Worlds Away

School was exhausting. People read the news story published and now Peter was the center of attention, the last thing Peter Parker ever wanted to be. Hell, he didn’t even want Spider-Man to be the center of attention, since that normally came with a guy with the same three initials yelling at him, which was never fun. Okay, sometimes it was fun when JJJ had called him a pigeon eater, but then his identity was outed and everything was fucking miserable. 

Luckily, Ms. Lane-Kent didn’t publish the part where Peter used his super-human strength to knock Zod off target. Unluckily, she did publish the part where he was held captive by him. So now Peter was met with a bunch of whispers as he went down the hall. ‘Whispers’ to Peter weren’t really whispers, what with the super-hearing and all. Some of them were nice, with friends asking each other if they thought Peter was okay or not. Others (namely one Eddie Bright) was whispering about conspiring with the other aliens. Xenophobic asshole. 

So yeah. Peter was the center of attention. Yay. Classes were even better, with most people choosing to focus on Peter rather than the lessons. Afterwards, he was pulled to the side, where Professor Macpherson asked if he was alright. He told her he was, and she let him go. No other teacher seemed to care, so Peter would take what he could get. He appreciated the thought, but he was more than okay with just getting on with his life. 

Peter walked out of his last class with a sigh, smiling just a little when Tim grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Hey, this will blow over in just a bit. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.”

“Yeah,” Duke said. “Being adopted by a billionaire means we’re the Gotham equivalent of the Kardashians. Welcome to your first scandal. Kinda. I’m just surprised no one latched on to you and Tim dating and made a big deal of it.”

Tim turned and stared at Duke with wide eyes. “You just had to say something, didn’t you?”

With the publication of the coverage on the Zod attack, it was like people remembered Tim Drake existed. And along with that article came plenty of photos of Tim and Peter being cute in the aftermath. 

“Dude!” Steph sprinted out of the elevator and into the Batcave towards the monitor where Tim was sitting and the table next to it where Peter was tinkering with his webshooters. Peter’s feet automatically shifted into a defensive stance, looking around wildly. “What?!”

“You guys are trending on twitter!”

“Oh.” Peter sighed, relieved. 

Tim, on the other hand, was pale. Paler than normal, that is, which is pretty fucking pale. “What?” he asked gravely. 

Steph nodded. “Look.” 

Sure enough, there it was: #timdrake&cuteboy, number one trending. Fucking hell. 

Tim groaned, burying his head in his hands. “No, we’re never going to be able to do anything in public ever again!”

Peter sighed. “I just had to go on a field trip, didn’t I?”

“I swear to god, Peter, if you try to somehow blame yourself, I will murder you.”

“That doesn’t threaten me, Drake, I’ve already died.”

“Fucking what?” Steph demanded. 

Peter smirked. “For five years.”

“Jesus,” Tim exclaimed. “No wonder you and Jason get along so well.”

Peter laughed, shaking his head and continuing to tinker before turning to the chemistry shit he had in front of him and beginning to mix stuff. “Honestly, I’m just glad they don’t know my name. I guess being from an entirely different universe does have its perks. Think any of our classmates will blab?”

Tim sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. However, we can only hope no one believes them.” 

Tim smirked, pushing the rolling chair away from the Batcomputer altogether to grin at Peter. Peter narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “That’s your mischief face, what are you planning?”

“We could tweet your name. Or, we could each tweet a different name for you. That way no one will believe our classmates, since several different people are giving several different stories.”

Peter’s smile matched Tims. “I love this. Let’s do it.”

Tim and Steph pulled out their phones. “I’ll text Duke and Dick,” Steph giggled. 

Peter checked his phone.

@blondbi good to see that andrew and tim are a-okay!

@notthatdrake yes, that’s my boyfriend tom. we’re both a little shaken up, but otherwise fine :)

@dukeofawesomeness thank god tim and tobey made it out alright! say what you will about gotham, at least we aren’t dealing with fucking gods

@circusfreak i saw the news and was so worried! luckily superman was there to save tim and lucas! 

Peter smirked and watched as the chaos unfolded. He marched over to the Batchair and draped himself over Tim’s lap, planting a kiss on Tim’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Tim nodded, a huge grin on his face. “Plus, you’ve got nothing they can find! You didn’t exist here until just a couple of months ago, so if they look, they’re going to find nothing!”

School was even more hectic the next day, and Peter had somehow managed to convince his teachers to go along with it. Each one had a different name for him, and his classmates, who were so sure that Peter’s name was Peter, were suddenly questioning their memory. Peter would feel bad for gaslighting them, but they were pricks and knew it so he couldn’t bring himself to feel too bad. 

Tim and Peter were still trending, and reporters had been held off by the security team that the school apparently had on hand for such occasions. Peter ignored any and all questions aimed his way, refusing to say a word and just plowing through them with Tim. Peter was fighting off the deja vu like a madman, and it was getting tricky to stay calm. At one point, Peter wasn’t able to hold off the panic attack and Tim rushed to get him away from everything while Steph verbally railed on the reporter. Apparently that trended the next day too, and it made Peter feel warm. 

Getting around was trickier and trickier, and Peter was getting pretty tired of it. Thankfully his spidey-sense let him know whenever he was being watched, so he was able to navigate around the fucking camera drones that people were sending after him to just get a clip of him and Tim. Peter did not miss the media circus. At least he was still able to escape everything in his safe spots. He visited Harley and Pam regularly, and weekends were split between the Manor and Tim’s apartment, training more with the Bats and figuring out his weird new biology. Testing the strength limit of him and his organic webs, seeing just how far he could focus his hearing and smelling and stickiness. Sure enough, the media hype died down, though Peter still saw speculation articles every now and then discussing his name. Life went on, thank god.