Nighmare Edition!
He’s choking.
A hand is on his throat, andPeter is choking to death.
The sweaty fingers grasping his neck dig deeper as he struggles to open his eyes. Everything is blurry as Peter feels the air leaving his lungs. Fuck, is he really going to die like this? After everything he’s been through? It’ll all have culminated in him dying at the hands of-
Someone he can't see. His eyes are screwed shut as a disgusting choked noise followed by a whimper comes out of his mouth.
When he finally opens his eyes, lifeless ones stare back. It’s the face of the person he killed, staring back at him with sunken eyes and a neutral expression. A garbled noise leaves Peter's mouth as he tries to kick at them. His hands try to find their way to the person's arms but his limbs feel filled with lead.
The hand digs deeper into his throat.
Please please please just stop it.
Filled with a sudden burst of energy, his eyes screwed shut again as he scratches at the arm holding him against the wall and thrashes. His legs flail hopelessly, trying to kick his assailant. A terrible screeching and screaming fill the room he’s in. His head feels lighter, andit’s getting harder and harder to move his limbs. Is this really what dying feels like? This is nothing like Titan, this is personal. The screeching gets louder, building to a painful chorus.
As Peter peels his eyes open for the last time, the Joker stares back at him.
Peter bolts up from the couch, his blanket disregarded on the floor. He’s heaving to himself as a choked noise makes its way up his raspy throat. Tears spill down his cheeks unconsciously.
Fuck, he was the one screaming.
Peter swings his legs over the side of the couch, sitting straight up as he tries to catch his breath. His breathing is choked and raspy, his lungs gasping for more air. When he brings a hand up to his hair it’s drenched in sweat.
He needs to get out of this warehouse now.
That’s how Peter finds himself sitting on the roof of the warehouse. He’s curled up, his arms wrapped around his knees as he breathes in the night air. It’s too smog-filled to remind him of home, but it’s not as stuffy as the warehouse. How could he go from feeling like the warehouse was too big to feeling trapped? God, he hated his brain sometimes. It really needs to settle on just one trigger.
His dream was…weird. Don’t get him wrong, Peter is very accustomed to nightmares. It comes with the territory, but usually, his dreams weren’t so…vivid. The gravity of Gotham suddenly feels crushing. Shadows encapsulate every corner. Every person Peter comes across has some hidden motivation, and Peter is the one who has to bear the brunt of the city’s fury.
He never wanted any of this. Peter never wanted to fight for his life, to work for the Joker, he never wanted to leave his friends behind, he never wanted to lose May. He misses his world with his friends.
But even if he went back they wouldn’t remember him, right?
Peter ducks his head between his knees, letting the tears fall freely. Every time he’s tried to do something for the greater good, it blows up in his face. Looking up, Peter's eyes meet with the moon that sits plainly over Gotham Harbor. Even in the smog-filled sky, the moon shines brightly, casting its glow over the city.
Peter huffs as he wipes the tears from his eyes and continues to look over the Gotham skyline. Even on such a shitty night, Peter can’t deny its beauty.
Behind him, the door to the warehouse's roof opens softly.
“What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Red Hood's voice fills the empty space. When he speaks, Peter notices he’s not wearing the helmet. His rough voice puts a warm feeling in Peter's chest.
He can’t help but chuckle a bit. “A series of very poor decisions brought me here,”
As he speaks, Hood sits down next to him a couple feet away. Both of their eyes are drawn to the moon above the city. They sit in silence, and Peter feels content with that. When he places his hands on the cool concrete below him, the chill crawls up his arms, grounding him. Peter takes a deep breath, filling his senses with the air he’s starting to get used to.
“...You know I never wanted to do any of it…right?” Peter speaks first, his voice still slightly raspy from his night terror. There’s a slight meekness to it he didn’t mean to let slip, a remnant of the nightmare.
“Yeah…I know,” The answer fades into the wind of the city, Peter feels his chest release a tension he didn’t realize he was holding.
“It…” Peter speaks again, considering his words carefully. “It feels weird…not being told what to do,” He pauses, playing with a groove on his palm. “There was a safe feeling in it, if I just did what I was told then I would be ok. Now…everything is up to me and I-” Peter stops, a choked sound escaping his throat.
“I just don’t know what to do with myself sometimes,” His hand drops in his lap.
The silence between them stretches, Peter spares a glance at Hood, who continues to stare out at the skyline, he can sense the other is listening intently.
Peter speaks again. “I miss my home…a lot. But I can’t go back there anymore,”
“Why?” Hood questions, he turns towards Peter. In the dim glow of the moon, Peter sees his face.
It wouldn’t be the first time a hypothesis of his was right, but seeing it confirmed put a confusing feeling in his chest. His face was angular, andsharp features cast shadows down his face in the dim light of the moon, he could barely make out what features were there but his sharper visions lent him a hand. A domino mask sat around his eyes and brows, shrouding most of the upper half of his face in darkness. The lower half, though, reminded him of a trip he took to the MET with his friends and the Greek god statues MJ sketched. His mouth was set neutrally, the shadows cast downwards made his expressions look a bit more intimidating than they likely were. Peter tried to imagine him smiling.
Goddamnit he’s attractive.
Wait, he asked a question, fuck.
“I messed up a lot of stuff up there, my old friends probably don’t want to see me again. I… made a really bad decision and someone I care about suffered the consequences,” As Peter speaks, his mind drifts towards May. Her words ring in his head.
“With great power, comes great responsibility,”
What would she think of him now? When he’s used his power to harm others so much?
“It’s weird, right? Feeling like you’ve messed something up beyond the point of no return… it does get better.” he pauses “I’ve… done some really messed up shit. I thought that the people I…care about… wouldn’t ever want to see me again,”
Peter gets that. His chest constricts when he thinks about Tony, andhow he was told he didn’t deserve the suit. He can’t help but feel like his former mentor was right.
“But now we're doing a lot better,”
Peter is snapped out of his brooding by the statement. He remembers getting his suit back, regaining Tony’s trust, and helping save the world. The smile on his mentor's face when he succeeded in building something. The feeling of Aunt May’s hugs when he came home from school exhausted, the promise of cookies waiting on the counter for him when he gets back home.
“All’s to say that you're always gonna feel the worst when you're at your worst, that doesn’t mean it'll continue on forever,” Hood shrugs, the corner of his lips tilting upwards.
Yeah, it won't. Even now, he’s away from the Joker. Compared to when he first got here, Peter is doing much better than he was at first. The worries he usually carries lessen slightly as he takes a deep breath. His hands unclench and Peter sits up straighter.
As a silence settles between them, the dream comes back to him. Maybe there should be things he carries with him. He had a rule, and he broke it. He might need to carry that with him for a bit.
“I killed someone,” He blurts out the statement as if he were remarking on a weird situation he ran into on the subway. It probably should’ve been approached with more caution, especially towards the vigilante that might arrest him for it. “I… it’s all I can see, in my dreams, I just see their face and I-” Peter pauses, taking a deep breath.
“I didn’t mean to,” He finishes lamely, looking down at the concrete between them. Cracks in the stone run down the roof and toward the ground like the wrinkles on an old woman's face. He’s only been in the city for a couple months but he understands the charm. There's a surprising amount of character behind every building like every brick has a story to tell.
“Hey I get that, I was in a… weird place a while ago and I ended up hurting a lot of people,” Hood’s voice pulls on that warm feeling again, the feeling of being seen for the first time. The feeling of not being judged for his actions.
Peter regards the man warmly, his eyes outlining the silhouette the moon provides. He’s sitting with a knee up, an arm thrown carelessly up on his leg and the other behind him for support. His head is tilted towards the moon and Peter can barely make out the shine of his lips in the dark.
“When I was with the Joker, he had a device on me. The one you showed me when you raided my apartment,” Peter speaks again, his heart pushing him to share more. It seems like tonight was the kind of night he would share everything.
“He would shock me…hard. Even if I didn’t do anything sometimes and I just didn’t…I didn’t want to get hurt again so I would listen. I would do what he said and sometimes I would get shocked even then. I’m just…I’m just so ashamed of it all,” The confession makes Peter’s cheeks burn with embarrassment, he’s admitting that he complied with a madman and it makes him feel barren in the cold night air.
“Don’t be,”
??
“...What?” A short laugh bubbles up through his chest out of nowhere, he can’t be serious.
“Don’t be ashamed. You didn’t have a choice. The Joker is a seriously fucked up individual, he would pull shit like that,”
Peter shifts in place, uncomfortable with the kindness. He’d expected yelling, he’d expected to be called a coward. He should be called a coward, Spiderman would fight back.
Peter Parker just takes it.
“You’re alright in my book, Peter,” Hood faces Peter, a light smirk pulling at his cheeks, in the dim lighting Peter can just barely make out a scar on the right side of his face. A sudden rush of embarrassment floods him as he realizes that might’ve been the reason Hood stopped him from touching his face the other night.
“Seems like the highest compliment I can get from you, I know it’s Gotham and brooding is apparently the vigilante thing here but sometimes it is a bit much y’know?” Peter teases, andhis body feels lighter. A sudden weight has been lifted by simply talking about it. Wow, who knew?
“Shut up,” Hood retorts playfully. When Peter catches another glimpse of his face he sees a small smile tugging at the corner of Hood’s mouth. He feels that warm feeling again.
“I think I’m done with my fair share of brooding for the night, it’s time to get some rest,” Peter says as he motions to stand, letting his hands leave the cool concrete beneath him.
“Maybe I'll keep you around, I need someone to snap me out of my brooding sometimes,” A crooked smile hangs on Jason's face as he stands along with Peter.
As they head back into the warehouse, Hood stops, turning towards Peter with a look he can’t decipher through the domino mask.
“...My name is Jason…by the way,”
A soft smile spreads on Peter’s face as he takes in the vigilante before him.
Jason…it’s a nice name.
As Peter settles in for the night, a warm feeling lulls him to sleep.
—
“So…this warehouse is a safehouse of mine and staying in it for longer might make it compromised so I was thinking, and you can totally say no because that's totally your choice, but you could stay…at my place? I have a spare room so you could have your own space and stuff,”
Was… was the fearsome Red Hood nervous right now?
The vigilante stands a few feet away from him, his hands firmly clamped together. He doesn’t have a helmet on either, opting for just a domino mask. There's a pinch in his brows as he asks the question, Peter's eyes trace from his brows up to his hair where a shock of white hair sits firmly in the center of his hairline. Just from what he can see, it’s natural. No amount of bleach could make hair that pure white and look that soft.
Tracing his eyes down the other's face Peter sees just how attractive this man is in broad daylight, Peter can feel a blush crawling up his cheeks that he quickly tries to suppress. Below his domino mask, which is a bright red that matches Jason’s helmet quite well (points for keeping the aesthetic going), Peter's eyes catch on a distinctly shaped scar. He had noticed it last night, but through the darkness and haze of emotional conversation, he wasn’t able to fully make it out. It traces from the bottom of his jawline on the right side of his face, near the tip of the scar it jerks sharply and tapers off near his ear. A letter is carved into his face.
The letter J.
Bile quickly rises in his throat before Peter shoves it back down. Did the Joker do that? A sudden rage grips Peter at the thought of it, at the thought of the Joker hurting someone he cares about.
For a single moment, Peter is back at the Statue of Liberty, the metal shard of the green goblins board raised above his head. Poised to strike.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Let’s get back on track. What did he ask?
It would be nice to be out of the warehouse, but Peter didn’t want to encroach on Jason's home.
Then again there was a small, secret, part of him that didn’t want his time with Jason to end just yet. Just last night Peter had admitted things he’s never admitted before. He didn’t even need to go into detail, but the other listened intently. He even shared his own secrets.
Jason.
It really is a nice name.
Would he really be okay with Peter staying with him? Even after all he’s done?
Shit, it’s been a minute. He should probably answer now.
“Yeah, that would be nice. Don’t get me wrong the safehouse is great but warehouses aren't my aesthetic y’know?”
Relief visibly washes through Jason as a small smile spreads across his face, his domino mask crinkling at the pointed corners.
“Nice, nice. Uh- yeah, I’ll just um get stuff figured out over there today. If everything is ready then you could get there…today? I can grab some boxes for your gadgets and stuff too,”
“That would be nice. Oh! Also, hold out your hands please,” Peter rustles around the desk as Jason quirks an eyebrow, holding his hands out tentatively. Peter gingerly places a small unassuming ball into the vigilante's hand. It’s decently heavy, with a button on one side and a small hole where a small red light is on.
“This is…?” Jason's voice trails off questioningly, he rolls the ball around in his hand, careful not to press the button jutting out from the side.
“It’s an EMP grenade, you can throw it into an area and it’ll knock out all electronics within a twenty-foot radius, even things like tasers,” As Peter speaks he looks down at his hands, his fingers rubbing against each other in a soothing motion. When he looks up at Jason again, there's a wide smile across the man's face. He reaches out and ruffles Peter's hair. Peter leans into the touch slightly, letting the other scratch his head. After a few seconds, Peter leans back again, digging through the desk.
“One more thing but I think this desk is a bit too messy I can’t find- oh wait- aha!” He triumphantly grabs a small rectangle barely the size of a harmonica and holds it in the air.
“This! This is what I've really been working on. It’s a new voice modulator! But it- actually wait just watch this-” Peter holds the rectangle up to his mouth, pressing a button and speaking into it.
“Hi! I’m Peter Parker and I made this device!” When he finishes speaking, he hands it to Jason. “Okay now just talk into it,”
Jason hesitates for a second before bringing it up to his lips and speaking.
“Hello? I’m Jason and this is- oh holy fuck,” When Jason speaks, his voice comes out as a slightly staticky version of Peters's own voice. He brings the device away from his lips, an even bigger smile filling his face.
Peter decides right then and there that he really likes seeing Jason smile like that.
“I’m still trying to get some of the static out but I wanted to give you some stuff as a…as a thank you,” Peter ducks his head at that, hiding the creeping blush coming up his face.
“It’s…holy shit Peter this is amazing. I mean this modulator, I never would’ve thought of that in a million years that’s just…wow,”
“Thanks…thanks,” Peter looks up at Jason again, his eyes tracing the others' smiles. They sit in silence for a few seconds, looking into each other's eyes. Peter wants to see Jason's eyes, to see what they look like, to see if they match the rest of his face.
He bets they’re pretty.
Nope! Dude you gotta stop with that, you’re about to move into his apartment don’t be weird.
Oh shit, speaking of…
“Do you…need to go to your apartment?”
“Shit! Yeah, ok I’ll be back in like an hour,” Jason’s demeanor changes quickly as he shrugs on a leather jacket and grabs some things before rushing out the door.
When Jason leaves, Peter takes a second to breath in and out slowly. Whatever he’s feeling he’s gotta push it down, Jason is nice enough to let him crash at his apartment. He can’t make it awkward by thinking about him like that.
He just needs to take it one day at a time.
—
Jason's apartment is surprisingly quaint. When Peter first enters, his eyes are drawn immediately to the sheer amount of books lining the walls of the apartment. There are at least six bookshelves all filled to the brim with various trinkets littering shelves scattered around the apartment. In the center of the living area is a plush green couch with a deeply comfortable-looking blanket draped over it. To the side of the couch are two side tables with lamps adorning them. Each piece of furniture Peter can see is distinct, it’s clear Jason’s procured his aesthetic over time.
When Peter steps further into the apartment, Jason follows behind him and leads him to a room off to the side of the apartment. Across from the kitchen is a small, plain, bedroom. An unassuming queen bed sits in the corner with blue sheets and a comforter covering the plush mattress. A window across from the bed streams in daylight, near the bed is a small closet and an unassuming nightstand is perched next to the bed. When Peter walks a little farther into the room he spots a desk and a swivel chair in the corner.
It’s absolutely perfect.
A broad smile grows on Peter’s face at the sight. It’s small, it’s beautiful, it’s clean, and it’s all his.
“Holy shit I- thank you. This place is great, there's no water stains or creaky boards or anything like that, and there's a huge bed! This is seriously amazing,” Peter whirls around with a blinding smile aimed toward Jason.
“Only the best for you, get your stuff unpacked I’ll start on dinner,”
Peter ignores the blush that creeps up his cheeks as he unpacks his tools and technology onto the desk in the corner.
When he feels sufficiently unpacked, Peter walks out of his (oh my god his) bedroom into the living area. Jason is already working away in the kitchen, sauteing ingredients in a pan and keeping a close eye on a pot of boiling water. Upon closer inspection, Peter is absolutely wowed by how organized the kitchen is. Watching Jason work reminds him of himself in the lab, inperfect harmony with his environment.
While Jason works, Peter gets a closer look at the massive amount of books lining the living room.
“I know you like to read but I didn't know you liked to read this much,” Peter is answered with a light grunt from the kitchen. Jason is probably focused right now.
Scanning the shelves, Peter's eyes immediately land on a few titles that catch his attention.
‘An Affair on Notting Hill’
‘The Sensual Slip-up of Ms. Violet’
‘Anger, Love, Passion’
A small chuckle fills the room as Peter continues scanning the books.
“Wow Jason, I didn’t know you had such a risque collection on your hands,” Peter cheekily smiles, tracing his finger down one of the book's spines.
When he looks towards the kitchen, he can see a blushing Jason fumbling for words.
“I- my brothers got them for me as a joke…they’re actually pretty good though,”
Peter smiles at that, more titles catching his eye.
“Even this one? Oo- The Alluring Arachnid: Bound by-”
With a sharp cough, Jason interrupts Peter as he heads out of the kitchen. “Okay! Dinner is done so there's no need to look over there anymore!”
Peter eats with Jason at a small dinner table, his eyes looking out the window at the city skyline. When he finishes his food, a wave of exhaustion hits him as he stands, though he still offers to do the dishes as any good houseguest would. Jason responds by snatching his plate and walking towards the sink.
Bidding Jason goodnight, Peter heads to bed.
As his body sinks into the mattress, which is amazingly soft, Peter lets his mind wander as he falls asleep.