The First Breath
Gotham was not a place for spiders.
That fact was made clear to Peter Parker in his first few months of life. Painfully, but blatantly true.
After the green and the cave had come the cold. It had come with shivering as he stumbled across sharp earth; his eyes fogged by green and blurred by exhaustion. He had not quite felt the gravel that tore through his feet, nor the ache of his shuddering limbs, but he had known the sensation of wrongness. It clung to his limbs, to the haze of his mind.
Whatever this was… well, he wasn’t exactly cognisant enough to process more than the scream of danger that grew louder with each breath.
They’d found him stumbling naked by the docks. Still sticky from the green goop, his eyes blazing emerald without a thought behind them. Though he’d put up a fight, there were enough goons to subdue him with their bats and tasers. So many tasers.
He was… fairly certain they’d killed him.
Next he’d blinked aware, it had been to the feel of tarp and the weight of damp earth above him. To the sounds of metal scraping stones as the weight grew lighter upon his chest. It was colder than the last time.
His arms flung up - tearing through wet fabric - as he forced his fists through dirt. He clutched at the whip of cool air, desperately scratching for purchase. Fingers gripped his flailing palms, tugging him upwards through the dirt, and mud, and torn tarp that had cloaked him.
Peter stumbled forwards, falling to his knees before his grave.
They’d buried him.
“I told ya he’d be breathin’.”
A gunshot sounded and Peter flinched - eyes snapping to spy a figure in black and grey fall into a heap. His eyes darted to the source with dizzied terror as his fingers clutched at dirt and grass.
There was a painted clown stood before him, using a spade to lean against - his other hand clutched around a smoking pistol. It was something out of a horror story, like a Stephen King nightmare wretched to life in neon shades of acidic quality.
His hair was a vibrant shade of toxic green that made Peter flinch before he’d even comprehended the thick red paint around the man’s lips. Dark as blood and twisted upwards into a smile that would make any sane person shiver. With his chalky skin and flamboyant purple suit, he seemed less a clown and more a ghoul born of bad dreams and toxic waste.
As his knees dug deeper into loose earth, Peter got the strangest feeling that he was supposed to be dead and that this was some kind of hell. He must have failed something to have this as the consequence.
The air was thick with chill - roiling down his spine in a shiver. Above them lay a sky of smog and greyed stars that blinked faintly past the thick clouds. There were people there, so many heartbeats that it brought a wave of nausea as Peter tried to process each thump and stutter.
What could this be, if not hell?
Guilt, blinding and bitter, clung to each shuddering inhale the boy took. Though his mind was a fog of green and grey, he knew there was a sin to repent. A failing of his duties that led to such an afterlife.
And what could this clown be, if not the devil?
“I knew it.” The clown’s eyes seemed to sparkle as he stepped towards Peter. “I told ‘em they’d have to hit ya harder to put a dent in!” He cackled as he lunged forwards and clutched Peter’s cheeks to scan his face - his fingers sharp and tightly secured. Toxic eyes roaming each feature with unbridled glee. “You know what you are, kid?”
Peter shook his head; still caught in the man’s grasp. His senses flared in warning, though dizzyingly contradicting. Both begging him to wretch himself free, and warning of worse consequences for such a gesture.
“You’re a zombie!” The clown chuckled as he pressed harsher into Peter’s cheeks, before suddenly stepping backward as Peter’s arm twitched in preparation. “I don’t know who ya pissed off, kiddo, but they sure got you good.”
Peter wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. It felt… embarrassingly accurate. Though his memories were scattered, they spoke of an unhappy end. One of fire and ash. His mind was fogged by green - tense with an anger that he did not understand. One that sizzled softly as his energy seemed sapped by the effort of keeping his cool.
“I’m gonna call you Spades for now.” The clown decided with an awful cackle. “I dug ya up with one, after all.” He winked at Peter - his grin widening as he spied the teen’s discomfort. “Oh Spades, we’re just gettin’ started.” The grin widened inhumanly; catching the red smears surrounding as his lips stretched to his cheekbones.
Peter recoiled from it - his head ducking into his shoulders as he tried to stand and step backwards. He was met by the firm build of a painted goon.
“Where’d ya think you’re going?” The clown tilted his head at Peter as he contorted his lips into a deep frown. “Don’t ya wanna play with me?”
Peter tried to force refusals through his ragged throat, shaking his creaky head.
“Well that ain’t an option.” The clown nodded upwards, just above Peter’s head. His senses flashed with warning, just in time for the goon behind to smack him on the head.
*-*-*
“Now, now.” The green-haired clown tutted. “I thought you’d be grateful for the help digging.”
Consciousness came back to Peter in a violent shudder - his limbs twitching as he flung from some cold surface to stand. His ankles were bound by a thick rope that nearly toppled him, before he figured his footing. Still naked, still shivering, he blinked past nausea to roam each feature of his new location.
It was some kind of weathered former hall of mirrors - the reflective glass shattered across the floors, few mirrors still intact in their frames. They created a disorienting scene, as his senses pinged at each reflection and thrum of a heartbeat. There could have been a dozen or only three goons behind him. All dressed in black armour and white faces.
“You see, Spades, I’m not the kinda guy that gives out favours for free.” The clown spoke through twisted lips. He was stood by a row of metal tables; set with ammunition and weaponry in a strangely familiar scene. Peter blinked through flashes of a warehouse much like this, save far more glowy, as he tried to stay on his feet. “And I plan on collecting my debts.”
The clown stepped closer until Peter was forced to take a clumsy step backwards - crashing into the firm torso of a goon. As he stumbled forwards, the clown flourished a hand before Peter, looking expectantly before he snatched Peter’s hand and forced him to shake.
“Name’s Joker.” He grinned through red-painted lips. “I’m a clown by trade, been a solo act primarily and especially these last few years!” He released Peter’s hand to wave his own in a jazzy flourish before straightening and pinning Peter with a serious expression. “I’ve been in the market for a sidekick for while, but they all seem to either die or leave me. So I’ve had a brilliant idea.”
Joker looked at Peter again, as though expecting him to speak. The teen opened his mouth and let out a gasping exhale, wincing at the noise.
“We’ll work on that.” Joker waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll fix it all. I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, and I’ve always wanted a Robin of my own. I couldn’t believe my luck when my boys told me all about you!”
Peter’s flinch served as another source of laughter for the clown as he skipped along to a shoddy work surface. Atop lay messed papers and loose packets, and in the middle sat a small metal box. The Joker flipped a seal undone and tore it open with an excited giggle.
“I got this from the brilliant minds of the US Government. I think Waller’s lot might by more sadistic than I am!” He cackled. “An injectable bomb, rigged to blow if I flip the trigger.”
Peter moved immediately. He shredded the rope that bound his legs and lunged for the doorway. A goon swiped his way but he ducked below and leapt forwards.
And then the burning started. Two pricks in his spine as he howled in pain and lurched backwards into firm muscle. Arms gripped his own and pulled him steady as the electricity turned to twitches.
Goddamn, would people stop tasing him?
“There, there.” Joker’s sharp voice screeched behind his ear; arms surrounding him tight enough to prevent Peter’s flinch.
The needle slipped into the scar of his spider-bite - a sharp wince as he tried to fight against the restraint of the goon.
“There ya go, kiddo.” Joker soothed as he reached to pat Peter’s hair clumsily. “Got our contingencies all sorted now, don’t we?”
Peter blinked through the pain as his arms twitched under the grasp of the clown as it held him upright - soothing his hair with an obnoxiously loud hum.
“I’ll take my time with you,” Joker spoke, though it seemed more for himself than Peter, “I’ll mould a proper little sidekick. My very own Robin.”
The clown blinked down at him, as though expecting a reply.
“Would you like that, Spades? You wanna be my sidekick?”
A dart of his eyes told Peter there was no easy exit - none without having to claw his way past dozens of guards and goons to wretch locks free of windows.
So Peter nodded. What else was he supposed to do?
In the following weeks, he become rather aware of how quickly the clown’s mood could flip from gleeful to murderous, and how easily it could be pinned upon Peter. That only grew as Joker tried to ‘train’ him, and Peter forced his memories through green fog with each punishment and lesson. Every hit and punch and shock were merely cues for Peter’s past to rear its head in soothing tones and violent horrors.
There were things he knew, and things he didn’t. Memories that would bubble forth in painful nightmares and hot flashes.
He knew that, before the clowns of Gotham, he had once been a hero. His mask had been a different red; a softer hue. Aunt May had been a terrible cook and he knew it before he remembered her face. That she’d worn an apron to bake her awful creations, and Peter had… he missed her.
Those were the nicer memories. Of snorting milk from his nose at a joke his aunt told, of dark curls and Lego spaceships. Peter clutched onto those whenever they appeared - desperate to piece together the guilt and shame that boiled within his soul and sparked green into his eyes.
Most memories only made him angry. Waiting for parents that never returned; his chubby hand held by an uncle’s calloused fingers. That same uncle bleeding out on a cracked sidewalk.
They wouldn’t be proud of who he was now. Peter knew that much.
But he was surviving. He may have been shackled but that didn’t negate that he was breathing. Even if most days he wished he wasn’t.
Joker had meant it when he said he had a plan for Peter. Apparently it was psychological damage.
First, he’d figured out that Peter had a sense for danger. Joker caught him flinch before the guy shot a gun and, well… it had enticed him. After a week of tests - thrown daggers and ducked gunshots - the clown had decided he needed to retrain Peter’s spidey senses. If it thought he was dangerous, it was apparently broken.
Then came the kindness. Little bouts of it from his vile captor between the fights and knives. It was designed to keep his spidey senses in a state of disarray, as each whirlwind bled into a nervous hum. Though his senses stayed in constant alert, the green haired clown began to gain his own separate frequency. A ringing in his ears that made Peter feel like his nose was bout to bleed.
When Joker had finally nicked him with a blade without Peter so much as flinching, he’d let out a raucous cackle. His smile had spread and he’d nodded at Peter with utter wickedness.
“Time for phase two, Spades.”
That had been figuring out exactly how strong Peter was. Testing him against dozens of goons until the threat of blowing up his brain brought him steady - caked in blood and sobbing. When he’d attached himself to the ceiling in the fugue that followed each fight, Joker had peeled the flesh from his palms and delighted as Peter’s fingers still stuck to the wallpaper. Then he’d laughed as Peter had cried and cried until he’d knocked himself out.
Peter assumed phase three would be stopping that. Joker always seemed delighted by his sorrow, but it certainly didn’t fit his ‘brand’.
Then again, what was comedy without sorrow?
He wasn’t quite sure on that, but he knew what sorrow was to the Joker. It was an annoyance.
“Oh, come on, Weepy.” Joker huffed one evening, sat cross legged on the end of Peter’s shitty bed. It was crammed in the corner of the funhouse room that Joker was currently storing gunpowder inside. Peter stunk of it. “We have to brainstorm your new name.”
Peter did not reply.
“Oh, Spades.” Joker moaned like a petulant child, leaping from the bed. “You aren’t very fun. A real Debbie Downer you are.”
He looked to Peter as though expecting some kind of reply. It was a foolish endeavour considering Peter had not uttered a single word to him. At first, the rawness of his throat had prevented any attempt at speech. After a few warm meals and a few days of drinking water whenever Joker remembered to hydrate him, Peter’s throat had softened and he’d known that he could talk again.
But what would he say?
Peter had nothing he wanted to say to the Joker. No insults, not when he had a bomb in his neck. Certainly not when he knew that if he admitted to the clown that he could speak, it would only incite more troubles.
Better to be the clown’s mute sidekick than be forced to use his humour wrongfully.
Not that it seemed to make much easier.
Between fitful sleeps of flashes of a brighter city and daytimes of dour skies and damp walls, Joker planned out his ‘character’. One could not simply be the black-clad sidekick of this luminescent clown.
The issue with it, came with Peter’s silence. It seemed the clown was struggling to give his captive an aesthetic without interjection.
Joker paced his room with a sneer upon his white-painted face - glancing towards Peter with scoffs.
“Oh, woe is you, huh?” Joker sneered. “Woe, woe, woe.”
The clown froze in place, blinking as he mumbled the word again. As suddenly as his mood had flipped sour did it return to brightness as he pinned Peter with a wide grin.
“Woe is you!” The clown declared. “The Joker and his silent Jester. The comedy and his tragedy. The Joker, and his sidekick Mime!”
Well, that was sorted then.
Each day with the clowns - every week trapped without clear view of the sky - brought forth a clarity that Peter could not shake. With the glimpses of memory that left soon as they came, he knew this was simply his penance.
A life with a devil, for his failure as a hero - once upon a time.
Sometimes Joker would watch him. His face void of emotion - blank as anything as he simply stared forth at Peter without even blinking. The teen would wake to the hum of his senses and he would know the man was watching him.
To be his sidekick, Joker had to know Peter inside and out. Apparently that meant the creepy staring, and well… it wasn’t exactly like Peter had the courage to protest with a bomb in his neck.
After a bit of it, he felt a little like Joker’s doll. Some shiny new toy for the man to style and dress up and treat more akin to pet than equal. Though Peter supposed to be a sidekick was to be lesser. Aside as opposed to beside. Out of the way, not truly on par with that side they belonged to.
Peter just wished he didn’t belong to Joker.
He couldn’t even shower without the clown coming to gawk at his greyish skin and rippled flesh. Not that it was a decent shower anyways - just a hose they’d attached to the rafters for the teen to bathe beneath. Still, it would have been at least nice to remove the grime without a clown watching him scrub his skin raw with the thin soap.
The towel was barely secured around his waist - a threadbare greyed thing - before Joker was dragging Peter to the mirror room to inspect his torso with rapid interest. As his green eyes roamed the skin, Peter supposed he understood why.
There was a scar along Peter’s chest - pulling at the skin in thick divots. Shaped like a Y, it puckered along his sternum and down his torso. More scars littered his arms and stomach; a gun shot healed through his shoulder, scratched healed along his forearms. But, as much as Peter wished it weren’t so, it was the scar on his chest that caught the eye. A warping of his skin - contorted into a pull of ugly pink disfigurement.
“Those are autoposy scars, kiddie.” Joker explained with that usual gleeful chuckle. “Someone cut ya open and brought ya back.”
He frowned at the clown, eyebrows pinching in question.
“Well, I dunno why!” He laughed. “You musta pissed off someone proper.” The clown knocked his shoulder, tilting him away from his reflection. “Gives me an idea for ya costume, though.” He grinned.
Peter tilted his head.
“Well, you can’t be a clown looking like that! What would the Batsy think if he saw me with a boring old kiddo.” Joker scoffed. “No! You’re gonna be brilliant. I’ll make sure of it.”
Peter raised a brow. Joker grinned.
“The Batsy has had his fun with his gaggle of petty teens.” The clown purred. “Now, it’s time for us to have a go. And Spades, my Mime, you’re gonna be perfect.”