Chapter 37
BATCHAT
Barbara (05:01am): Whoa. The 911 system just lit up in Crime Alley.
Bruce (05:02am): Earthquake.
Bruce (05:03am): Several buildings are on fire.
Barbara (05:04am): Emergency services are swamped. If anyone is inside those buildings, you’re their only hope.
Bruce (05:05am): On my way. Keep searching for trackers.
* * *
BATCHAT
Bruce (07:06am): Fires are handled. Rubble is clearing. Any sign of the trackers?
Barbara (07:08am): No, whatever faint traces I had are gone.
Barbara (07:09am): Duke is awake. He’s suiting up now.
Bruce (07:10am): Have him search where I left off. We need more help. Are the others awake?
Barbara (07:11am): They are. Cass and Steph are dealing with some things downtown.
Bruce (07:12am): I’m on my way back.
Bruce (07:13am): If you find any trace of him, you tell me. No matter what.
Barbara (07:14am): Copy that.
* * *
Peter showers. Dresses. The electric buzz of anxiety follows him every step of the way. He almost forgets to use his inhaler before another laughing fit hits him. The burning tickle at the back of his throat is lessening by the day, but that’s probably because he’s been awake and aware enough to use his inhaler to counter whatever the hell the Joker did to him.
He's in the middle of pulling on a clean shirt when his phone lets out a quiet buzz of its own. He instinctively flings out his hand to use his webshooters to bring it over to him, realizes he hasn't actually made new webshooters yet, and grumbles to himself before crossing over to his bed to pick up his phone like a normal person.
Felicia:the Alley is getting weird
Felicia:you should at least take a look at it. Soon.
Peter: weird how?
Felicia: people going missing, city inspectors think they’ve found some massive underground bunker and disappeared after reporting it, LOTS of bat monster sightings
Felicia: Lou can tell you more, but it’s getting bad out there
Felicia:someone says they've seen Bane and Clayface hanging around, too
Shit.
Maybe that’s what’s spiking his senses? It would explain them, at the very least. If something is going wrong in Crime Alley, bad enough that he can feel it all the way in Wayne Manor, then it’s an Avengers level threat, and one that needs to be handled as soon as possible.
As this world’s only Avenger, that means it’s up to him. Except he doesn’t have a way to get to Crime Alley, short of opening a window and sprinting through the winter landscape outside. Which would probably cause a bit of a stir in the Wayne household.
Felicia:i’m going to go take a look later. Come with?
Peter:i’m kinda in the middle of stuff here today
Peter:and i don’t have a way to sneak into the city. Can’t just swing away from a manor
Felicia:your loss
Peter sets down his phone, his senses buzzing like a high voltage wire. He wants to tell Felicia to stay out of it, to drop back and wait until he’s able to sneak off and help. But he knows how well that will go. They aren’t exactly close friends, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how well Felicia would take that kind of unwanted advice.
He considers his predicament, tugging on his shoes and tying them off before walking out of his room. Peter wanders through the hallway, following the sound of activity. He goes downstairs, wandering through the halls towards one of the living rooms, his mind churning through his latest trouble. He could get away with sneaking off, probably. Most of the Wayne kids are busy these days, and they tend to give him his space more often than not. If he does sneak off, he will, at the very least, upset Dick and Alfred. Maybe that’s a necessary evil? He can’t just ignore the Alley, not that he knows something is wrong.
That’s setting aside the issue of getting there. Wayne Manor is about as far from Crime Alley as you can get, and it’s not like he can just swing from the manor grounds over to the center of the worst part of the city. He’ll need a ride out there. And in order to get that, he’ll need to dream up some reason to get into Crime Alley to bum a ride off of one of the Wayne kids or Alfred, or borrow a car himself. None of those prospects seems likely to happen.
Peter flops down on the couch, face first, and buries his face against the cushions with a frustrated groan. It’s dramatic, and maybe it’s a little uncalled for, but whatever. He's allowed.
Why is life so difficult.
“Are you alright, Peter?” Bruce asks, concerned.
Peter tilts his head, looking up. Bruce is sitting in a chair across the room, holding a tablet in his hands. His suit is perfect, but dark bags hang heavily beneath his eyes. He’s watching Peter curiously, but in the fuzzy way that Tony used to; clearly functioning on less sleep than is healthy. Tim’s sleeping habits are no longer a mystery.
Peter panics for a moment, desperately searches for a reason to be upset that doesn’t sound insane as hell (‘hi, Bruce, I’m a street vigilante and you’re about to throw a gala in my honor, isn’t that neat?') and blurts out, “Have you ever dated a cat burglar?”
Bruce freezes.
“Because I think this girl I went on a kind of date with is a cat burglar and I don’t think she’s stealing from the poor, but it’s kind of a whole thing between us,” Peter continues. “Also she threw me in a dumpster once. Somehow, that’s made her more attractive, and I feel like that should be something I need to look at, but I’m also not sure if I want to know if I’m just naturally attracted to women who can and will kill me yet. So, yeah, do you have any advice for that?”
Bruce stares at him for a long moment before setting the tablet down on the coffee table and standing up. He moves to the liquor cabinet, pours himself a worryingly generous amount of brandy into a glass, downs it in one go, then looks at Peter.
“Good luck with that,” he says, before leaving the room.
Peter stares after him, baffled that worked so well. He’s left alone for a few moments before Tim shuffles into the living room, holding a mug of coffee potent enough to make Peter’s nose itch from across the room. Tim waves.
“Hey, Peter,” he says, motioning for Peter to follow him. “Most of us are in the kitchen.”
“Oh,” Peter says, hopping up from the couch. “I wondered where Dick ran off to. He woke me up and kind of disappeared.”
“Yeah, he’s been up half the night answering phone calls from his friends, I think,” Tim says.
“Friends?” Peter asks.
“Work friends,” Tim says. “They sometimes call him for input on, uh.” He pauses, as if unsure of how to says this. Finally, he settles with, “Family business stuff.”
“So, Wayne Tech?” Peter guesses, shoving his hands into his pockets as they walk the halls. He’s still not entirely used to how large the manor is. How wide the halls are. The walls are well decorated, but something about them bothers him.
They pass by one in particular, one of the more hollow sounding ones, and Peter pauses, frowning. Something clicks inside the wall. It’s gentle, almost impossible to hear over the ambient noise of the kitchen, but it almost sounds like a door. Peter stops midstep and tilts his head, frowning. When Tim sees him stop, he nudges Peter’s shoulder, gently herding him away from the wall.
“A little bit different from that,” Tim says after a moment. “The Wayne empire is wide and vast. In a lot of ways. Wayne Industries has a lot of subdivisions. I tend to stick my nose into WayneTech’s operations more often than anywhere else, really.”
The idea of a kid his age--a brilliant one, to be sure, but still a guy he takes physics class with-- having a hand in the operations of a company subdivision that employs a significant portion of Gotham City’s population is baffling enough to make him forget about the strange wall.
“Oh. That’s interesting,” Peter says, suddenly feeling out of place.
Tim notices and doesn’t quite flinch. “Sorry. I forgot you’re still settling in. Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s just focus on today.”
Sounds good to Peter. “What are we doing today?”
“We’re getting our suits,” Tim says, heading for the coffee maker and pouring himself a generous refill. “And then I’m going back to work.”
“Have you slept?” Peter asks, eyes roaming the kitchen. No one else is here, but there's a steaming mug of tea on the counter, freshly made.
There’s a small flatscreen TV in the corner, channel tuned to Gotham Morning News with the headline: Third earthquake strikes Crime Alley in twelve hours; officials suspect abandoned subway stations are collapsing beneath the streets crawling across the bottom of the screen.
That headline makes his teeth itch.
“Yes,” Tim says. After a moment, he adds, “In theory.”
What the hell does that mean. Peter turns to face Tim and ask exactly that when his senses spike, focusing on the corner behind him. He snaps a hand out, snatching an orange out of the air.
"Nice try, Damian," Peter says, turning around slowly and tossing the orange back and forth between his hands. He grins as the youngest Wayne steps out of the shadows of the doorway. "But you have to try harder than that."
"That can be arranged, Parker," Damian replies, his tone as somber as a church.
It’s then that Peter realizes that Bruce, Dick, and Alfred are also in the doorway. Bruce watches the interaction with sharp interest, his eyes clear and his gaze focused. He looks at Peter with such intensity that it almost feels like a physical thing. Peter fidgets; the last time anyone looked at him like that, they were dressed as a giant bat.
Damian fastballs another orange at Peter while he’s distracted. Peter catches this one as well and idly starts to peel it; he shares some pieces with Damian.
“Seriously, how is this possible?” Damian grumbles, taking the orange pieces.
"I have reflexes you'll never be able to match," Peter says easily, grabbing a nearby plate to put the orange slices on. "I'm just that good."
"We'll see about that," Damian retorts, biting into his orange slice. His eyes take on a devious glint and Peter wonders, just for a moment, if the kid could actually pull it off.
Bruce watches the exchange closely, a glint in his own eye. It's a look Peter can’t quite place, though he's seen something like it before. After a moment, it hits him. He’s gotten that look before alright. From Tony, the day they first met at his apartment.
"The kitchen is now officially a no-fly zone, gentlemen," Alfred says firmly, walking into the kitchen. "The tailor and his assistant will be here soon. They've served the Wayne family for as long as I have and I will not have them struck by stray fruit. We are not having a repeat of the ‘Knife Incident.’”
There’s a distinct thread of desperation to that last part. Peter is suddenly very curious about the ‘knife incident’ and also not entirely sure he wants to know.
“Master Peter, you’ll need a haircut first, I believe--” Alfred starts. He pauses, when a phone begins to ring in one of the rooms down the hall. It’s unbelievably loud and strange to hear; Peter’s used to the beeps and chiptune jingles of modern phones. Or just the quiet buzz of a phone set to vibration only. Alfred frowns. “Please excuse me, I must take that.”
He slips out of the kitchen, leaving Peter along with the Waynes. A brief silence follows. Peter can hear Alfred’s polite tones speaking to whoever is calling them.
“Dick, Tim, Damian, come with me,” Bruce says, breaking the silence. “We need to discuss--”
“I'm going with Peter,” Dick says.
Bruce pauses, drawn up short. He glances at Dick, then at Peter. An odd tension forms between them, and Peter does his best to not squirm. After a few moments, Bruce settles with, “Join us when you’re available.”
“When I’m available,” Dick confirms, pointedly not giving Bruce the timeline. "Duke can stand in for me if it's really important."
"Not me?" Tim asks.
"You haven't slept," Dick says.
“Since when has that mattered?”
"Duke is--" Bruce pauses and glances at Peter for a moment. "Busy. Family business."
“I mean, I can handle getting a suit fitted by myself," Peter offers. The tension between Dick and Bruce is ratcheting up by degrees the longer this conversation goes on, and he’s not a fan of being the cause for it. Plus, if he handles this by himself, there’s the added bonus of possibly sneaking off sooner than expected. “It’s not a big deal, especially if it’s a family thing--”
“You’re a part of this family, too,” Dick says simply. He aims a look at Bruce. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
"Have you checked the group message?" Bruce asks.
“No, not yet. My phone is in my room. I’ll check it later,” Dick says. “Bruce, there’s a ton of us. You can handle things without me for one day.”
Bruce is about to reply when Alfred steps back inside the kitchen and clears his throat, catching the attention of the room.
“That was Lois Lane. She called to inform you that her husband has fallen ill and won’t be able to make it to the gala,” Alfred says to Bruce.
The snaps Bruce and Dick out of their staredown. Both men turn to look at Alfred, nearly identical looks of concern on their faces.
“Since when has Clark gotten sick?” Tim asks.
“Since a few weeks ago,” Bruce replies. He starts to say more, but his eyes flick towards Peter and he hesitates for half a second before speaking again, “Tim, Damian, come with me. We should talk. Dick---”
"I'll join you when I can."
Bruce pauses, but nods slightly, before leaving the room with the others. Tim offers Peter a quick wave. Damian grabs the plate with all of the orange slices. Peter frowns after them, disturbed, but in a way he can’t quite articulate.
Alfred, meanwhile, is as calm as ever. He moves one of the stools from the counter towards the sink. "Normally, I would take you to the family barber, Master Peter, but given how soon the gala is taking place..."
"Trust me, I'm way more comfortable cutting my hair in the kitchen."
"Excellent. Master Richard, if you could get the barber's kit for me from the cabinet--"
The two men begin to set up a makeshift barber station near the kitchen sink. While they're busy, Peter checks his phone. The last message in Wayne Manor Chat is from Duke, asking Peter to join him for a round of video games. It's dated back to the day he officially moved into the manor.
They have an entirely separate group chat. Without him. For all of Dick’s insistence that he’s a part of the family, he's been cut off from it in a significant way.
He clenches his fist when the realization hits him, feeling the green tinged anger inside him begin to simmer with a mix of embarrassment and slow boiling rage. Well, he feels a hell of a lot less guilty about sneaking off tomorrow now.
A distant voice at the edge of his consciousness cuts in.
"Do not let your anger overcome your sense," T'Challa says, his voice distant and difficult to hear. "There may be a reason for it."
That's enough to dampen the worst of his anger, and he takes a shaky breath, forcing himself to calm down.
"Here, Alfred," Dick says.
"Thank you. Master Peter, if you would please join me ," Alfred says.
The haircut takes no time at all. Alfred has an eye for it, despite lacking most of his own hair. Dick hops up and sits on the counter while Peter getting his haircut, chatting idly and kicking his legs.
By the end of it, Peter’s anger has dimmed to an uncomfortable annoyance. He wonders if his senses are somehow making it worse, alongside whatever the lingering effects of the Joker fear serum have on his mood. It helps that Dick and Alfred spend most of the haircut chatting with one another.
“There you are, Master Peter,” Alfred says, stepping away from the stool. “And just in time for the tailor. I think he’ll have extra time for you today since Master Tim and Master Damian are otherwise busy.”
Peter stands up from the stool, running an experimental hand over his hair. His head feels lighter. Dick gives him a grin and a thumbs up.
“Looking sharp, Peter. Ready for a new suit?”
In the back of his mind, Peter hears an echo of Tony, driving up alongside him in one of his fancy sports cars and coming to a halt in the most dramatic fashion possible: “Get in kid, we’re getting you a suit. Oh, by the way, I’m getting married. It’s kind of your fault.”
“Yeah, sure,” Peter says, half lost to his memories as he follows Alfred and Dick over to one of the various rooms in the manor. “Looking forward to it.”
And he is, shockingly, though not because he’s getting new clothes. The tailor is polite, patient, and happy to explain the finer points of how to dress for certain events to Peter. The amount of coordination, the subtleties of how a suit is put together, is a bit lost on Peter, but the tailor’s enthusiasm is pleasant enough. He spends half of the fitting thinking of May and Tony; May helping him learn how to make a tie knot that isn’t an utter disaster, and Tony sweeping through a shop and talking Peter’s ear off while he finds the perfect tux for his wedding. He snaps out of it when the tailor finishes.
“I believe we’re finished here, young man. The suit fits you perfectly. As always, Alfred has an eye for measurements,” the tailor says.
Peter blinks. Almost invisible golden shapes at the edge of his vision fade away. “Thank you.”
The tailor smiles at him as Peter steps aside. The suit is a lot more comfortable than he expected. It still feels stuffy, however. The tailor turns to Dick.
Dick grins at him, bright and mischievous. “Don’t suppose you’ve got anything bright and colorful in that bag of tricks this time?”
“If you try to bedazzle one of my ties again, Mr. Grayson, we’ll have words,” the tailor replies, amused. “Let’s get started.”
Dick laughs, bantering with the tailor like an old friend. Peter half pays attention to their conversation before ultimately tuning it out. He looks outside the nearest window instead, looking out over the snow covered grounds of Wayne Manor. The sky is clear; the air bright and cold. Peter’s eye keeps wandering towards the city beyond the grounds, and the sky. Something about the sky is bothering him.
His anxiety begins to creep back in, despite the pleasant chatter around him.
* * *
BATCHAT
Barbara (06:03pm): Check in time, Duke.
Duke (06:04pm): No luck so far. Jason’s usual hideouts are all clear.
Duke (06:05pm): Another earthquake just hit. It’s too localized to be natural.
Duke (06:06pm): Where is everyone?
Barbara (06:06pm): Bruce is in the cave at the moment with Damian. He’s looking into the earthquakes.
Barbara (06:07pm): Someone with a Metropolitan accent keeps calling in bomb threats in Old Gotham and the city hall district. Steph and Cass are handling those. They’ve found six so far.
Barbara (06:08pm): Dick is with Peter. I’m not sure why he’s not checking his phone.
* * *
“Why are we still wearing these suits? We don’t need them right now, do we?” Peter asks, tugging at his shirt sleeve. The shirt fits him perfectly, and the whole encounter with the tailor had been much less painful than expected, thanks to some half forgotten tips Tony had rambled at him once upon a time.
The haircut is still too new. Peter’s ears are cold, and he has to fight the urge to keep from fussing with his hair too much.
“Portraits,” Dick says, grinning wryly. “Alfred can’t get any of us in a suit very often, and that goes double for me, so he’s taking advantage of our current condition.”
“Portraits?” Peter asks, walking over to Dick.
“Family portraits,” Dick says. “You know.”
“Oh, uh. Right,” Peter says, suddenly feeling awkward.
The only portraits he’s used to getting end up in the school yearbook. And very few of those turn out well. He literally blinked in the middle of his last picture at Midtown. And he never bothered to pay for his picture at Gotham Academy.
“Yeah, my parents didn’t do this sort of thing very often either,” Dick admits. “But Bruce and Alfred are both pretty dead set on this sort of thing. Think of a school picture, except they’re going to put it in a thousand dollar frame and mount it to the wall in the main entrance.”
“And that’s supposed to be reassuring?”
“No, but it’s important to Alfred,” Dick says. “The portrait hall is his favorite place in the manor.”
Well. Peter doesn’t want to upset Alfred. Not when he’s about to go sprinting off to Crime Alley tomorrow. Peter sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Right. Okay. I won’t have to do any stupid poses, will I?”
“Just one,” Dick says, amused. He grips Peter’s shoulder and guides him over towards the grand staircase in the entrance hall. “He knows better than to expect us to hold still for very long. He kind of gave up on that when I first came here and started swinging from the chandeliers out of boredom.”
Peter pauses, his earlier frustration at Dick momentarily resurfacing before dropping back once more. “You what?”
“They were in perfect reach! How could I not?” Dick says, pointing at the glittering chandelier above them. The sunlight from the windows on the upper floors makes the chandelier glow with a golden light.
That thing is within easy reach of Peter, sure, but he can’t imagine how Dick could pull off a jump like that. Unless he jumped from the bannister.
Peter grins. “I wish I could have seen Alfred’s face.”
“Honestly, he handled it pretty well. Just kind of blinked and went, ‘hm’ before taking the picture and finding a ladder and broom to chase me off of it. That picture is on the wall in his room,” Dick says.
Peter wishes he could introduce Alfred to Pepper one day. He has a feeling they’d get along. He grins.
“In front of the stairs, gentlemen,” Alfred says, walking into the entrance wall with a tripod and a camera tucked under one arm. “This won’t take but a moment. Do not climb the walls or chandeliers, Master Richard, I just had them cleaned.”
Dick grins and winks at Peter. “It’s always fun having a house rule created because of you.”
Peter laughs.
Alfred takes a few pictures. The process is quick and neat, and Peter’s anxiety rises for almost all of it. When the it’s done, Peter lets out a quiet sigh of relief. He idly wonders what kind of camera Alfred is using. He’s about to ask when the room darkens. Clouds sweep in across the sky, dimming the light inside the hall to a shadowy darkness as the windows shift from a bright winter afternoon to an almost unnatural darkness.
“Huh, I guess we’re due for another snow storm,” Dick says, his tone a bit uncertain.
“Those don’t look like snow clouds,” Peter says, frowning.
The clouds more closely resemble thick black smoke rolling across the sky. Flashes of light can be see within them. Thunder crackles threateningly above the manor, lightning flickering in the sky, casting sharp shadows inside the entrance hall with every flash. A brilliant flash of lightning briefly illuminates the manor, followed by the near deafening thunder, cracking the sky and rattling windows with a deep rumble Peter can feel in his chest.
It sounds horrible. Threatening, somehow.
“Thundersnow?” Dick hazards, his gaze sharpening. His stance changes slightly, losing the easy grace from before. There’s a strength to it now, one that’s oddly familiar, though Peter can’t quite place it.
“It isn’t snowing,” Peter says after a moment. “It’s not raining. There’s not even any wind making the trees sway outside.”
“You’re right,” Dick says. He squeezes Peter’s shoulder. “Hey, I’ve gotta go do something. Are you okay if I leave?”
Peter does his best to not slump in relief. He nods. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back later,” Dick says. He leaves, moving swiftly down one of the halls Peter hasn’t explored yet.
Alfred frowns after him for a moment before turning to Peter. “You can change into more comfortable clothes now, Master Peter. Leave your suit where I can find it so I can prepare it for tomorrow.”
“Sure, Alfred,” Peter says, his eyes wandering up towards the window and rumbling storm above. “I think I’ve had my fill of stuff to do for the day, anyway.”
“A not uncommon sentiment in this home,” Alfred remarks.
* * *
BATCHAT
Barbara (08:04pm): Duke isn’t answering my pings. When was the last time anyone had eyes on him?
Bruce (08:05pm): The last time you spoke with him.
Barbara (08:06pm): Not promising. How are things at the cave?
Bruce (08:09pm): Not promising. Tim has been helping with the bombs. They aren’t human in origin. I’m going to go find and talk to Dick.
Barbara (08:10pm): When it rains, it pours.
* * *
Peter changes, grabs a notebook, and begins to plan. He won’t be able to make a good suit with the time he has available, but he can make one that works. Maybe something like his original suit. The one he wore before Tony Stark wandered into his apartment and offered him an upgrade in exchange for help.
He gets to work. Outside, black clouds and rolling thunder shake his windows. Peter is sitting at his desk, contemplating suit designs, when he hears two voices outside of his room. Bruce and Dick. They’re muffled by the thick wood, but if he strains, he can just make out their words.
“Have you considered--” Bruce starts.
“I know exactly where you’re going with this and no. We aren’t exposing Peter to any of the family business,” Dick says.
“He’s proved himself already. He can handle it.”
“Absolutely not,” Dick says, furious. “Leave him out of this. All of it. At least one of us needs to grow up normally, Bruce. He’s gone through enough.”
“With his abilities, I think he could--”
“I said no,” Dick retorts, voice as hard as granite. “We’ve lost one already, within the past month.” A brief pause, and then very quietly, “If you turn him into one of us, I’ll never forgive you for it. Do you understand?”
A very lengthy pause follows that.
“I understand,” Bruce says, finally. There’s a strained tone to it, and an undercurrent of stiff apology.
“Good,” Dick says. A door opens and slams shut. After a few moments, the strange too quiet tread of Bruce Wayne walks down the hall.
Peter sits at his desk and wonders what the hell, exactly, is going on inside Wayne manor. This whole day has been full of a simmering tension from start to finish, and Peter is frankly done with it. He heads to bed, fidgeting restlessly for a long time before he falls asleep.
His eyes briefly flash gold when he begins to dream.
* * *
BATCHAT
Barbara (11:14pm): Update?
Dick (11:16pm): I found Jason’s last location. His guns are here, at least.
Barbara (11:17pm): What did you find?
Dick (11:18pm): Several dead bat monsters.
Dick (11:19pm): And ashes.