Dark Matter

He spends most of that first patrol getting back into the swing (ha) of things. He circles the perimeter of Crime Alley, swinging from one darkened skyscraper to the next, dodging between buildings at speed to check his reaction time, and then builds up as much speed as he can to test his webbing. It's not as refined as the stuff he could make in Tony's lab, but it's more than serviceable.

But it wouldn't be a patrol without at least some crime fighting. During his last swing through the district, Peter catches sight of two men hovering near the back entrance to one of the darkened warehouses in the industrial zone. They’re hunched low; one big guy with a heavy crowbar gripped in his meaty hands, and one thin, twitchy guy who keeps glancing back at the box truck parked beside them.

Peter drops down on top of the box truck lightly before skittering over to the edge, peering down at the men below. It takes effort to keep himself still; he’s hyped up from the swinging, from being himself again, and it’s hard to keep from leaping straight into action. But he has to make sure that these guys are bad guys. He stays crouched low, pressed flat against the top of the truck in a way that’s impossible for a normal human.

“Goddamn, that is creepy,” Sam mutters.

“Don’t distract him,” Bucky says.

"You're paranoid, Frank," the moose looking guy says. He's struggling with the crowbar, and quickly losing patience. Peter marks him as an amateur burglar; he’s too clumsy, too impatient to be a pro.

"The hell I am," Frank retorts. "The bats swing through all the time. I swear I saw one earlier. You know what the Bat does to people like us? He'll beat you into a coma if you piss him off. I once saw him grab one of Joker's guys and dangle him over the side of a building. Gave me nightmares."

"Oh, are we sharing our nightmares?" Peter asks from the shadows above them. "I have so many to share--"

Both men startle; Frank actually lets out a terrified yell and Moose curses a blue streak, yanking the crowbar free of the door frame to swing at Peter. The swing is sloppy and slow. Peter pins the man's arm--crowbar and all--to the door with a shot of web fluid and quickly follows it up with two more globs that pin his free arm and both of his feet. Frank starts to sprint for the alley. A single shot of his web gums up the man's legs and sends him face down into the asphalt of the alley with a muffled oomph.

Too easy. Peter pokes around Moose's pockets, ignoring the man's repeated curses, and pulls out his phone. He taps it and tsks when the screen unlocks automatically.

"No lock screen?" Peter asks, casually leaning against the wall beside Moose. "Man, you really are new at this. Why are you trying to get into this place anyway?"

Moose glowers at him. "Because people keep moving real big pieces of equipment in and out. Expensive stuff. Stuff that can be pieced out and sold easy. One good sale and we’re set for a week."

"There are lots of warehouses like that around here," Peter points out.

Moose rolls his eyes. "This is the only one not used by the False Facers. I ain't lookin' to get killed."

"Huh. Good to know," Peter says, tapping out 911 on the phone. "Hello? Yeah, hi, I need the police at warehouse thirteen at 59th and Park Row. Okay, cool, bye." Peter ends the call and shrugs at the two criminals. "It's gonna take them forty five minutes to get here. So, uh, get comfy."

"Fuck off, kid," Moose mutters.

"Language, mister," Peter chides before tucking Moose's phone back into his coat and flinging himself back up to the rooftops. It’s late, and he has school tomorrow. He’d better call it a night.

* * *

BATCHAT

Barbara (9:56pm): Duke, Tim, time to call it.

Duke (09:58pm): on our way

Tim (10:00pm): we can do at least another hour

Duke (10:01pm): no, we cannot. not with your busted ribs. Barbara, hit us with the wrap up talk while I manhandle Tim back home, thanks.

Tim (10:01pm): wow rude

Barbara (10:01pm): Cass and Steph have finished cleaning up the docks. Damian and Bruce are on recon duty. Jason and Dick broke up a trafficking syndicate in Blüdhaven earlier tonight and didn’t kill each other, so they get a gold star for that. And you and Duke managed to get the Riddler back into Arkham.

Barbara (10:02pm): Also, someone called 911 from Crime Alley tonight for the first time in six months.

Barbara (10:03pm): The police found two men bound up in massive webs. The men said a giant spider caught them while they were trying to break into a warehouse.

Duke (10:04pm): what.

Barbara (10:05pm): Any takers on tracking down a giant spider in Crime Alley tomorrow?

Duke (10:05pm): absolutely fucking not

* * *

Peter wakes up sore the next morning, but rejuvenated. He actually feels somewhat back to normal, as if he’s been nudged firmly back onto his foundation after teetering off of it after Titan. He has the oddest feeling that he should thank someone for that, but can’t quite figure out who or why.

“You are welcome,” T’Challa says.

Well, whatever. He gets up and heads into the shower. If he rushes his homework during homeroom today, he’ll have time to fit in another patrol tonight after school. He stretches, rolling his shoulders a little to loosen them up, and staggers into the shower. The freezing water doesn’t do much for his sore back and arms, but it does plenty to wake him up. He grabs his backpack, a stale protein bar, and his jacket, and leaves for school.

The classes pass by in a grey blur; he’s aware of doing the work, of listening to lectures, but he focuses mostly on his homework. Nothing really pierces his focus. Except for Tim. And not in a pleasant way, unfortunately.

It happens during home room. Peter, Tim, and Duke have their desks facing each other--technically against the rules, but the teacher doesn’t seem to care--and share desk space. Duke is kicked back in his chair, foot pressed against the desk, tilting it back on its back two legs as he reads through a textbook. Tim is hunched over his desk, violently erasing a paper in front of him, muttering darkly about his chemistry assignment. He ducks down and blows on his page, spreading tiny, twisted pieces of eraser rubber across the desk and onto Peter’s hand.

Peter’s senses go wild. It looks like ash. And the way it falls--drifting into view and blowing in just the right way--suddenly, Peter’s not sitting in school, he’s back at Titan. Or in the machine. His skin tingles, growing hot, and his clothes feel like they’re constricting him, tightening around his neck and choking him, like the ash and dust on Titan--

“Hey,” Tim says. He sounds distant and alarmed. “Peter?”

“This is bad,” Quill says.

“Parker, focus,” Fury says slowly. “Remember where you are.”

“Yeah, that’s not helping,” Sam adds.

Peter stands up, snatches his backpack up, and flees the room. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s not thinking at all. He just knows he has to get out of there, to get away. In his mind, he’s fleeing Titan, Thanos, and the disintegration he’s sure will soon happen again.

He isn’t sure how, but he makes it back to the fire station. Peter can’t remember if he ran here or took the subway. Regardless, the result is the same. He drops his half open backpack and skitters up to the furthest corner of the room, pressing his back against it, and hugs his knees to his chest. From there, he just has to ride out the panic attack.

* * *

BATCHAT

Duke (02:05pm): he didn’t show up to any of his classes, and he missed lunch.

Tim (02:36pm): that’s not good

Tim (02:37pm): we have to cover for him. That stupid law is still in effect. The school has to report AWOL students to the cops.

Duke (02:35pm): think we can get Bruce to do it?

Tim (02:37pm): i’ll forge an email and tweak the school’s records, it’ll be fine

Tim (02:38pm): we’ll give his books back to him tomorrow and try to get him home

Tim (02:39pm): hey, Dick, check on him for us, all right?

Dick (02:40pm): Consider it done.

* * *

He snaps out of his panic gradually. Eventually, it drains away from him completely, leaving him feeling jittery and embarrassed. He’ll have to come up with some kind of excuse tomorrow when he goes to school. Or not. Maybe he can just pretend it didn’t happen and brush it off completely. He drops from the ceiling, rubbing the back of his head, and grabs his suit. He needs to work off the excess energy.

He starts his patrol again, and quickly earns a minor reputation, even after only a few days. The cops aren't his biggest fans (shocker), but the people take to him well enough. Gotham isn't Queens, but it does have a lot of Queens problems. Especially the Queens he grew up in after the Battle of New York. There were hardly any police around after half the force was killed in the Battle, and crime became a massive issue. The same issue lives on in Crime Alley, minus the alien invasion. Fortunately, this is his specialty.

So he spends the evening stopping petty thieves, guiding lost children back to their parents, and walking lone travelers through the sketchier areas at night. Little guy stuff. Tony would be proud. And little guy stuff adds up; the streets become a little safer around the same time he starts to get a wider view of what’s happening in the city. Usually, things aren’t this bad. Batman and his crew handle these kinds of issues in Gotham, but they’ve been busy. Stretched thin. Add Red Robin’s broken ribs, and the breakout at Arkham Asylum to the mix, and things start to look shaky in general.

As an added bonus, the more he spends his time as Spider-Man, the less time he’ll have to deal with Peter Parker’s issues. Which are many and numerous, at this point. Better to bury himself in work than deal with that, frankly. He can do a lot more good helping people instead of dwelling on whatever happened to him on Titan.

“He really is Stark’s kid,” Fury remarks dryly.

“That’s not a timebomb waiting to go off or anything,” Hill replies, caught somewhere between resignation and frustration.

Peter is just about to call it for the night when the bus depot at the edge of the district suddenly goes up in flames. Literally. It starts as a brief flare, and erupts into a full conflagration by the time he makes it to the depot. He drops to the ground beside a group of coughing, teary eyed workers.

“Is everyone okay?” Peter asks.

“Yeah! Yeah, we’re fine,” a woman says. Her voice is rough from smoke, and she coughs around her words, clutching a coworker’s shoulder to keep herself standing. “But Lou’s still inside, and the fire department’s too far away to help. They closed the only station in the district last year.”

“Where’s Lou?” Peter asks, scanning the outside of the depot. The fire is spreading, growing hotter. If it hits one of the fuel tanks, it’ll blow sky high.

“Near the break room. The, uh,” the woman struggles for a moment. “The northeast side.”

“On it. You guys stay here, I’ll be right back,” Peter says before launching himself back into the air and swinging along the outside of the building.

“You don’t have an oxygen tank on this suit,” Shuri says.

“If you’re doing this, kid, be quick,” Bucky adds.

Right. He’ll have to try and upgrade this suit at some point, but for now, he’s has to focus on getting the guy out. Gotham’s infamous nightly rain will work to his advantage for a little while, maybe enough to get everyone out safe. One of the big windows near the roof of the brick building is propped open. Peter launches himself inside, rolls when he lands on the concrete floor of the depot, and stays crouched. He can crawl on all fours as quickly as he jogs, and he uses that speed to his advantage, staying low to avoid the smoke. Hopefully Lou doesn’t freak out and throw a chair at him or something if he sees this.

He can hear the man’s thundering heartbeat and coughs up ahead and to his right. Peter finds Lou laying on the ground, holding a handkerchief to his face, leg pinned by a collapsed wall. He startles when Peter appears next to him.

“I can’t move,” he says. “Leg’s stuck.”

“Is it broken?” Peter asks.

“No, just stuck. You gotta help me--”

“I’ve got this,” Peter assures him. He stands up and grips the heavy beam that, miraculously, didn’t crush the man’s leg. He sticks his hands fully to the beam and braces his feet on the floor. “Get ready to move on three, okay?”

The guy gives him a disbelieving look, but nods. “Sure, but you won’t be able to move that unless you’re Superman.”

“I’m cooler than Superman,” Peter says. “One, two, three--”

It takes more effort than it should, but Peter lifts up the beam and the debris piled on top of it smoothly, holding it well above Lou. The man gapes at him for a moment, then quickly drags himself away from Peter, pushing himself to his feet. Peter lets the beam drop as soon as he’s clear.

“Man,” Lou says wonderingly. “You weren’t kiddin’.”

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Peter says, shaking his arms out.

“I’ve got it, follow me.”

They crouch low and move through the burning building. They’re within ten feet of the exit when something cracks above them and Peter’s senses go off. A piece of the roof caves in, and a heavy metal pipe falls from the ceiling. Peter shoves Lou out of the way in time, but catches the pipe with his face. It lands hard, with a solid thump loud enough to make Lou turn and give him a worried look.

“You okay, kid?” the driver calls out, his voice muffled by the handkerchief in front of his mouth and nose.

Peter hisses, cupping his face for a moment, then shakes it off. “I’m fine! I’m fine, come on--the exit is straight ahead. Stay low and go straight, okay?”

“Only if you’re right behind me,” the driver says between coughs.

“I am! Trust me, I’ve taken harder knocks than that!”

Lou hesitates, then shakes his head and then leads them out into the frigid night air. Lou’s coworkers swarm him, hugging him, giving him water, and generally fussing over the big guy. Peter makes sure the bus driver is taken care of, and then slips away into the rooftop shadows, heading back into the heart of Crime Alley.

The rain washes off the ash and the smell of smoke. At least, it mutes it enough that it isn’t very obvious. He drops into the alley with his backpack, landing on unsteady feet. He hasn’t used his super strength in weeks, and he feels wrung out and exhausted. He can feel the bruise forming across his eye and cheek, and rubs at it idly while he pulls on an old hoodie and loose fitting jeans over his suit. Normally he’d change, but like hell is he going to chance that in Crime Alley.

“Thank god,” Bucky says.

And besides, it’s cold as hell. The suit is great, but it’s not exactly insulated for heat, and the misty Gotham nights are always chilly. He shoves his mask under his books in his backpack and slips out of the alley on silent feet. The street is silent and still in the early morning hours, and Peter can only hear the distant roar of traffic and, beyond that, trains. It’s the background noise of a busy city, and he puts it out of his mind. His exhaustion grows with every footstep, and he yawns. It’s Sunday, and terribly late, but he might be able to get a few hours of sleep before school--

“Hey, Peter,” a voice calls from above.

Peter jumps, his exhaustion chased away by a rush of adrenaline, whirling to face the source of the voice. He sighs and relaxes. “Oh. Hey, Nightwing.”

Nightwing grins at him from the roof and hops down to the street beside him. His suit is brand new, and it looks just like the one Peter designed with Tim and Duke last week. Peter tilts his head, giving the suit a critical eye. It doesn’t seem to be missing anything from his design that he can tell, which is a good thing. He’s a little pleased with himself, really. And amused that the Avengers insignia Peter doodled onto the shoulder of Nightwing’s suit apparently made the cut. Nightwing would make a pretty good Avenger.

“Like the new suit? My brother said a fan of mine designed it for me,” Nightwing says, strolling alongside Peter.

“I think they did a pretty decent job,” Peter says with a slight grin. “There’s room for improvement, though.”

“Is there?” Nightwing asks.

“There’s always room for improvement. You don’t just finish a suit, you know,” Peter says, mimicking one of Tony’s grandiose hand waves as he passes under a streetlight. “They’re pieces of art. You know. Branding.”

Nightwing laughs, then freezes, reaching out to grip Peter’s arm. He frowns, tugging Peter back under the streetlight. Peter goes with him willingly, confused by the sudden change in the man’s demeanor.

“Uh, you okay, Nightwing?” Peter asks.

“Who hit you?”

“What?”

“Peter, your eye is practically swollen shut, and there’s a bruise down your cheek,” Nightwing says slowly. “This is fresh. Trust me, I know bruises. What happened?”

Peter goes quiet for a long moment, desperately wracking his too tired brain for an explanation. Finally, he says, “I fell.”

God does that answer not help his case. Nightwing’s frown grows deeper, and a bit heartbroken.

“Remind me to teach you how to lie,” Fury says.

“Come with me. Let’s go talk somewhere, all right?” He’s using that tone. That tone Peter’s hated ever since he first heard a social worker use it to tell him his parents were dead. Peter stiffens. “Look, this place isn’t safe--”

“And whose fault is that?” Peter asks. He regrets it the moment he says it; Nightwing’s face falls, the concern shifting to guilt. Peter sighs and shoulders past him towards the street. “I’ll see you around, Nightwing.”

Nightwing doesn’t follow.

* * *

The bus driver watches him closely when he climbs onto the bus in the morning. He probably looks like flaming garbage. He definitely feels like it. The bruise across his eye and cheek is an ugly, purple and blue thing that stands out against his skin. Even the people on the subway kept giving him second looks.

“Morning,” the driver says. His eyes focus on the bruise on Peter’s face for a moment.

“Oh, uh, good morning,” Peter says, fumbling with his transit pass. God, he’s tired. And hungry. And a little cold. He really should have eaten something before going out on patrol last night. Or after. Or when he woke up this morning.

The driver pauses, stares at him, and then clears his throat and reaches up to grab something from the dashboard.

“He recognizes your voice,” Shuri says. “You need to add a voice modulator to your suit.”

That's a good idea. Peter adds that to his mental to-do list. It’s at the number two spot, right under ‘convince Tim and Duke that he’s not insane and just kind of had a moment yesterday.’ God, he’s not looking forward to that talk.

"Here," the bus driver says. He presses something into Peter's hands.

Peter looks down at his hand to see what the bus driver gave him. It's a cheese and egg bagel sandwich wrapped in parchment paper. It's warm and smells heavenly. Peter's stomach growls loudly at the scent of it. His food intake has dropped a bit since losing his job.

"This is for me?" Peter asks.

"I accidentally grabbed two sandwiches today. Figured you'd take it. When I was your age, I was eating my parents outta house and home." He stops, then offers one meaty hand to Peter. "Call me Lou."

Peter takes his hand, suddenly recognizing the man from the night before. "Peter."

"Nice to meet ya, Peter. Now, sit down and chow down before it gets cold. Let’s get you to school."

Peter drops down in his usual seat, wedging himself over to make room for a sleepy eyed businessman carrying a Daily Planet newspaper under one arm, and opens the breakfast sandwich. The man settles in on the seat behind Peter, muttering about cheap business practices. Peter chows down on his breakfast sandwich and settles in for the ride to school. The food helps; he can feel a tingly itch along the edges of the bruise on his face, indicating his healing factor is kicking in. Peter begins to doze, lulled by a full stomach and the steady pre-dawn rain that taps against the bus window.

“Oh, goddammit,” Lou mutters darkly. “Not the manbats again.”

“The what,” the businessman sitting behind Peter asks.

The what, Peter thinks.

“The what?” the voices at the edge of his consciousness ask.

And then a man sized bat slams against the fucking windshield of the bus. Lou curses and grabs an umbrella from under his seat. He rolls down his window and smacks at the manbat. It doesn’t seem to do much more than annoy the monster. The thing is huge; six feet tall and bristling with muscle. It snarls, clutching the front of the bus, its beady eyes focusing on Peter through the windshield. Peter stares at it blankly, completely blindsided. What the hell is going on?

“Come on! I’m on a schedule!” Lou growls.

A motorcycle revs somewhere to the left of the bus, screeches to a stop, and suddenly the bat creature is kicked off of the bus by Signal. He faces off against the creature in the street, trading blows with it. He almost has it subdued when two more monsters dive down from the sky and leap on him. Signal knocks one aside with a perfectly timed kick, but dodges his attack.

Signal goes high. The creature goes low, moving quicker than Signal can adjust his attack. It grips his arm and twists it. Peter can hear the moment Signal’s arm breaks beneath the pressure. Signal drops to the ground, clutching his broken arm with a vicious curse. The monster grips Signal’s helmet and starts to slam the hero’s face into the pavement, over and over.

Peter’s out of the bus the instant he sees Signal’s arm break, swinging his heavy backpack in a low arc. His backpack lands hard against the monster’s nose, sending it flying back with a startled, ear piercing screech that goes beyond normal human hearing. Peter winces, his ears ringing, but stands above the fallen Signal, holding his backpack like a flail. Three well placed swings sends the closest two monsters sailing away from them.

“Hey, I’m Sam,” Sam says. He’s not speaking to Peter, but to someone else. “Easy, you’re all right. Just stay down and let Peter handle it.”

Peter hears the bus driver curse darkly behind him and scramble out of the bus with his umbrella, whacking the bat creature nearest to him with it hard enough to bend his umbrella in half.

“Kid, are you out of your mind--” Lou starts.

“Protect Signal!” Peter says, swinging his backpack at one of the other creatures. He needs to start carrying his web shooters with him. This would already be over if he had them on hand. “Just stay behind me.”

Three gunshots ring out, and all three of the bat monsters fall to the ground. Peter is suddenly face to face with a tall man wearing a red helmet, a leather jacket, and a suit with a red bat signal stitched across the front. He stares at Peter for a moment, then roughly pushes past him over to Signal, kneeling down in front of him.

“Hey,” the man in the red helmet says. His voice is staticy, as if he’s speaking through a voice changer. He probably is. “Signal. Focus. You with me? Tell me you didn’t pass out with a concussion.”

“I--yeah. Yeah, I am,” Signal says woozily. “Sam kept me awake.”

“Who the fuck--whatever, nevermind,” Red Hood says. He kneels down and helps stabilize Signal’s arm before gently lifting him up on his feet. “Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”

Signal grunts in response, swaying on his feet and leaning hard against the larger man. Red Hood stops to look at Peter and Lou for a moment, his gaze focusing on Peter in particular.

“Thanks,” he says. “That was stupid as hell, but thanks.”

With that, the two heroes leave. Lou and Peter look at each other for a moment and then Lou checks his watch and sighs. “Well, you’re definitely late for school, kid. Come on, I’ll write you a note.”

* * *

“Good of you to join us, Mr. Parker--good lord. What happened to your face?” the teacher asks, stammering out of her snarky remark the moment she sees the bruise on his face.

Peter stops near the door, shrugs, and says, “Uh, a bunch of bat mutants attacked my bus this morning?”

Instead of the incredulous eye roll or smart remark Peter had been expecting, the teacher only sighs. “Great. Those are back. Nice to know. Take your seat.”

“Is this a regular thing here? She took that way too well,” Quill says.

Peter doesn’t take his chances. He drops down into his desk next to Tim and sighs. Tim frowns at him, his expression caught somewhere between intense curiosity and concern. Finally, he reaches over and scribbles a small note onto Peter’s notebook in quick, elegant and decisive handwriting that looks downright professional compared to Peter’s chicken scratch.

Are you okay? You left in a hurry yesterday.

Peter, touched by his friend’s concern, writes out a simple: I’m ok. Just had a bad day.

Tim hesitates, as if debating writing out more, but ultimately decides against it when the teacher moves on with the lesson. She pulls up a Youtube video and puts it on the projector. This is a process that somehow takes up fifteen minutes of class time. Tim pulls out his phone midway through and Peter is vaguely jealous of that. He misses sending trashfire memes at Ned and MJ late at night.

* * *

BATCHAT

Tim (10:01am): he lied about the bruises at school.

Tim (10:02am): he says it happened when the bus was wrecked by the manbat

Dick (10:03am): I saw it clear as day at two in the morning.

Tim (10:04am): he won’t tell me what happened.

Tim (10:05am): school records list an aunt and a guardian of some sort

Tim (10:05am): can someone start a search on Tony Stark?

Barbara (10:07am): Bruce asked after him already. I’ll let you know if I find anything.

Dick (10:08am): I’d like to pay this Tony guy a visit.

Duke (10:10am): so would I.

* * *

The day is half over when Peter realizes Duke is nowhere to be found. He sits down at his usual spot next to Tim, frowning at Duke'd empty seat. /p>

Peter turns to Tim and jerks his head towards the empty seat across the table. “Hey, where is he?”

Tim rubs the back of his head. “He got into a car accident this morning. He’s home with a pretty bad case of whiplash and a mild concussion.”

“Oh,” Peter says, dumbfounded. “Is he okay?”

“He’s in rough shape, but he’ll be fine. The family’s taking care of him right now,” Tim says, shrugging. “I’ll take care of him tonight so my brother and sister can, uh, get to their jobs.”

“Huh. Makes sense.”

“You wanna come with?” Tim asks. “You’re overdue for a visit, and Duke would love to see you.”

Peter hesitates, then shakes his head. He can’t stop his patrols that easily. Not when Gotham is down a hero. “No, sorry. I’ve got some stuff I need to do tonight.”

“Kind of odd how Signal goes out of commission at the same time as Duke, isn’t it,” Fury says.

Peter doesn’t think so. Traffic in Gotham is crazy; car wrecks happen all the time. And between the rain slick streets, Duke’s usual driving habits, and the fact that no one in Gotham knows how to drive like a normal person, it’s probably inevitable that a car wreck happens every now and then.

Peter hears a sigh to his left and has the distinct feeling that someone behind him is pinching the bridge of their nose.

“Oh,” Tim says, frowning. “If you change your mind...”

“I’ll let you know. Promise,” Peter says.

The rest of the day is fairly normal. A few people stare at the bruise on his face, but most ignore him as usual. Peter makes it through the day and ducks out of the school the moment the final bell rings, antsy to get back to the fire house. He spends an hour there, designing and building an upgrade for his suit: a voice modulator.

He adjusts it until it deepens his voice to a strangely mechanic baritone. It’s just deep enough to mask his true voice. He adds it to the suit and starts his patrol.

* * *

BATCHAT

Duke (04:08pm): so two things.

Jason (04:09pm): Fair warning, Duke is high as balls right now.

Duke (04:10pm): first: I know what bus Peter uses

Duke (04:11pm): and Jason keeps drawing dicks on my cast.

Duke (04:12pm): that’s not the other thing, just a complaint.

Tim (04:14pm): we’re well aware of Jason’s shortfalls.

Jason (04:16pm): bite me

Tim (04:17pm): no one says that anymore

Duke (04:18pm): the second thing I learned is that one of Peter’s ghosts might be a superhero.

Duke (04:19pm): one of them got close enough for me to see. he said his name was Sam, that Peter would protect me, and that I needed to stay awake until help got there

Duke (04:20pm): nice guy

* * *

Peter’s patrol is fairly standard: a stopped mugging here, a thwarted burglar there, a few other things to spice things up. Again, little guy stuff. He still hasn’t seen any of the men with the black masks, but he intends to find them at some point. He’s halfway through his patrol when his senses twinge.

He has a shadow. One larger and heavier than his own. And one that melts into the darkness as if born there. Peter's spider sense kicks in as he swings through an isolated alley deep in Crime Alley. He lands on the rooftop of an abandoned movie theatre overlooking the alley, dropping into his normal crouch. The alley is dingy, long abandoned, though there are small murals and graffiti spray painted on the walls: the most prominent is faded, half covered by dirt with the paint chipped away. He can barely read the words Rest in Peace Thomas and Martha painted across it.

He hears his stalker hesitate for a brief moment before landing quietly in the shadows above Peter. Normally this is a good position; high ground is important in a fight. Peter would usually aim for that himself, but he just wants to get this conversation over with, and he has the feeling this particular shadow would seek out an advantage against Peter no matter what.

"You might as well say something and make this less weird," Peter says.

There's a prolonged pause. The only thing Peter can hear is the distant sound of traffic and the rain. Finally, a voice comes from the shadows above Peter.

“I’d like to know what you’re doing in my city,” Batman says. There’s an idle threat to his words that Peter doesn’t care for at all. "What are you doing in Crime Alley?"

“Cleaning up a mess you left behind,” Peter snaps back, standing up from his normal crouch to face the shadows. He can’t see the man, but he can hear his heartbeat and turns to face the direction it’s coming from. Judging by the slight rise in its tempo, that bothers him. Good. He can be just as creepy as Batman if he needs to be. “You wanna know why things are so terrible here? Because the people here know you won’t come and help. Even if every cop in the city came into this neighborhood and stood guard six feet apart, they still wouldn’t keep things calm here.”

“The rot’s too deep," Batman says after a moment. "There's too much suffering here for one person to handle."

“Yeah, and how do you think these people feel knowing that Batman considers them a lost cause? There’s still good people here who deserve your help. You're not giving it to them, so I will. One person can do a hell of a lot more than nobody.”

Nothing follows that, and Peter's annoyance grows.

“If you’re going to stop me, you’re welcome to try,” Peter says. “If not, then stay out of my way. I’ve got work to do.”

Peter leaps off of the abandoned Monarch theatre and swings through the alley. He doesn’t hear anyone follow him.