Stuck in a Web

Peter felt like he was going to throw up.  The cold night air of Gotham didn’t bring him any relief as he was carried by Hood towards an armoured black car.  He knew the pair were arguing about something, Hood's arm tightened around Peter while his other hand waved around emphasising whatever points he was making, Peter didn’t have any energy to even attempt to to comprehend their garbled voice, allowing it to fall into the white noise of the city around him.  His spider sense was screaming at him to get out of Hood's grip, to slip away again, but Peter’s body wouldn’t comply.  His mind struggled to even comprehend what was going on.  Peter was hurt, he was bleeding, poisoned, and in the middle of being kidnapped.  He was going to miss his bus.

A hand would press against Peter’s pulse every now and then, monitoring if he was alive or if the drug was wearing off.  Whatever they were checking, Peter didn’t have the strength to prevent it.  It was one thing breathing in the toxin, but actually consuming it was something else.  His body jerked and he dry heaved, nothing coming up but Peter’s saliva dripping down his chin.  He could faintly feel Hood twitch and a hand coming down to press up against his forehead, angling his face so he couldn’t choke on his salvia.  Peter dry heaved again.  He could feel the gazes on him, analysing his entire appearance. 

Another pair of hands gently angled his face upwards and the blurry figure of the Bat filled Peter’s vision. There were agitated comments being made by the person holding him but that didn’t prevent Batman from placing a small plastic cylinder over one of Peter’s canines.  Instinctually Peter wanted to bite at the offending object again but his whole body was slack, jaw included. And so he just stayed there, limp in the arms of Hood and complacent with Batman, filling up the plastic bottle with what Peter assumes is just his saliva,  before he stood up and corked it, slipping it into his utility belt.  Words were exchanged again, and the pair made their way into the car.  Batman in the driver's seat while an unhappy Hood was in the back holding Peter upright, rubbing his back after every dry heave.  Peter was happy that at least he could ruin his kidnappers' expensive backseat, if he had any food to throw up he’d make sure to get it everywhere.  Luckily for them, Peter only had stomach acid and saliva.

It wasn’t long until they reached their destination.  As soon as the engine stopped, Peter registered a new set of arms gently lifting him out of the car with Hood following quickly behind them.  The new person cradled Peter close to his chest as they quickly approached the medical area.  The smell of antiseptic and chemicals felt like a slap to Peter’s senses causing him to gag.  He could feel Hood reach for his backpack and he was unable to stop him from taking it off him and placing it in an empty chair nearby. Peter was placed on an examination bed and the pair slipped Peter’s hoodie and thermal shirt off.  Cold fingers made short work of Peter’s home-made bandages and a disgusted, pity filled voice filled his ears as they took in the mouldy blood soaked shirt Peter was using.  He could hear Hood’s voice clearly now, the mask with the voice modulator had been removed at some point.

“I’m telling you, this is all his fault,” Hood complained as he handed Dick the bottle of antiseptic. “The kid was already delirious, and okay it was creepy that he was crawling on the ceiling, but Bruce just shoved the gas right into his face. The same gas we use for Killer Croc.  And now he’s got chemical burns all over his face and inside his mouth because B didn’t think he’d react ‘chaotic’. He’s a kid, Dick. A freaky spider kid but still a kid.”

“I-” Dick sighed as he bandaged Peter’s stomach wound.  The kid’s rib cage was poking through his skin, he looked malnourished, starved even and Dick regretted not buying him more food at the cafe that morning.  Dark, yellow and purple bruises covered him - no doubt from the fall earlier. “He didn’t think Peter could bite through the canister.”

“He’s a fucking spider Dick, Spiders got fangs don’t they?” Hood complained, Dick was patching up Peter’s stomach while Hood had begun working on applying ointment on the burns surrounding his mouth, pausing as Peter made eye contact with him.  “Shit kid, you awake already?”

“What?” Dick asks as he finishes tying the bandage around Peter’s stomach. “He can’t be, he’s just- Oh…”

“Fuck you” Peter managed to whisper out, his limbs still uncompliant as he glared at Dick when he stepped into view. He hoped he looked intimidating but he knew his ten year old body didn’t help.

“Peter listen,” Dick began, holding his hands up. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’re just trying to help.”

Peter stayed silent.

“I know it might not seem that way right now,” Dick continued. “But we- um… I’m sorry how things ended up.”

“...Let me go,” Peter mumbled. 

Bruce hadn’t joined the three in the medical section, instead he made his way towards the bat computer where Tim and Damian were arguing.  He had left Cass at the scene to assist the GCPD with transporting Killer Croc back to Arkham.  He hadn’t been prepared for Peter which led to Peter getting hurt.  They were expecting teleportation, enhanced healing, and possibly enhanced senses.  They hadn’t expected a spider.  Bruce made plans; he had Oracle ready to track his movements, he convinced Jason to be on standby in the area, Dick was watching his suit cam in case they missed anything, and he had muscle relaxants to subdue him before he could attempt to teleport.  Bruce had made preparations for an ability Peter didn’t have.  The Opera House had enough tragedy clinging to its walls, and Bruce’s decision to immediately attempt to incapacitate him, had left Peter slamming into the ground from a deadly height, almost adding to the tragedy of the place.  Looking at the 98.8% genetic match on Tim’s screen had him feeling worse.  It would’ve been his kid dying in the same place as his parents.  And he would’ve been the one who caused it.

“Father tell this idiot that Peter’s my blood”

“It’s inconclusive! I need a non-contaminated DNA sample for a conclusive result and Peter doesn’t have non-contaminated DNA so it’s going to have to stay inconclusive unless Bruce admits he’s fucked a spider.”

Damian glares at Tim, Bruce remains silent as he grabs the vial from his belt.

“Test this for venom, if you find any; make an anti-dote.” Bruce says, handing Tim the vial he collected Peter’s saliva in, “He has fangs and fangs usually mean venom. We can’t have him accidentally killing anyone.”

Tim nods and heads over towards the lab equipment behind the computer.

“Father. Tell him.”

Bruce sighs.

“Sit down Damian,” Bruce pulls a chair out for himself and sits down next to him. He pulls up the files he had collected from LexCorp during his mission with Kent. “It’s like Tim said, legally it won’t be recognised unless it’s 99% or higher.  However, considering Peter is unable to provide cleaner DNA, we can’t get a higher result.  That being said, 98.8% is more than enough proof that he is mine, especially considering he is also a match with you. It just means we can’t get him recognised as a biological family member.”

“So what? You’ll just leave him to fend for himself again?” Damian asks, gesturing towards the medical area. “He is clearly incapable of doing that.”

“That is not what I meant, I meant we can’t get him recognised legally.  We’ll have to… alter the results.  Tim can fill in the missing components needed by supplementing them with your DNA. It won’t be the quickest route but it would be the most effective way of keeping Peter under our… control."

“Father, this is not about control.” Damian huffs, “This is about you being unable to practice safe sex which has led to my brother being experimented on for quite possibly his entire life.”

“He is far too socially adept to have been experimented on his entire life.” 

Pulling up the files of the children involved, he begins going through the files for a possible connection.  The child experimentations, the spider’s found in the labs, and Peter showing up in the middle of it all. There were far too many coincidences for Bruce’s liking.  Coincidences didn’t happen often and Peter did not scream ‘coincidence’.  The files on the children were not accompanied by photo’s however they did include physical descriptions.  Damian had pulled his chair closer and had joined Bruce in looking for possible matches.  First, they filtered for the males, then brown hair, then brown eyes which left them with 12 possible matches.  It was Damian who discovered the file most similar to Peter.  A male, 9 years old turning 10 next month, brown hair, brown eyes, 3 foot 9 inches, and 78 lbs. Everything matched except the weight and of course the name. Peter was definitely not Jean Dupont and he wasn’t  78lbs.  The name was another place holder, the french version of John Doe, whereas the weight could easily be dismissed as neglect.  Peter was closer to 60lbs, underweight for a healthy nine year old by close to 18lbs.  

If this file was Peters, then he had left the medical trial’s after the first day, dismissed due to an unknown illness and property damage.  It stated he had ‘tampered’ with medical equipment and had a fever shortly after beginning.  His family had not been paid for his participation and he returned home with them within an hour of entering the building.  This took place almost 3 weeks ago.  He and his family had no contact information provided, and had disappeared afterwards.  It was safe to assume that Peter was involved with the human trafficking ring that provided LexCorp with the rest of the children, and if they couldn’t make their money with Peter at LexCorp then they made their money somewhere else.  Three weeks unaccounted for before he showed up on the streets of Gotham; alone, malnourished, and injured. 

Turning towards the medical area, he could hear his oldest son talking to Peter, it was muffled, but it meant Peter was awake.  He was beginning to burn through the relaxant at a speed Bruce was not ready for.  He turned to Damian who had also turned towards the closed room. 

“Bed. Now.”

“But father-”

“Now Damian. We don’t want to stress him out more than what we already have.”

“We? I think you mean you.” Damian got up, knowing there was no point in arguing, “I haven’t even met him yet.”

Peter had been as non compliant as his body had allowed him to be.  His healing had begun to kick in full force.  That scratching feeling that accompanied it had left his blood itchy, boosting Peter’s already bad mood as he snapped his teeth at Jason when he attempted to apply more ointment to the burns on his face.

“I don’t want your help” Peter whined as he tried to squirm away from Dick’s grip on his waist. “Get off!”

“Peter. Stop.” Dick said exasperated, “You’re gonna tear open your wound again if you keep squirming.”

“Let go and I’ll stop,” Peter complained as Dick shared a look with Hood before letting go of Peter.  Peter groaned in annoyance as he tried to sit up, Dick immediately went to help Peter, but was held back by a firm grip on his arm by Hood.

“He’s fine, if he doesn’t want you touching him then we won’t touch him.” Hood commented before looking at Peter, “He’s right though kid, we don’t want to have to bandage you up again cause you tore something.”

Peter just grumbled as he managed to pull himself up into a sitting position, he looked angrily down at his wrapped stomach before looking towards his discarded clothes on the chair in the corner.  His legs still felt weak and he wasn’t going to try and get up just to fall over right in front of them. He could hear talking outside the room and he tried to focus on what they were saying,  before Hood passed him his hoodie.

“Your shirt has blood on it, we’ll give ya a different one later” Hood said. “I’m Jason by the way”

Peter nodded as he slipped the Superman hoodie on. 

“Peter”

“You have a last name?”

“Yeah, do you?”

“Smart,” Jason picked up the bottle of cream he had been applying to Peter earlier, “You really gotta rub this on your burns kid.  I know you don’t like being touched so I won’t.  You have to use it though”

Peter nodded, before looking back up at Dick.

“I want my hoodie back.”

“...”

“What hoodie?” Jason chimed in when it was clear Dick was struggling to make up an excuse.

“He took my hoodie.” Peter said pointing at Dick, “What kind of vigilante steals stuff from kids anyways? A shit one, that’s who.”

“Dick, give him his hoodie back.” Jason said.

“I’ll give it back,” Dick reasoned. “After it’s washed."

“I can wash it, I want it back” Peter complained, he wasn’t planning on staying long enough for it to be washed.  He already had a plan to get out.  One of the people outside the room had already left, the sound of stairs and a heavy door closing shut behind them.  Peter just had to hang around long enough for the relaxant to wear off.  He just had to wait for the right moment. An opportunity that he’d only get if he didn’t let them know he could move properly again.

“Just go get his hoodie Dick, we can always wash it later.” Jason says, glancing at Peter as he slipped the ointment into his pocket. “Isn’t that right Peter?”

Peter nodded before looking towards the door as the handle moved.  Peter stiffened as Batman walked in, still dressed in his full vigilante outfit.  Peter regretted throwing Jason at Dick the first night, especially when Jason immediately stood in between Peter and Batman.

“No, absolutely not.” Jason put a hand up to Batman’s chest, “You’ve done enough. You’re not going to come in here dressed like that and start interrogating the kid you just injured.”

“Yeah!” Peter chimed in, immediately shutting his mouth and looking away when Batman looked at him, suddenly very interested by the pile of unopened bandages on the shelves beside him.

“I’m not going to interrogate him,” Batman said, looking back to Jason, “I just need to ask him a few questions.”

“...Are you fucking serious?” Jason asked, looking towards Dick who, like Peter, had become very interested in a random pile of medical equipment. “Really?”

“If you think I’m going too far, I’ll stop.”

“I think you’re going too far,” Jason immediately chimed in.

Batman sighed before looking back towards Peter, much to Jason’s displeasure. 

“How are you feeling Peter?”

Peter swears he could cut the tension in the air with a knife. Both Dick and Jason looked at Batman.

“...Bad,” Peter said. He wasn’t sure if Batman couldn’t read the room or if he just couldn’t speak to kids. 

“Have you been to LexCorp recently?”

“...OsCorp?”

“No. LexCorp.”

“No?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth.”

“B, he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” Dick says, “Isn’t that right Peter?”

Peter gave Dick a dirty look.  If Dick was trying to get on his good side by defending him, then Peter wasn’t going to let him.  Especially when he had Ned’s hoodie hostage. Batman looked towards Peter and sighed.

“Can you walk?” Batman asked.  Now, Peter was pretty sure he could walk, but he couldn’t let them know that.  He needed to play the injured child card a little longer if he was going to be able to catch them off guard.

“He could barely sit up, and now you want him to walk?” Jason asked defensively.  Peter loved Jason. He really should apologise for throwing him.  

“You might not recognise the name,” Batman said, ignoring Jason. “I want to show you some images, see if you recognise those instead.”

“I guess so.” Peter agreed, if it got him out of the room, then he was one step closer to the exit.  Besides, no harm looking at some pictures. “You’re not going to show me anything gross are you?”

“Gross?”

“Y’know like on those cop shows where the detectives put out a bunch of graphic images in front of the suspect and are all like; You did this! Confess! Look at her!” Peter said, “Cause if that’s the case then no thank you.”

Bruce was taken back for a moment.

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Okay good.” Peter said, “Cause I think I’d need a lawyer for that and I don’t know how to get one.”

“You’re not a suspect Peter, you don’t need a lawyer.”  Batman glanced at the two other men in the room. “Someone’s going to have to carry you, this place isn’t exactly wheelchair accessible so we don’t have any.”

“I’ll carry him,” Dick says, already approaching Peter.

“Wait, No!” Peter shouted out, waving his hands in front of him, “I don’t want a thief to carry me”

“I’m not-” Dick just sighs as Jason approaches Peter.

“Come on,” Jason says, holding his arms out towards him.  Peter looked towards his bag in the corner.  Without a word, Jason picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder before picking up Peter a lot more delicately than he had a few hours before. 

Jason followed the pair out of the medical room and towards the bat computer.

“I’m sorry for throwing you at Dick by the way.” Peter said. He could feel Dick’s eyes snap towards him and Jason stiffen.  Had he said something wrong? “Did I say something wrong?”

“Dick?”

“Yeah, like two or three nights ago I think.”

“It’s okay Peter,” Jason said as he put Peter down on one of the chairs by the computer. Slipping Peter’s bag beside him.  It was clear that Peter was a bit possessive over his stuff, Jason knew that homeless people always were.  When you don’t have much, you hold onto what you have as hard as you can.  It was a bit surprising that Peter had connected Nightwing and Dick, but Dick was doing a bad job of hiding it so he brushed it off.

Dick stood next to Peter, Ned’s bloody hoodie in hand.  Peter slowly grabbed it off him before slipping it into his bag and zipping it shut. 

“It’s important to you isn't it Peter?” Dick asked, “I’m sorry for taking it.”

Peter glanced up at him before looking away, grumbling out a thanks.  Batman was standing a few feet away, pulling up images of sleek looking buildings, and labs.  Peter glanced over at the other person in the cave. He was about mid to late teens, black hair, blue eyes.  He was tinkering away on something in a vial, mixing solutions, putting them into a device. He hadn’t reacted when they walked in, sparing a quick glance at Peter before going back to his work. Just behind him, along the wall, were stairs.  They led up before going out of view, in the ceiling.  That was his exit. 

“Peter.” Batman called his name and Peter quickly looked back over. “Does anything look familiar?”

Looking at the screen, Peter looked at the array of images.   A sleek skyscraper with an ‘L’, what looked like prison cells but with glass doors and painted white.  Peter thinks this is a lost cause, whatever they think Peter knows, Peter doesn’t.  He stares at the screen as Batman switches images every few seconds, gaze never leaving Peter’s face looking for any sign of recognition.  This goes on for a few minutes.  More images of labs, faces of people on police reports, back to more images of labs.  And then there were the spiders. A shiver goes through his spine and his breath catches in his throat. He subconsciously rubs the back of his neck, the same spot the spider bite was.  Just below his hairline on the back of his neck.  Peter didn’t recognise anything in this universe, nothing.  But seeing the image on the screen; the large glass container filled with spiders of all sizes.  It looked exactly like the one in Oscorp on his school trip.

“Peter?” Batman asks, “You’ve been here, haven’t you?”

“No.” Peter says, because it’s true.  Peter has never been there. Now he has been in an identical room with identical lights and identical spiders but Peter hasn’t been in that room.

“Peter, It’s okay,” Dick says as he places a hand on Peter’s shoulder causing him to flinch. Dick pulls his hand back. “You’re not in trouble, we just want to help.”

“I haven’t been there” Peter insists, looking towards Batman.

“Look at it again.” Batman says, eye’s never leaving Peters.

Peter shakes his head. He knows what the room looks like, he didn’t want to look at it again.  The spider that ruined his life, the spider that left him throwing up blood after a school trip but being too poor to tell his Aunt knowing they wouldn’t be able to afford the hospital visit. The spider that made that made living his life normally impossible.  The spider that made him Spiderman, robbing him of his Aunt's life and everyone he knew forgetting him.  The spider that left him alone. He wasn’t scared to look - he just didn’t want to be reminded of it.

“Peter. Tell me what happened.” Batman demanded.  

“I haven’t been there” Peter says again, he can feel his eyes watering and a lump forming in his throat. 

“Don’t lie Peter,” Batman demands, pulling up another file. “You were there three weeks ago, you left within an hour.  Illness and property damage.  That’s what’s listed. Tell me what happened.”

“I wasn’t-” Peter cut himself off when Batman stood up.  A single step and he was standing above Peter looking down at him, Peter stopped breathing.

“Someone brought you there, someone who you’re protecting.  Why?”

Peter said nothing, his heart thumping in his chest so fast Peter felt like he was going to pass out.

“Was it your mother?  Is that who you’re protecting? What did they do to you in the lab? Where did they take you after? Peter, answer me.” Batman was staring right at Peter.  Everyone was staring at Peter; the guy working in the lab had stopped to stare, Dick was staring.  All expecting answers from him that he didn’t have and they didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t know. Everyone was staring at him, everyone but Jason.

“Stop!” Jason shouted, shoving Bruce away from Peter, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“He needs to tell us Jason-” Batman began, taking a step around Jason before Jason quickly shoves him back.

“No he doesn’t,” Jason snapped, “He needs help not a fucking interrogation from Batman”

“He’s right B,” Dick said, stepping next to Jason, “You’re approaching this wrong, you can’t intimidate a kid and expect him to cooperate.” 

All three of them stood there, Batman insisting he would approach it more carefully, Jason demanding they stop all together, and Dick trying to mediate the situation without Jason throwing a punch.  With the three distracted, he slowly panned his head to the guy at the lab. He was still looking at Peter, as if he knew something was going to happen.  Peter kept eye contact as he reached over to grab his bag, slowly, Peter slipped the bag onto his back causing the guy to tilt his head slightly in confusion.  He opened his mouth to say something, to draw the attention back on Peter, and Peter shot a web towards the stairs and yanked himself towards them, bolting up the stairs as fast as he could, his senses screamed at him just in time to jump as a net trap almost took out his legs from under him.  He could hear the three pairs of footsteps racing behind him but he could see the door. He slammed against the door hard, it took two harsh kicks at the handle before the door swung open leading into an expensive looking office.

He raced to the windows and smashed right through them, tumbling on the grass below before picking himself up and legging it across the perfect looking lawn.  He got to the fence in less than ten seconds, allowing his senses to guide him away from traps that littered the perimeter, and jumped over.  He could hear them in the distance but Peter's methods of just going through the obstacles in his path, was more effective then they realised.  He was on the street of an expensive part of the city, large mansions on large estates, perfectly paved roads with uncracked sidewalks, and clean manhole covers. 

He slipped inside and webbed the cover in place behind him.  This time he wasn’t going to stop running, if he sees another alligator, Peter’s going to run right past it. 

Damian was in his bedroom at the time, he was on his laptop searching up the diets of spiders and their habitats, insistent that as Peter’s older brother it was his responsibility to ensure the rest of the family didn’t accidentally poison him or worse.  Damian prided himself in being the most responsible in the family and now he had an opportunity to really prove it.  He had begun by writing a list of 'NOT ALLOWED’, that he would be sure to hand to Alfred in the morning.  It was full of spider repellents and poisons both natural and chemical.  He wasn’t sure how much spider Peter actually was but he deemed it the responsible thing to be on the safer side.

He had opened a new article detailing natural herbal spider repellents when he heard the noise.  Two loud bangs had Damian race out of the room, he had barely reached the hallway before he heard a window shatter and the sound of his family racing off out of the house.  By the time he had reached the office, Duke was already there, standing in front of a broken window in nothing but his pajama pants.

“What happened?” Damian hissed.

“Oh um,” Duke pointed to the broken clock and the metal door that laid off its hinges in the center of the room, “You’re brother left. Bruce said we have to stay here…”

“It keeps surprising me just how incompetent this family is.” Damian snides as he makes his way through the broken door of the cave.

Making his way to the bat computer, Damian took note of the images on the screen.  It was clear Bruce had attempted an interrogation of some kind causing Peter to flee.  Three times his family had managed to lose him. Three times that resulted in injuries.  Damian sits down and opens the file that Dick had compiled about Peter.  Unlike the rest of his family, Damian wasn’t incompetent.  And he would prove that by getting Peter back to the mansion, willingly. 

Peter had been missing for hours. Bruce, Jason, Dick, Cass, Tim, and Barbara had spent the last six hours looking for him.  Bruce had been in the sewers the whole night but found nothing, Dick, Jason, and Cass had searched almost the entirety of Gotham on foot while Barbara checked the CCTV. Five hours and nothing.

Damian on the other hand had been a lot smarter. While the rest of the family had been searching for where Peter currently was, Damian had instead searched for clues of where he would be.  That is where Peter’s search history played an important role.  Peter was clearly trying to leave Gotham and had been looking at the bus time tables for GN474. A bus that left Gotham twice a day.  One at 5am and one at 5pm.  Damian stood up and left the cave, making his way back to his room where he took out a duffel bag and began packing for his trip.  Damian was going to catch the 5am bus, and if Damian was correct, so would Peter.

It was cold in the sewers, but Peter knew it was safer than above ground.  He had been extremely lucky to evade the bats in their own home and he wasn’t going to risk getting caught again.  He had managed to navigate to the bus depot all while, staying under ground and out of sight, every hour or so he would poke his head out of a manhole cover and figure out where he was, before slipping back down.  He knew someone was in the tunnels with him, but Peter was on high alert and would silently dash in the opposite direction whenever he felt the figure was getting too close.  For hours, Peter kept moving, always circling back round again to the manhole behind the bus depot. He waited until he could hear more and more people gathering before he slipped out of the sewers and joined the back of the queue.  He kept his head down and before long he had gotten on the GN474 with no bats stopping him.  He sat near the back of the bus, and got himself comfortable. It was a two hour bus ride: stopping in Blüdhaven, Metropolis, and a few other places before finally reaching New York. 

Peter glances up at the front of the bus as a young teen makes his way on, the bus wasn’t extremely full but it was full enough that a few strangers would have to sit next to each other.  Peter looked back out the window, looking for any familiar faces that might pop up and grab him.  He doesn’t react as the kid stows his duffel bag in the rack above them and sits down next to Peter.