A spider without his kite
Peter doesn't feel anything at all, not at first. When he comes to, his body may as well be made of lead. It’s like the world finally stopped, like he can breathe, and Peter can finally relax for even a second.
Well, except, he can't actually breathe.
Instead, every single one of Peter's nerve endings is screaming. Every inch of his body shudders in pain and shock. There's a cacophony in his head; between the pounding of blood in his ears, the crunching of gravel beneath him as he writhes, and what he eventually recognizes as his own pitiful chorus of groans and whines midst stuttering breaths — it’s clear his brain has officially become the venue for a painfully loud and discordant orchestra of pure ouch.
And he can't breathe .
His panic suddenly flips a switch and forces his body to react to the lack of oxygen. He's left to draw in air with pure desperation, but he finds he can't actually inhale that deep when something jolts inside him. Peter’s lungs stutter so violently he almost hacks, coughing in that throaty way that barely quells the ache in his chest currently screaming at him. His whole torso is on fire. His throat is doused in molten metal and he can't fucking breathe — why can't he breathe? This is wrong, but what’s wrong? Is he drowning? He can’t be dusting he just can’t so he has to be drowning but that’s definitely air so why can’t he breathe? It burns and burns and burns and please he doesn’t feel so —
Focus, focus on the next inhale, the next exhale. His ribs must be broken, that’s all, his lungs probably just bruised to hell and back. Inhale, let it rattle around a little, and exhale.
Inhale, exhale till he completely runs out.
Peter accidentally gasps for air after exhaling too far and yet another stab across his sternum and down his side reminds him to focus. Each inhale gets shallower, but more under control. Peter can feel the limit of his lungs, concentrating on letting the inhale stop before he pushes too far, reaches too deep. He tries to think past the unending pain, the pure and unadulterated burning in every fiber of his existence. Peter just has to last long enough for his healing factor to get his lungs in working order, just enough to function. He'll be fine. He promised he'd see MJ and Ned again so he has to be fine. Mr. – Dr. – Strange… Stephen did not put up with three Peter Parkers just for him to asphyxiate. Is that the right term for what’s happening? Asphyxiating? Not important.
Peter has no idea how long he's been thinking solely about breathing before he finally registers the rest of his body. He feels the cold, rocky ground under his back, stones digging into his (definitely dislocated) shoulder. There's a breeze tickling his nose, ruffling his sweaty bangs just the slightest as if gently pushing them out of his eyes. He can feel the gravel under his fingertips through the gloves of his suit. And, thank Thor, he can actually feel all his extremities. His right arm, however, will be a lost cause until he can sit up to fix the dislocation. Past that, everything is a certain level of ‘in so much pain it’s numb’. It reminds him of the time he almost got frostbite building snow forts in Central Park with Ben and May. He’s aware something is wrong, but it might as well be in another room, another city. The only difference is that this time he can feel the warm blood running down and across different areas where his suit is torn and exposing him to the cold air. That day in the snow he couldn’t even feel the hot cocoa in his hands. May gave him so many cups of it to try and warm him up that he got a stomach ache that lasted three days. Oh, maybe don’t think about Ben or May right now, his lungs are protesting the idea of crying, like, a lot . Breathe please, Parker. Thank you.
After basking in semi-functioning lungs for who knows how long, Peter braves the idea of actually looking at his injuries. Any kind of proper assessment will require visual data.
When he first opens his eyes, the light of the world is far too bright and he lets out a rumbling groan. He squints them shut just as fast as they had opened. His retinas are scorched, dry, and irritated like he dunked each eye in pure acetone. The sheer pain blooming behind his eyelids is enough to make him wish he would just pass out again. Once the shock passes, he tries to blink his eyes open again. This time, it isn’t just blinding white. His eyes water while everything shifts, twists, and swirls in a sickening shade of purple. It’s like a giant, horrible, eggplant, Thanos-y colored gelatinous cube is sliding right over him with the way it all contorts in front of him. Not a single thing around him will come into focus amid the purple whorls. He tries to blink it away, desperate to see anything other than purple, and slowly but surely, as the tingling of his healing factor behind his eyes continues to build, the oozy cube-ness seems to lessen.
When the purple haze clears Peter is happy to confirm that, no, he is not still stuck in the LSD rift thingy. The thought had passed by amidst the gelatinous-cube-fear (oh, he might have a concussion considering that’s a weird line of thought even for him). In fact, he doesn’t even remember going through it. Something tells him it wasn't an instantaneous in and out considering the black hole feeling nature of it, but that doesn’t mean he can actually remember it. The last thing he actually remembers is jumping off of Ellis Island. Peter tries to not be too unsettled by that fact, but the idea of blacking out while getting pulled through a hole in the fabric of the multiverse is generally not one to be settled by. There isn’t much about the situation to give him zen as his brain slowly reverts to mush as he feels the adrenaline crash sinking in.
Instead, he focuses on the fact that he’s currently sitting on a gravel-covered rooftop, the sky above him a moody black and cloudy with not even a single star to be seen. From the smell of ocean and ozone punching through the stench of his own blood, he can only guess a fairly heavy storm is on its way. Underneath that, something about it all smells rotten. He really hopes it isn’t coming from him, since it would be pretty awkward to smell his own corpse like that.
He turns his head, not quite ready to try to sit up for fear of shifting his 100% still messed up ribs. To his right, there’s just more gravel that ends in some short half-wall and then pure, open sky. Craning his head to the other side there are lights — hundreds, thousands, all blurry at first but then as it comes into focus he sees the city. Farther off are blurry skyscrapers stretching so high that he instantly yearns for, no matter how beaten and bruised and absolutely miserable he feels. Closer are buildings a little more modest in height. The lights dance in front of him, waltzing across the skyline like fireflies. Before he can look any harder at the details, his stomach lurches, the light show apparently not sitting well.
He rolls his torso quickly and suffers through the resulting jab of pain, gagging at the piercing feeling on his left side before actually vomiting. No blood, which was a win in his book. Even if he was bleeding internally the blood was staying there. On the inside, like it was supposed to.
God, he was losing it. More than just his lunch.
Now he lay propped on his side by his left arm, which was miraculously fine aside from the gash he already had from the Goblin. Facing the city certainly made his head swim and stomach turn, but looking out also helped soothe his torrential mind. He can imagine swinging between those beautifully tall buildings, jumping across those alleyways, and running to Delmar’s new place for another perfect sandwich. He can think about how absolutely fine everything is because there are definitely no more big purple tears in the sky crumbling down all around them. Yeah, that’s a nice thought. He’s gonna stick with that one for a sec’. Closing his eyes, inhaling, he slowly shifts his weight so he’s lying on his back again, just gazing up at the nothingness of the night as the lights burned into Peter's eyes dance in his wobbling vision.
Focus, Parker. Point being, his healing is great but he’d rather not push his luck. In fact, May always said rest was super important for getting better and, really, a nap sounds amazing right about now. May would absolutely understand. In fact, she would totally approve. He lets his eyes drift, closing slowly, blinking lazily. He embraces the warm tingles of his wonderful healing factor that creep all over his body, ready to just drift off. The stink of the city doesn’t bother him enough to keep him awake, nor does the reek of the ex contents of his stomach. A little cat nap would be good for him, he decides. A perfect way to end a crappy day.
His eyes probably aren’t even closed for more than five minutes before he can hear MJ in his ear giving some monologue. Something about concussions, sleeping, to make sure not to pass out while Ned starts to sing the periodic table song so off-key it hurts.
Oh. That’s right. MJ told him that the one time he hit his head showing her and Ned a new flip he learned. She wasn’t here but she still reminded him. So sweet. She’s so nice to him. Well, as nice as MJ gets. But still. And Ned, Ned is so sweet too.
Apparently thinking sickeningly sweet thoughts about his friends was enough to make him physically sick again. As he twisted to hurl any remaining food in his stomach, adding to the collection amassing on the roof beside him, the returning stab in the left half of his abdomen shoved away any of the morphine-like sensations from what was likely shock if he understood anything about his situation through the haze. He dry-heaved with every wave of pain, and every heave of his stomach caused another. Peter was stuck in this horrible recursive system until the muscles in his torso gave out completely, letting him fall limp again to his back. Pathetic.
He wondered idly how long he’d been on this roof, just switching between expelling his guts and staring at the sky. Would Dr. Strange know what to do? He said he was a real doctor, not just the magic kind of doctor. Peter bets that Stephen would be amazing at this. Whatever this is.
When the exhaustion takes hold again, Peter doesn’t even have the time to think about atomic elements before promptly passing out. MJ would be mad, but she’d understand.
Red Hood is really, really , fuckin’ done with today. Roman Sionis can go kindly fuck himself gently with a chainsaw. If he sees one more Black Mask goon tonight he will officially lose his shit, and Bruce can just deal with it. They all knew it was bound to happen eventually anyway.
It was one fuck-fest after another: the busted up drug-bust gone wrong, one of his favorite damn Colts finally kicking the bucket meaning he probably ought to get a whole new set at this point which is annoying , and of- fucking -course Dick Bird and his need to interrupt an already hellish patrol for some loving ‘brother bonding time’ had to show up like the gross, overly touchy cherry on top. He would’ve knocked his damn cheeky grin into the next week, but he still needs someone to tell him when Alfred was making family dinner because if they had to know that he was in Gotham then he would be getting some damn good pie out of it. Lucky Dick. Meanwhile, Jason is about ready to roll over to the fucking cemetery again if it meant he could take a nap. Fuck propriety. He hasn’t had a good sleep where he wasn’t dead or near dead. Such is the law of Gotham.
Instead of hosting a cemetery slumber party, Jason trudges his way back to his safe house in Lower Old Gotham. It’s on the docks, which normally would be asking for trouble but the Port Adams docks are the main shipping hub in the city. While that makes it sound ripe for crime, it really meant that they were in the best shape and most policed — with what little good the GCPD and security firms can do, at least. But, even Cobblepot in all his audacity has the sense to keep his grubby little beak out of most of what goes on there. He may have an ego inversely proportionate to the rest of him (meaning he has a massive fucking head about everything and nothing to back it up), but his sense of self-preservation is just about equally as mismatched. This also means that it was the perfect place to keep Jason’s favorite safe house stocked with all of his favorite things. No big name shit-heads played there like tantrum throwing toddlers with bazookas and Jason got all his things delivered practically right to his doorstep while cutting out the middleman. Plus, it’s a great way to sneak Roy into the city before he gets spotted on cams and tattled on back to Batsy. Not to even mention the view. Good reviews overall. A top recommended locale on Yelp, Zillow, and Airbnb.
Even with all that, the thought of having to drag his ass home is nearly too much. So when he spots what looks like a technicolor corpse on a roof barely two blocks away from his sweet, sweet bed he’s nearly ready to cry. Red Hood has to check it out, code this code that and such, but fucking hell is he about to just call it in to Dick-Wing and say a big fat ‘good luck’. If he wasn’t positive that he’d get an earful for the next month it would be far more tempting, but that alone is enough to keep him from passing it off to one of the others. Too much interaction with family is a serious no thank you . Even Dickie. Actually, especially him. Dick is definitely the one who would hound him the most — ties to morality and good will to men and all other such hippie hand-holding bullshit. With all that in mind, he launches himself across the alleys between the buildings, stopping only a rough 10 feet from the presumably dead body.
Of course, the closer he gets the more he picks up on. Key things being the stuttered rise and fall of the dude’s chest and twitching around his left hand. Definitely not accurate with the assumed unalived status, but he is looking oh so incredibly close. Creeping closer in case the guy wakes up and startles, Red Hood starts taking stock of the situation.
Caucasian, brown hair, definitely young. Unresponsive to noise nearby. Obvious injuries to the right arm, both legs, and the abdominal region. Several lacerations. He likely has severe blood loss judging by the staining on the gravel under him. Wearing some kind of spandex suit. Shit. Super? Vigilante? Not in those offensively bright colors. He hates newbies, but it’s definitely not just a cosplay or some cheap costume — it looks too expensive, the material glistening in a way similar to Nightwing’s suit.
Fuck it, he’s calling Leslie because this is so beyond him right now.
Reaching into his jacket pocket, Hood pulls out one of his dedicated burners and immediately hits Doc Thompkins’ contact. While it rings he snags photos of the kid and the immediate area. Her voice comes through tinny but that doesn’t do a damn thing to hide her irritation when she picks up. “What did you break.” It isn’t a question. Rude.
“Evenin’ to you too, Doc. And I didn’t break shit.” Again, rude to assume.
She scoffs, even has the gall to tut after, before saying, “You only call when you’ve gone so far as to break something you know you can’t set yourself — though there’s not a damn bone in your body you should ever try to set yourself, but we both know you seem to think otherwise. So, I repeat: what?” Never mind, Jason thinks it’s an incredibly valid line of questioning and not rude at all.
“Okay, fair,” and, really, it is, “but this isn’t a personal call. I’ve got a kid here that I’m kinda amazed isn’t dead based on the blood on the ground. Before I move him I want your opinion. Sending files your way, Doc.” He sends the doctor all the photos of the kid, snapping a few more detailed ones of the areas with more obvious injuries. The gashes, contusions, and horrifically broken bones all get their chances in the spotlight before being lumped into a zip and sent over.
“Alright. Anything else you can describe?” Hood is glad she’s back in business mode instead of the berating but doting grandmother mode. He never did handle that side of the good doctor well.
“Shallow breathing, definitely struggling with it. Spasms here and there too. Not really specific to anywhere either.” Pausing, staring, before continuing. “So far, no reaction to me being here.” Really not a good sign.
“Hm, none of those are good signs.” Right? “And yes, judging by the amount of blood the boy needs immediate care. What’s closest?” Hood thinks for a moment, maybe a moment too long considering he hears the doctor hum into the line impatiently.
Red Hood’s voice is thoughtful as he considers the rooftop around him, thinking about how to move the kid without jostling every visible and possible invisible injury the guy has. “Technically, Gotham General, but with the highway right there I could probably get to you faster.”
Her tone is hard, ready. “Do it.”
“Got it.”
Hood laments having to ditch his bike, but he knows it won’t do him shit good right now. He smashes a button on his wristband, a gift from Bruce that was really a gift from the Replacement most likely and probably the only one that he’ll ever give a damn about. Hailing the Batmobile up from Paris Island’s cave, he starts shifting his hands under the kid. Arms under his shoulders and hips to help cradle his head and legs, he picks him up as slow as possible but the involuntary groan and wince are evidence there is no level of treatment gentle enough to soothe the kid right now. “I don’t know if you’re awake, kid, but we’re gonna get you some help, okay? Promise.” The boy shifts in his arms and Hood isn't sure whether he should be excited or concerned at the prospect of him waking up.
Hearing the roar of the engine, he pulls the kid minutely closer before slowly making his way to and down the rickety fire escape. The Batmobile pulls right up to him and, with the press of a button on the door handle from his knee, it opens to the backseat. He lays the kid down, balling up one of the shock blankets stored back there to support his neck. Closing the door he runs to the front where he hops in and connects the doc’s call to the main system. “I’m on my way, better get ready.”
“I’m always ready for one of you to come in unannounced. The early check-in for once is a very nice surprise. Either way, you know the drill. Back room. Don’t bother knocking, it’ll be propped open for you.”
He sighs, “Doc, that ain’t safe down there.” Crime Alley is already a tough enough place for a clinic to work out of; keeping any door unlocked is asking for something to happen even if it is a designated peace zone. Doc Thompkins is lucky that all the major players know it’s off limits but any minor scrub or new guy could fuck up and ruin a good thing for a quick score. He seriously hates newbies.
“Shut up and get here so it isn’t a problem then.” She would sound bitchy to anyone else, but Red Hood had been in her care long enough and so often he could read the worry in her tone.
“5 minutes out.”
By the time he gets there, the back of the Batmobile has a wet sheen from the blood smeared across the leather. Before he can grab the kid, however, Leslie comes out with a stretcher under her arm. “Don’t move him yet. I looked at the photos more and my best guess right now is a fall, in which case his ribs could be cracked or broken and if it’s the latter we can’t risk puncturing a lung. Not to mention any possible damage to his neck.” She rushes the words out, running likely as fast as any woman her age could. They work together to ease it under the guy before sliding him out of the car and then into the clinic. Smoothly switching him to the table, Doc immediately gets to work. Without hesitation, she starts cutting the suit off his torso from the neck down.
“Anything I can do to help?”
Harshly, she retorts without looking up from her hands, “Go help someone who really needs it, and leave me and my patient alone.” Softer, she adds, “I’ll update you when I can. Now lock the door and go out the front.”
“At least you listen to reason.” He’s joking but that door thing was serious.
“Out.”
Jason takes that as his cue to finally really go home and sleep. Two more stopped muggings and one creep losing his teeth later, he makes it back to his glorious apartment a whole two and a half hours after his initial trek there. His helmet thuds to the floor, and he knows he’ll probably get another passive-aggressive note from Mr. Dubbs downstairs but he couldn’t give a shit right now. Jacket sloughing off his shoulders, he takes a few more steps and promptly passes the fuck out on the couch, not even considering making it to the bed.