Dark Matter

Peter rests through the night. He doesn’t sleep, and therefore doesn’t dream; it’s far too cold to do that safely. The blizzard hits Gotham hard and fast. The world outside the fire station is a blanket of white, with snow and ice blasting the windows. Frigid wind slips through the drafty building, causing Peter to shiver and groan, keeping him from reaching true sleep for longer than a few minutes at a time. There’s an unsettling, rattling, watery sound to his breathing, that forces him to cough and startles him awake the few times he starts to drift off. He’s buried under his clothes, blankets, and backpack. It barely keeps him from freezing.

He forces himself to consider his situation, to try and plan. He has nowhere to go. He just has to wait one more day before the stipend hits his account. If he bankrupts himself, he could use all of it to rent a cheap hotel room for the week. He’ll be stuck without food, but right now his shelter is becoming a bigger hazard than starvation. Maybe he can beg some food off of Felicia? She’d help him. Probably. Almost definitely, actually. She is his friend, at least.

He’s tired. It’s hard to think. He needs to sleep, at least for a little while. He can wait one more day.

“You can’t stay here,” Fury says.

“Get up,” Quill says, frustration and worry thick in his voice. “You have to find help, man!”

Peter grunts, burying himself further in his nest. It’s just warm enough that he can sleep. He closes his eyes and starts to drift off--

Something shoves him. Hard.

“Kid, stay awake,” Bucky snaps. “If you fall asleep, you’ll die.”

No, he won’t. He has a healing factor. He can rest just fine, thank you.

“This isn’t working,” Mantis says. “He is very stubborn.”

“I have an idea,” Wanda replies. She sounds tired. Scratch that, she sounds like how Peter feels; one foot firmly planted in her own grave.

“Are you sure that’s smart? You, Doc, and Loki aren’t exactly at your best,” Bucky says. “We haven’t even seen Strange or Loki. They’re stuck in their own worlds.”

“You’d be amazed what a soul can endure,” Wanda says. “This will not take much effort.”

Everything falls silent after that, finally, and Peter huffs out a quiet sigh before closing his eyes. A nap will help. It’ll fix his gunshot wound, if nothing else. He starts to relax despite the cold, drifting off to sleep.

The radio he built clicks on across the room, at full volume. Hit the Road, Jack echoes across the empty room, loud enough to blow out the relatively tiny speakers in the radio. Peter startles awake, jars his gunshot wound, and groans in frustration, pulling his backpack and pillow over his head. Why is that thing on? How is it on? It’s an analog switch and he turned off the alarm function last week!

A burst of static startles him out of his thoughts. These Boots Were Made For Walking starts to play at a truly obnoxious volume.

“Hey, this one’s pretty good,” Quill says.

“Focus, Spaceman. Peter, get the hell up,” Sam says. He sounds sleep drunk and worn down, as if he’s two steps away from falling asleep himself. Something gold flashes, and half of his blankets are suddenly gone.

“What the fuck are you doing, Sam?” Bucky snaps. “You just ashed half of your arm doing that!”

“If he doesn’t get up, it doesn’t matter how much of myself I burn up,” Sam says.

Peter sits up with a frustrated groan, flailing at whoever stole his blankets. The meager warmth he’d built up is gone and he shivers. He’s half tempted to lay back down and fall asleep again. It’s so hard to get up and move. His side throbs in agony, and his back and shoulders are stiff from sleeping in an awkward position. The effort is almost enough to rob him of his strength entirely.

“Think if we play it loud enough one of the Bat people will hear it?” Bucky asks.

“Not unless one of them has super hearing,” Nick Fury replies. “And that’s assuming they decided to frolic across Gotham’s rooftops during a blizzard.”

Another burst of static, this one louder than the rest. Highway to Hell starts to play, loud enough to echo into the alley below. Peter is suddenly struck by nostalgia; this one is on Tony’s workshop playlist. He hasn’t heard it in so long. He forces himself awake to listen to it.

“That’s got his attention,” Hank Pym says.

“Get up, Spider-Man,” T’Challa says.

And go where?

“The library,” Hill says. “It’ll be warm there, at least.”

Well. That’s an idea, yeah. Peter isn’t looking forward to the trip, but it’ll be worth it to stay out of the cold for the day.

“You promised me, Peter,” Janet says gently. She’s tired, too.

That forces him awake a little more. He did promise he’d get help, and the library is as good a place as any. Peter sighs, and begins to push himself onto his feet and towards the fire escape.

The snow has shifted to freezing rain. It makes for an utterly miserable walk. Every movement is torture, but the gentle, murmuring encouragement that surrounds him keeps him going.

* * *

The library is closed.

A hastily written sign is taped to the door: Closed due to weather. Sorry for the inconvenience!

There goes that plan. Peter buries his hands into his pockets and walks back towards the street, heading straight for a bus stop. A huge pool of icy water surrounds the stop and he has to carefully navigate it to avoid slipping or falling into it. He needs to find help. A place to stay. Something. It's so hard to think in this cold. The bus stop is full of snow drifts, so Peter stands outside of it, near the street curb. He wracks his brain, trying to think of where to go from here. If the library is shutting down, then everywhere is going to shut down, sooner rather than later. There’s a cheap hotel at the edge of Crime Alley he could rent a room at---

A red sports car slows near the bus stop, and then speeds past, the driver deliberately swerving into the puddle and dowsing Peter with half frozen road water. Peter startles, shivering, too shocked to even yell. He stares at the car in confusion and shock.

The window rolls down. Edison Bright points and laughs at him before speeding off.

Peter stares after him, baffled.

“I’m gonna murder that kid,” Quill mutters. “What a prick!”

This is bad. Peter's only set of warm clothes, already unsuitable for the freezing weather, are now an active danger to his health. The wind cuts through his shirt, and he can feel his jeans start to freeze in place. He needs to get out of these clothes, into a place that's warm--

"Hey, Peter!" a voice calls out behind him.

He turns around and nearly slumps in relief. “Tim?”

Tim smiles, jogging over. He moves through the ice and snow as if it isn’t there, effortlessly keeping his balance over the treacherous sidewalk as if it were bone dry.

“Hey. I was just heading home,” he says, lifting up his car keys. There's an odd expression on his face, caught somewhere between relief and shock. He takes in Peter’s condition and tilts his head. “You want to come over? The whole city’s shutting down because of the storm.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother. And I’m kinda soaked--”

“Kid, buddy, I will throw you into his car if that’s what it takes,” Quill says irritably.

“Get in the motherfucking car, Parker,” Nick Fury orders.

“---but I wouldn’t say no. I mean, as long as you don’t mind?”

Tim scoffs. “Forget about that. You’re almost the same size as me. You can borrow some clothes until yours dry out and stay until the snow dies down tonight. You in?”

“Yes,” Peter says immediately. “Absolutely.”

Tim’s smile returns, relieved. “Cool. Come on, my car’s around the corner.”

Tim motions for him to follow, practically jogging over to his car, a sleek black sedan that Peter can't even imagine ever owning. He unlocks the door for Peter and hops inside, turning the heat on full blast for Peter as he carefully settles into the passenger seat.

Tim glances at him. "Man, you look rough, Peter."

"It's been a really shitty week," Peter says earnestly, thumping his head against the passenger side window. “A really, really shitty week.”

"Well, Duke and I will have to fix that for you," Tim replies, pulling the car out of park and carefully driving out onto the icy Gotham streets.

"I'd like that," Peter says.

* * *

Peter drifts off. He can’t help it; the car is warm, the rain is soothing, and Tim is nearby, so he knows he’s safe. Even with his wet, cold clothes, he’s comfortable enough to close his eyes and relax. He dozes for awhile, flirting with the edge of true sleep before stirring awake when the car makes a wider than usual turn, the back end slipping just slightly. The movement is smooth, but unusual enough to pull Peter out of his nap.

“Hm?” Peter says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. His side itches terribly; his healing factor has fully kicked in. Judging by the rough edge in his voice, it’s left his cold alone. Great. Hopefully spending some time somewhere warm will help him fight that off, too.

“Sorry,” Tim says, shooting him an apologetic look. “I hit an ice patch. We’re okay, though. You can go back to sleep.”

“No, no, I’m up,” Peter replies, stretching. He tugs against his gunshot wound and bites back a cry of pain. He sucks in a breath and slowly lets it out. Okay, so his wound is healing, but not yet fully healed. Not for awhile yet. Good to know. “Um. Where are we going anyway?”

He glances at Peter from the corner of his eye, frowning. He must have seen Peter flinch. Hopefully he doesn’t ask about it. Peter’s not exactly in the right headspace to lie. Tim clears his throat. “Wayne Manor, just outside of the city.”

Peter freezes. Wayne Manor? As in Bruce Wayne’s Wayne Manor? The thought shakes him free of sleep. “What. Why?”

“Because I live there?” Tim answers, amused. “Bruce is my dad. I thought you knew that? Everyone at school does.”

"Your dad is Bruce Wayne?" Peter asks, feeling himself go pale.

"Yeah, he adopted me. And Duke, Dick, Jason, Cass--well, we all live here," Tim says, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry, he knows you’re coming over. I called him while you were asleep. He’s cool with it.”

“Oh,” Peter says. He’s definitely not cool sleeping in the house of the man he’s stolen from. “Uh, if he’s sure...”

“He’s busy. You probably won’t even see him,” Tim adds. “Alfred’s waiting for us.”

“Alfred?”

“Our family butler. Alfred Pennyworth. But he’s more like family than anything else.” Tim shrugs. “You’ll see when you get there. I think he’ll like you.”

“Hope so,” Peter says, rubbing his throat. Now that he’s awake, he can feel a burning ache in his throat. Talking is starting to become an issue; it feels like he’s speaking around a pile of jagged rocks.

Tim drives slowly and carefully up a winding road covered in a rapidly thickening layer of snow. Wayne manor is built on top of a waterfall, and its brooding hulk towers above the pristine winter landscape. It’s grimly majestic, and looks intimidating even with the snow softening the hard edges of it. Peter’s first thought, above all else, is that Tony would hate Tim’s home. The mansion is huge, austere, and steeped in old world architecture that, while beautiful, is painfully outdated. It looks more like a modern palace rather than a mansion, as if it houses a grim knight rather than a playboy billionaire like Bruce Wayne.

Yeah, Tony would mock every inch of this place. Too dark, too closed off, too old. And Tony would know old, considering he lived through the turn of the millennium and actively threw an ‘Anti-Y2K’ party on New Year’s Eve. Peter had feigned ignorance of the Y2K scare and relished in the despairing, boggled expression on Tony’s face before the man caught onto his teasing and threatened to throw him off the Compound roof.

The thought of the memory, of Tony’s reaction to this place, makes him smile.

Tim brings the car to a stop in front of a set of stairs leading up to two massive doors. He turns off the engine, and the steady sound of the heater is replaced by the sound of the icy rain tapping against the roof. He steps out of the car, pocketing his keys. Peter takes a moment to brace himself, carefully unbuckles his seatbelt, and just as carefully stands up out of the car. The rain hits him hard; after the steady warmth of Tim’s car, it feels that much colder, and the wind outside of the city is sharper.

“Here we are,” Tim says, appearing beside him as if by magic. He eyes Peter worriedly, pauses as if he’s about to comment on it, then presses on. “Come on, let’s get out of this cold.”

He jogs up the steps, paying no attention to the ice covering them. Peter follows at a more sedate pace, wary of jarring his wounds. The door swings open before Tim can put the key inside, revealing a tall, balding man in a well tailored suit. There's a steel gray moustache covering his upper lip and threads of silver streaking thinning black hair. He holds himself in perfect posture. Alfred Pennyworth takes one look at Peter Parker and seems to adopt him on sight. One moment Peter’s standing outside the door with Tim, the next he’s been swept inside and wrapped inside a very thick, very warm, and very expensive looking blanket. The change is done so quickly and smoothly that Peter’s barely aware of it happening at all.

“Master Tim, you didn’t tell me our guest is in need of warm clothes,” Alfred says, a hint of gentle reproach in his tone.

Tim rubs the back of his neck, walking inside and shutting the door behind them. “Yeah, sorry, Alfred. He can borrow some of mine.”

“An excellent idea,” Alfred says, guiding Peter through a grand entry hall and towards a staircase tucked away inside a guest parlor just past the hall. “Please retrieve them for me.”

“Got it,” Tim calls out.

Peter walks towards the stairs, fighting back the urge to gawk at the polished marble floor, plush red carpets, and portraits that line the hall. This place is wealth incarnate and Peter feels more than a little out of place. Tim jogs ahead of them, taking the stairs three at a time and leaving Peter behind with Alfred.

“I’m Alfred,” Alfred says pleasantly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Master Peter.”

“Oh, uh, you know about me?” Peter stammers out. He’s shivering hard now, harder than he did at the bus stop. The cold is always worse for him, and the manor is a little drafty. Alfred adjusts the blanket around Peter’s shoulders, holding it in place for him when his shivering hands fail to find purchase.

“Of course. You are Master Duke and Master Tim’s best friend. They’ve told me all about you. Even Master Richard has mentioned you to me a few times,” Alfred says. He stops at the top of the stairs with Peter. They’re standing inside the living room, inside the northern wing of the manor. Alfred guides him further inside the manor, leading him through a series of hallways until they reach one lined with doors.

“Oh. Huh. I guess that makes sense,” Peter says idly. He hasn’t been surrounded by this much wealth since he visited Tony’s Malibu home over winter break. It’s a different flavor of billionaire playboy, but it’s essentially the same thing. He tries not to think about it too much.

Alfred hums for a moment considering the hallway. “I believe the room across from Master Richard’s is open. Let’s check, shall we?”

He guides Peter over to a door in the middle of the hallway. He opens it for Peter and then steps back into the hallway when Tim comes out of a room next door, holding a set of clothes. Peter peers into the room and blinks. It’s a bedroom suite with a private bathroom, a king sized bed, and a closet that looks big enough to park a car inside of. It's half the size of his apartment back in Queens.

“Make yourself at home, Master Peter,” Alfred says, handing him the clothes Tim brought out of his room. “I’ll prepare a lunch for you momentarily.”

“Uh, right, thanks,” Peter mumbles. He hesitates outside the door, then steps inside the room and closes it behind himself.

* * *

“I’m not sure how long he’ll stay,” Tim says quietly, walking with Alfred down the hall. He glances over his shoulder, frowning. “I said he could stay until the storm passes, but only because I’m pretty sure he would’ve said no if I said he could stay longer.”

“He isn’t one to ask for help, then,” Alfred says.

“God, no. Never,” Tim says with a sigh. “Duke can usually talk sense into him. Maybe he’ll convince Peter to stay. I would’ve suggested Dick handle it, but...”

He trails off, pauses, and then glances around the manor, as if realizing something.

“Hey, where’s everyone else?” Tim asks. “I know Steph and Cass are busy trying to find the Joker, but I thought everyone else would be home by now.”

“Master Duke is with Master Jason in his home. Master Damian is resting in his rooms. His cold is on the upswing, I believe” Alfred says.

“Huh. Has anyone been able to call Dick?”

“No, he hasn't been answering his calls,” Alfred says, a frown evident in his voice.

“Yeah, that figures,” Tim says. “Listen. I’m going to go visit him and make sure he’s okay.”

“Of course, Master Tim. Be safe.”

* * *

Peter spends half an hour in the shower, mind blank, relaxing under the heat and steam. He checks his gunshot wound and is relieved when he finds tender, pink skin where a ragged hole had been. The scar is thick and ugly, and it’s undeniably a bullet scar, but it looks as if he was shot years ago rather than yesterday. He takes care to clean it anyway, and finally ends his shower feeling bone tired and rejuvenated. He leaves his dirty clothes in the hamper, dresses in the clothes Tim gave him; sweatpants, a black and red Superman t-shirt that is far too large for Peter or Tim, and thick socks. Dressed, he shuffles back into the bedroom.

He sits on the bed, stretches, and lays down. He’ll get up in a moment and get lunch. For now, he just wants to lay on something soft for once. He melts against the mattress, snuggling into it with a pleased sigh. His back and shoulders finally unclench, and the stiffness in the muscles there slips away. The room is silent except for the sound of the furnace, the gentle drumming of the rain against the window, and the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Another benefit over the fire station, where he can hear every mouse's heartbeat within the building. He revels in the warmth and comfort, allowing himself one small moment of relaxation.

He’s asleep in seconds.

Fifteen minutes later, Alfred taps on the door and pushes it open. “Master Peter, I’m afraid Master Tim was called away to--oh.”

Peter's response is a gentle snore. The souls attached to Peter’s presence watch the butler carefully, ready to shout Peter awake at a moment’s notice.

Alfred takes in the scene for a moment before walking silently into the room and carefully pulling the blanket over Peter. He tucks Peter into bed with the casual movements of an old pro before dimming the lamp on the nightstand and stepping away. Before he leaves, he frowns back at Peter, blatant worry crossing his features, breaking through the politely neutral expression that he usually wears. He stays like that for a moment before shutting the door behind himself as softly as possible.

The Avengers spread out across the room and stay silent, letting him rest.

Peter sleeps, and for the first time in a long while, his rest is deep and peaceful.