Finally, they’re getting somewhere. Sucks she doesn’t have much time left.
“New York,” he says, continuing to stare down at the floor through his fingers. Danny hums thoughtfully, watching for her reaction. Carrie makes a note to look for spider-themed teen heroes in New York.
“Any idea how long ago?”
“What’s the date?”
“June sixth.”
Peter tilts his head to eye Danny, who adds, “2023.”
He stares at him for a second then whispers, “Holy shit, I’m in the future.”
“How far in the future?” her brow furrows. From what she knows about the Pits—which, granted, isn’t much—they don’t tend to work on dead bodies after more than a few minutes. Jason’s dip happened post-resurrection, though, and there’s no proof that’s not the case here. There’s technically not a case that Peter was dead, either. All she knows is that Peter somehow made it from New York to Gotham, without knowing he’s in Gotham, and took a dive in the Pit. Figures that someone put him there, but who? And why?
“Six years,” Peter mumbles.
“2017? Really?” Danny says, befuddled. “I don’t even remember 2017.”
“The last thing you remember is being in New York in 2017,” Carrie states. Peter nods and Danny just squints off into the distance.
“There was an explosion and then I was coughing up radioactive waste,” Peter adds, finally lifting his head out of his hands. She nods, thinking. Peter likely died in that explosion, so he was resurrected by some unknown thing before being put in the pit. Had to have been resurrected pretty soon after his death…but six years? That’s a long time for him to be…doing whatever he was doing. Damn, she and Tim have their work cut out for them.
“Do you have anyone who would be looking for you?”
“Ye—” he cuts himself off, frowning. “No. Not h-not after six years. They probably all think I’m dead.” Danny snorts and tries to cover it up with a cough. Odd.
“I’m sure they’d be relieved to know you aren’t,” she says. Having names of people he knew would also help greatly with her and Tim’s investigation, seeing as she doesn’t even have a last name for Peter. Or Danny. Yet.
“No,” he shakes his head slowly, “no, I think it’s better if they don’t know. Especially if I’m liable to hurt them.”
“Speaking of, how exactly are you going to help with that? Because I’m sure you have better things to do than follow us around waiting to tranq him,” Danny says, gesturing at Peter.
“Right, well,” she clears her throat, “there’s not really a better solution right now.”
“What?” Peter says, blinking.
Danny just laughs, “Yeah, I figured. Lucky for you, I’ve got that covered. Like I said earlier.”
“I’m sure,” she deadpans. “What’s your deal, Danny? Got anybody looking for you?”
“Nope,” he says with a grin, “I’m basically a ghost.”
“And how do you two know each other?”
“Met while hiding from the pissed off crime lord.” Danny shrugs.
“Fair enough,” she concedes. She checks her glove computer again. Less than ten minutes before she has to be at the Clocktower. “Y’all don’t have anywhere to go, then?”
Danny opens his mouth and Peter slaps his hand over it. Danny frowns at him while Peter says, “We don’t. Please don’t call CPS.”
“Calling CPS in Gotham is for idiots who have a stronger moral code than they do common sense,” she says, reaching into a pocket on her belt and pulling out a few folded up pamphlets and a map of the city. She hands them to Peter while Danny just watches from his corner of silence. “Those are for the safe shelters and food banks. You don’t have to worry about the food banks calling CPS but be careful with the shelters. They’re run by the morals over logic crowd. There’s also a handout for how to survive Gotham, which includes where you can get the gas masks and all.” Peter lays all the papers out on the floor so he can see them without taking his hand off Danny’s mouth, mouthing ‘what the hell?’. “All the shelters and everything are marked on the map. The library’s marked, too, and it’ll have copies of all of those, plus extras. You should stop by tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Peter says, overwhelmed.
“It’s a lot, I know,” she says, pulling out a tracker and a spare panic button. Honestly, if Peter hadn’t been dipped in the Pit she’d just tell them to go to Metropolis. Or back to New York, in Peter’s case. Unfortunately, Peter’s a zombie, so he’s got to stick around for a while. Probably forever. “You’ll do great, though.”
“What is wrong with this city?” Peter mutters, flipping open the Gotham Safety Guide.
Danny moves Peter’s hand off his mouth and says, “The curse. Curses, actually. This place is damned.”
“Checks out.” Carrie nods. Peter looks between them, bewildered, then sighs.
“Not the weirdest thing I’ve heard.”
“That’s the spirit,” Danny grins like he just made a fantastic joke and Peter sighs like he got it and it wasn’t that funny.
“So,” she says, holding the tracker up. “This is—”
“Not going to work,” Danny interrupts, squinting at it through the low light of the room. “That’s a tracker, right? It’ll just short out.”
“It won’t,” she says firmly.
“You’ve got a computer in your gauntlet, right?” he says, nodding at her glove. She narrows her eyes at him. “The hero back at home had one in hers, figured it was just a standard thing. Try doing anything other than checking the time.”
Good to know that they only have to search towns with heroes, she thinks as she pulls up the tracking map. Tries to, at least. It loads in, but the map is glitching. The Bowery is up by Bristol, the Diamond District has taken the place of the docks, and everybody’s tracker dots are glitched symbols instead of colored dots.
“I tend to fuck with electronics.” he shrugs. “It’s a passive thing, but it does mean your tracker won’t work.”
Shit. “That’s a monkey wrench in the engine.”
“Don’t I know it,” he sighs miserably.
“I wouldn’t have kept it on me, anyway,” Peter says. She and Danny look at him and he protests, “What? I don’t like people knowing my every move. That’s normal.”
Danny mumbles to himself, confused, “It is?”
Carrie elects to ignore that for the time being because she’s only got five minutes to get to the Clocktower and minimize the amount of trouble she’s gonna get in. “It was just so I could check up on you. Y’know, because of the Pit Rage?”
“That’s a horrible name,” Danny says absently. He’s staring off into the distance again, thinking about who knows what. Well. He knows what.
“That’s…fair. Yeah, yeah maybe we should find a way to make the tracker work,” Peter says with increasing worry. He turns to Danny and, when it becomes clear that Danny’s lost in thought, shoves him a bit.
“What?”
“Is there a way to make the tracker work?”
“Oh. Uh. I can…probably do that.” he rubs a hand over the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly.
“Thank god,” Peter breathes a heavy sigh of relief.
“Do I need to show you how it works or…” she says, still holding it up.
“Nah,” they say at the same time. Carrie figured Peter might know, considering the high quality of his suit, but Danny? That’s just another thing to put a pin in. Probably literally, once she spills everything to Tim and they get investigating.
“Alright, then. This one can be re-applied, so just make sure to keep it on you.” she hands the tracker to Peter, who flips it around a couple of times then slips it into an invisible pocket. She holds up the panic button, intending to hand it to Peter when it occurs to her that it’s an electronic. “Will this get bugged out being around you, Danny?”
He squints at it, “A panic button? Uhm. Don’t know. Maybe? I’ll figure it out.”
“Great.” she hands it to Peter, who repeats what he did with the tracker. “If you start feeling testy or like you’re gonna bite someone, hit that. I’m gonna make it so the tracker will only show up for me—” which maybe isn’t the smartest thing to do, but the only zombie they’ve had to deal with is Jason and Peter has like, the opposite of Jason vibes so she doesn’t really want to see him in a containment cell in the caves “—but the panic button will alert all the Bats.”
“Okay.” Peter gives her a firm nod. “Thanks.”
“Great.” she stands up. Two minutes left. She’s gonna get yelled at. Rest in peace, Carrie Kelley. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll meet up with y’all tomorrow.”
“In costume?” Danny asks, standing too. He staggers a little bit, catching himself on the wall. Peter glances up at him, concerned. He brushes it off. “Legs are asleep.”
“In a costume,” she says, doing finger guns as she moves to the broken out window.
“See you tomorrow, then,” Peter says, waving. She waves back and sticks her head out the window to find a good grappling point. Danny just frowns.
“Oh, Peter,” she says, ducking back through the window. “If you’re going to go out and do some midnight tourism, you’ll need a new suit.” He gives her a strange look and Danny raises one judgmental eyebrow. For a moment she’s reminded of Alfred, then B, then she decides to ignore it. “There are cams in my lenses.”
“Ah. Thanks for the heads up,” Peter says with a thumbs up.
“No problem. See you nerds at the library tomorrow.” Carrie salutes and drops out the window, swinging off across the Gotham miasma to the Clocktower.