What Kinda Place is Called Red Hood?
The man just stared at him blankly. At least, that’s the vibe he was getting, though again, the full-head helmet made it rather difficult to tell.
“I’m sure you do.”
Peter sighed, somewhere between relief and annoyance at that response. He could understand where it was coming from but this wasn’t the sort of conversation he was looking to have. Not tonight. He shambled his way further from the ledge, making it over to the door he had originally busted open and which had slowly swung closed with the wind in the night. With a groan he fell into a sitting position, back to the door.
“So what’s your name then? I’m guessing you’re one of the bats?”
This seemed to get… something out of the man. Honestly Peter was too tired to try and read this stranger's body cues so if his spider sense couldn’t do it on its own, he didn’t care to know.
“So are you new in town or just ignorant?” The man replied.
“Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.” Peter smirked. He may be tired but you’d have to drag the sass out of his cold dead hands. And even that might not be enough. “Where are we anyway?”
“That’s a worrying question.”
“That’s not an answer to my worrying question, thank you very much.”
Another beat of silence, neither moving or speaking, before finally the man approached.
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The man sat down next to him, leaning his head against the door behind the two and looking up into the smog-covered sky.
“Red Hood.” He grunted out, much to Peter’s confusion.
“What kinda place is called Red Hood?”
“No, it’s my name. I’m answering in order.”
“Oh. Oh yeah I guess that checks out. Not very creative is it?”
“Shut up.” It was said in a light hearted manner, but there was a sliver of ice deep down in it.
“Alright, on to where we are then?”
“Hold on. Do they not teach kids manners these days? Now what’s your name?”
“Peter. Peter Parker.” He had said it before even considering that he probably should have lied and given a fake name. The name of Tony’s newest intern wasn’t exactly public information, but he still didn’t want to risk Red Hood making the connection.
“Nice to meet you Peter. As for your other questions. Sometimes I’m part of the bats, and we’re in an abandoned building in Crime Alley. A fact I’m sure you were aware of when you came up here to-“
The man cut himself off. There was a disappointment in his voice, mixed with anger. Peter was almost certain he had literally bit his tongue to keep the end of that sentence from coming out.
“A fact I’m sure you knew.” And then, as if he couldn’t hold it back, “Really? Crime alley? Hasn’t enough happened here?”
“I really wasn’t going to. Scouts honor.” He raised his hand in a Boy Scout salute, but it did little to ease Red Hood. It was all Peter could think to say.
“I don’t believe you.”
They sat in silence for a brief while then, each considering what the other had said. Each unsure how to change the subject. Peter got there first.
“What do you mean you’re sometimes one of the bats?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“What kind of crime family takes on part-timers?”
Red hood practically jumped at that, and even a full helmet covering his face couldn’t hide the moment of glee on his face. He put one hand up to his ear as he spoke.
“Oracle, please tell me you got that?”
Peter could hear an almost tinny-sounding voice coming from the ear Red Hood was covering. An ear piece then. And on the other end:
“Sure did. How did you corrupt the kid in a matter of minutes, Jay?”
“Don’t blame me!” And then to Peter: “Where’d you get the impression they’re a crime family?”
Now how in the hell was he gonna answer that? Oh yeah, I was kidnapped by some ninjas who thought I was with y’all because I was a kid in costume doing shady stuff like dying on a random rooftop. By the way I’m also a superhero and met the ninja leader named Talia who thought she knew my dad but didn’t.
“Just, the things I’ve heard really.”
Greatjob Peter.
“Besides, weren’t you supposed to be cheering me up, Mr. Hood?”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
That was a good point. Something about talking to him was strangely nice. Weird, and a bit foreboding, but nice.
“Fair point.”
“So, would you like to tell me what’s wrong, or just keep providing some top-notch entertainment?”
It was a surprisingly rough question. Peter was never one to talk about his feelings, but for some reason he felt he could here. If he ended up regretting it, well, he had no plans to stay in Gotham anyway, he’d never have to face Red Hood again.
It would still take some finesse.
“Let’s say, you were a long way from home-“
“How long?” He cut in.
“That depends, where’s Gotham in relation to New York?”
“We’re in Jersey.”
Oh. Well that made things easier.
“Right well, maybe not as far as I had thought but still. You’re away from home and you don’t know how you’re gonna get back. When you’re gonna get back. You don’t know if the people you love and who love you are still going to be there if you get back. And even if they are, you aren’t sure if they’ll still love you…”
He was on the verge of tears now, emotions pouring out that he hadn’t realized he had bottled up in him. Why wouldn’t they love him still? He hadn’t done anything wrong. Had he? His head hurt. Yet he couldn’t shake that feeling, deep in his brain. He wished he could remember how he got here. How he ended up falling from the sky. Even through this confusion and sadness he barreled on.
“And where do you find yourself but somewhere you’ve never been before, never even heard of. You don’t know how you got there. And in the midst of all of that, the one thing you relied on. The one thing you used to keep yourself together. Suddenly it felt wrong. It brought you dread and fear and sadness and felt like it wasn’t yours anymore. How would you feel?”
Red hood sat stock still. Not moving an inch. Peter could hear his heartbeat, faster, pounding in his chest. Somehow, somewhere in that rush of emotion he had struck a nerve. He could hear the tinny earpiece once again:
“Jay, are you alright?”
Then Red Hood spoke once more, shaky even through the modulation.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He mumbled, then spoke up to Peter. “I…” A pause, and a shaky breath. “…would be feeling pretty damn rough too.”
There was a forced casualness to his voice now. Like he was trying not to let it be known that he was off-kilter.
“But it gets better. It always gets better Peter. This isn’t the way to deal with it. Somewhere out there are the people who love you. The ones you’ve met already, and the ones you haven’t had the chance to. They’re still there.”
Peter chuckled.
“That’s a nice script you’re reading.”
Perhaps it was a bit mean, the man was trying to help him after all, but even the man couldn’t deny that it had sounded generic. Or at the very least Red Hood didn’t care to try and deny it. For a moment they sat in silence.
He shivered. It was cold up here. And lonely, even with the other’s presence. Though it wasn’t all bad, having someone sat next to him certainly helped. Someone a bit older than him, who at least seemed to know what was going on in life. Peter leaned into him, curling in under Hood’s arm. And though he’d tell himself it was only because he was cold and Hood was warm, he’d be lying.
Hood tensed at this, though slowly, carefully he lowered his arm over Pete’s shoulder. Ever so gently, as if he moved too fast Peter might break into a thousand pieces.
And then the moment was gone. The earpiece (wretched thing that it was, Peter thought) had buzzed back to life with that same voice.
“Sorry to break this up Jay but B needs you to do some detective work over at the edge of the city.”
“Tell him he can do it himself.” Hood growled out, clearly annoyed, though Peter couldn’t imagine why.
“He would except he’s busy chasing down Scarecrow and only spotted it while swinging through the city.”
“What’s ‘it’?”
“An impact site or possible aftermath of an explosion on the upper floors of the old Ace chemicals office building. Something seems to have buried itself a few floors deep. Whatever it was is gone now.”
“Fine. On my way.”
Red Hood slowly got up, shrugging to Peter as he walked to the edge of the roof.
“Sorry kid. Duty calls.”
“What are the bats?” Peter called back to him, wanting at least to figure out what was so funny about them being a crime family.
“Vigilantes. Heroes more like.” Came the reply.
“If they’re heroes, what’s that make you? A ‘sometimes hero’?” Peter chuckled but it seemed to have caught the man off guard as he turned back towards Peter, still for a moment, thinking.
“Yeah. I’d like to think so. When I have to be.”
And with that he was gone, walking off the edge of the building. A comforting click sound followed by the whirr of rapidly unspooling wire being the only indication that he had begun to grapple away.
—————
The apartment was cold. No surprises there. 141 was as lonely as ever, but somehow in all of that he still felt comforted. He had never heard of this Red Hood before, and the man most certainly smelled of blood. Blood and gunpowder. Not to an extent that anyone else would notice, but it was there when his spider sense reached for it. The blood and gunpowder and tears that were baked into him as a person. And despite it all, maybe even because of it, Peter liked him. Maybe he shouldn’t, maybe someday he’ll regret that when Spider-Man has to stop the ‘sometimes hero’. But secretly, he was hoping that day would never come.
He had to hope it in secret. If he hoped it too hard, or too loud, the universe might hear. And the universe had a funny way of taking everything he held dear. Peter had once decided that the universe was not a nice person, but if Spider-Man didn’t help people just because they weren’t nice, well he wouldn’t be your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would he? So the universe got a pass from him, and a promise to help next time a universe ending threat presented itself.
He just had to hope the universe would show him the same respect. Somehow he felt it wouldn’t.
Peter was a little too young to help in the last universe ending threat. He had watched half the world turn to dust, and all he could do was sit on the bus ride home. Five years. Five years the world balanced on the brink of collapse. Food shortages, water shortages, power shortages. Sure there were half the people needing all of it, but almost every supply line had broken down completely overnight. And now they only had half the people to repair it. And in those five years he became who he is now.
About a month into the blip he was bitten. Scientists the world over were a little too busy to keep up with their former experiments. And Oscorp was already having their own security issues before things went to hell, so if a tiny little spider made its way out, riding on the pant leg of a scientist? Who was really going to notice? And if that same spider crawled off the pant leg and across the lobby floor as Peter was walking through? Who’d even know it was there to begin with? And if, on the way home from his little excursion, Peter felt a little prick on his upper arm? If he started feeling woozy and lightheaded? If he stumbled into an alley and curled up against the wall? If he felt like he was dying, right then and there?
Well. Who’d even notice one more kid gone missing?
Ben would.
It was moments like these his own spider sense freaked him out. For as much as he treated it as its own entity. Took its warning signs and thanked it for a good job, it was part of him. It knew what he knew, and sometimes it’d say it even when he wished it didn’t.
Because it was right. Ben would notice. And May too, but especially Ben. Ben would notice if Peter went missing.
Of course, he hadn’t died that night, even if he felt like he had. No, instead he woke up hours later, a little stickier and with a new scar, spider poised over it, mid-bite. Dead. And when he got home at the dead of night no one even batted an eye. Things were rough then. Getting home late was a new development for Peter, but one his aunt and uncle got used to soon enough. They always said he had a big heart, and going out to help those who he could after the blip often kept him out later than he ever intended.
The next day he woke up in the late afternoon. His whole body was sweating, furiously fighting something inside him. He had brought the spider home, kept it in a little glass jar ever since he died got bit. Just in case it was poisonous. I mean it had to be after what happened that day. So he looked it up. Googled photo after photo, report after report. At some point he had taken his glasses off though he couldn’t recall when. And all the while his whole body burned.
It didn’t make sense, every report he could find said it was a common household spider, and allergies to this extent were unheard of. But a lot of things didn’t make sense in those years. So when a few months later Spider-Man made his debut appearance, the people were all too happy for the help, and all too willing to avoid the questions of his origins. And when people came back from the blip, all at once and all in various states of confusion and panic, well, they weren’t exactly going to question the heroes that had arisen while they were gone.
It was during the blip that Tony first caught onto Peter’s business as Spider-Man. Shortly after Uncle Ben’s death and early into his super hero career. But that was a story for a different time, and not something to linger on as Peter laid once more on his makeshift bed in 141. As strange as it was, the talk with Red Hood had helped more than he was willing to admit. And even as the sun slowly began to rise, its light catching the dust in the air, Peter fell asleep.