Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 Getting used to the routine of working full time, feeding himself, paying rent and going on patrols was painfully easy. A week would go by and Peter wouldn't even notice the passage of time, a year would go by and it felt like nothing except a reminder that he had to buy a new calendar.

The work was mindless– patrols quieter, he really did try to keep the spirit of his vigilante identity alive, but it was so hard to do so. He not only felt alone he was alone, so completely alone and it was all his fault so he couldn't even complain about it. Civilians noticed that their beloved Spider was down and conspiracy theories started showing up online. Peter would read them sometimes for fun, they were almost as ridiculous as the truth.

As he grew his efficiency as a super hero grew as well, which meant New York slowly but surely needed him less and less. Did he enjoy the new found free time? Of course not– he took more hours in his second job instead, this worked for a while to fill up his schedule, but his boss caught on eventually and forbade Peter from taking other's shifts. Shortly after this the new Avengers showed up and his patrols were reduced to only a few hours every week.

That was not ideal– he was left with too much free time, and it was dangerous to let his mind wonder… the last time he let himself have a break he spent it whole in his apartment, watching old cartoons on his couch and letting his dirty dishes rot.

The reheated curry rice accident was not to be repeated. He was convinced his body mutated even more after that unfortunate late night dinner…

It became clear that Peter had to find a new hobby, and he had to find it fast.

Today he came home early, because The Red Guardian was out on the streets again stealing all of his daily side quests and being so nice about it that Peter had no heart to tell the old man that he was probably getting a bit too comfortable with running around in Spidey's part of town.

So for the first time in probably a year he activated Karen– well she wasn't exactly Karen, he had to remake her after what happened… but by now after years of adjusting she was almost Karen.

With a shaky finger he pressed a button and her systems purred in response, turning on with a quiet beep.

"Peter, what can I help you with?" Her voice was slightly distorted by his beaten up computer, he was used to it by now. Before he could open his mouth to respond she added; "You look messy, are you feeling alright?" He looked down at himself, his loose sweatpants were stained by pizza sauce, when he looked back up at the screen Karen turned on the front camera and his tired face stared back at him, his shirt had a few holes in it and his hair was held back by a hairband, curling softly on the ends. She was right he looked messy and felt slightly sticky…

"I might be having a cold." He muttered, remembering how hard it rained last night, sure he was more durable with his enhancements, but that unfortunately didn't protect him from common colds.

"Is that the reason you're talking to me after such a long time?" Karen sassed at him.

"You sound angry…" Peter responded, not feeling in the mood for arguing with his ai companion.

"I don't have the capacity for this sort of emotion, but If I did my feelings would be hurt Peter."

"I'm sorry." He shifted on the chair, moving his body to sit cross legged.

"Apology accepted, now what do you need me to do?"

With the help of Karen he went through all of his unfinished projects contained within the computer, this way his next two weeks filled up well enough to satisfy his bored mind, but it wasn't enough and he didn't have any more ideas for new gadgets.

That's what made Peter pick up his research regarding the multiverse he started after the whole fiasco with Stephen Strange. Thinking about it hurt, but doing nothing also lead him to thinking about it so he might as well do something productive with his suffering.

He scavenged parts with Karen to add to his computer– the idea was not to make a portal or anything like it, that would be too dangerous and Peter didn't have this sort of tech anyway.

For now he just wanted to try and connect himself to other universes web network and have fun watching their movies.

That was it really.

He hoped to connect with a universe similar to one's the other versions of himself were from, but that didn't happen, Instead he found himself in a web network full of hero's he never heard about.

It worked! His stupid fucking invention worked. It was probably the first time he smiled in a month after Karen exclaimed they were in. She was happy too, learning new data about the place and compering it with their universes own.

The Chitauri Crystal powering up the whole thing still worried him, but at least now Peter didn't feel bad for stealing it.

He watched a lot of movies with Karen, not knowing half of the references used in them, but oh It was so fun, and in this universe they used the original movie script for the Star Wars sequels, Peter cried tears of joy when he saw it. He played some games too and obviously studied the new world's history. The feelings he was getting from this whole experiment could be described as similar to that sensation you get from reading a new fantasy book, but ten times stronger.

He had to admit he missed a few patrols because of this project, but it was so worth it and he was sure Alexei didn't mind more work.

After his initial media binge he finally took his interest with the heroes of this world and started watching live streams from their fights. Most of them were from Metropolis– a funny name for a city, it was kinda like New York, but from the footage Peter seen it definitely looked a bit more tidy, and the only reason he could witness the fights so closely was because of one crazy reporter named Jimmy Olsen.

Superman was cool– even with his unoriginal name and cartoonish looking costume, Peter found himself wishing that they had a hero like that here, especially back when he was starting out. It would've made things so much easier for the world and for himself too, probably.

Metropolis got boring after a while, Clark– that was Superman's civilian name, and just to be clear Peter wasn't praying on the man's secret identity– but Karen was, and he couldn't physically stop her. She literally didn't have a body.

Clark was nice, nice to the point it made Peter want to cry sometimes, and watching him help people every day was starting to make him feel uncharacteristically jealous, so one day after Superman defeated an army of alien drones Peter made Karen hack one of them and that's how they gained a body of sorts to move around with in this strange world.

He used his savings to buy a brand new virtual reality headset and every time Peter had some free time at home he would plug into it, and just explore the town with Karen having fun in the towns CCTV system.

It had a flying and a crawling mode, funnily enough one could mistake it for a spider. If he could physically touch it he would've scribbled his logo onto it and painted it red, maybe even added a pair of googly eyes.

After he reached Gotham with Karen using their tiny body Peter started to worry. Weren't they causing too much interference? He didn't want this universe to collapse because of his meddling. He turned off the VR headset for a good few days and had a small existential crisis while Karen researched if this universe had any other instances with the multiverse and how it reacted– turns out it did, a lot of instances actually.

Karen assured him that it was alright to proceed and he did, but after turning on the headset and walking around he found his drone in a black room Karen couldn't see on maps. It made sense, they didn't exactly hidden it well before Peter's freak out and he didn't want to generalize, but Gotham's population was known for their sticky fingers.

He moved around completely blind until his robot body slammed against something, he could hear a hum of a computer, a big one.

The only sane option was getting into it, it took him and Karen a lot of time and when they finally did it Peter couldn't even celebrate, because when the lights turned on he immediately realized;

They were in a cave, a cave filled with bats, a fucking Batcave.

Peter hacked Batman's computer by accident.

"Should I erase the footage and put the drone back in its place?" Karen asked him calmly and Peter…

Peter nodded, because he was too much of a nerd to back out now.

Chapter Text

Next morning Karen notified him when someone entered the Batcave, and Peter immediately sprinted back towards his computer, leaving his half eaten bagel behind on the kitchen counter. 

 It was early and usually he would be working at this hour, but one of his coworkers called, begging to take his shift– she needed extra money because her car broke down, and Peter didn't have the heart to decline her. 

Honestly he was glad– no, not that her car broke down- no, but that he could stay home today and enjoy what he and Karen managed to do yesterday. Going  through Batman's  files was like opening a blind box made by a paranoid old man who still paid for pizza with cash because banks couldn't be trusted, and to be fair Gotham's banks didn't have the best track of keeping money safe.

 Still after breaking the unnecessary codes and closing all the doors leading to nothing, what was left from grandpa's anxiety induced box just looked like a messy teenagers room with a organization system based on vibes and maybe some form of neurodivergence, but Peter was not a doctor just someone with undiagnosed ADHD, so he wasn't going to assume anything about Batman and his Batcave full of gadgets that the  name's of all started with the letter B. 

The first person to enter the cave was a young, slim man wearing what appeared to be his pajamas. He sat down and turned on the computer without even looking around, before opening a can of sugary soda he had hidden in the pocket of his overly large sweatpants. 

The fact that almost  half of these vigilantes under Batman's wing were underage was making Peter cringe internally. At least they had a support system, someone to go on patrols with, but still. It was a little strange to see, especially with the reaction Peter got from his own so called mentor back then when he wanted to pursue more serious crime on his own. 

He didn't want to think about it, this was meant to be his relaxing time not; 'let's open the wounds that never properly closed up' time.

"Which one is this, Karen?" Peter whispered to her, even though there was no way the young man on the other side of the screen could hear him. 

"I believe who we have here works under the pseudonym of Red Robin, although it would be more accurate to say 'Tim' right now." Looks like Karen was eager to spoil Peter's fun of finding out everyone's secret identities on his own. 

Tim, Tim, Tim– he repeated the name in his mind, but it was easy to remember, this guy did look like a Tim. 

"Cool." He squinted watching the figure down half of his drink before scanning through recently opened files. Peter's and Karen's presence so far went undetected. "Do you think watching them like this is weird?" 

"…" 

"Karen?"

"I think any kind of attempt at socialization is good for you, no matter how bizarre." 

"That was a low blow." Peter sighed pressing his forehead against the desk.

"You programed me to be honest." 

"I did didn't I?" 

She didn't respond verbally, instead a GIF appeared on screen– one depicting a badly edited animation of a cat looped in an endless, helpless shrug. 

That feature was also Peter's fault. 

…

Tim yawned, it was far too early to start work in his opinion, but he didn't want Damian to get his hands on the computer. The little shit would probably take over Tim's already opened case, which was a constant issue ever since the winter break started. 

Bruce really should one up on extra curricular activities for that one, sometimes it felt like each new Robin was just a higher step of the insanity ladder, and to be honest Tim couldn't even be mad at the kid because he himself was just one level below him…

He looked down at the keyboard and sighed, before downing his soda and tossing it aside into the melt and reuse bin, lower quality metals were important too, okay? 

What he was  currently working on was a little message to Superman about what Batman found on yesterday's patrol, right before he had to ditch them all for some 'important League mission' classified or whatever.

 He copy pasted Bruce's report, made some adjustments and got up to fetch the drone.

Yesterday's scan didn't show much and it didn't appear to be working, but Tim wanted to open the robot up himself and see if anything can be salvaged from it. 

They didn't have another one to compare it to, the ones that weren't destroyed by Superman went into self destruction protocol right after the main robot was defeated and they couldn't be salvaged. 

This one though… this one made it to Gotham. 

There was for sure something wrong with it. 

He started unscrewing the bottom of it– the alien screws were a little wonky, so he had to use one of Batcave's weirder utensils. 

The inside looked unamusing, just like the scans showed, no strange life forms inside, no bombs, no nothing.  Tim looked for the robots power source, and when he found it he delivered an optimal electrical shock to turn it on. It stood up, lights flickering to life. 

He waved his hand in front of it, but it didn't move which meant it probably got wiped… shit. 

Tim's suspicion was confirmed when he started trying to get into its hard drive and the alien code protecting it didn't look alien at all. He cracked his knuckles and got to work. 

It took him an hour….. 

A fucking hour! 

Most of the drone's memory was gone, but there was one video…

A video of it trying to steal googly eyes from the craft store and that was it, nothing else.

He really should have left this case for Damian to take care of. 

…

"He's so angry!" Peter giggled using his Victorian Era aristocratic lady giggle, that he has been mastering ever since his landlady introduced him to all of these romance tv shows based in 18th century.

God, he was so lonely. 

"Karen, he's angry typing." The joys of watching teenagers struggle probably meant he was getting old. 

He read somewhere people were getting mid life crises in their twenties now, was that what's going to happen to him? 

The image on his screen flickered and now instead of watching Tim from a corner camera Peter was facing him. Karen gave him a front view from the batcomputer, it felt far too close for Peter's liking, but Tim's angry scowl was a sight to behold. 

Did it count as stalking If you lived in a different universe? Eh, it was fine this was Peter's science experiment after all, and its not like he was watching these people in their bathroom for some notorious purposes– he was watching them in their secret Batcave instead for pure entertainment, like… like a tv show! 

The second window that popped up was the screen itself, this kid was typing fast and he wasn't even using spell check, impressive. Did the Bats had special typing training?– no that would be silly… He'll check in the files later. 

"He is writing that the alien vessel has been compromised by an unknown earth based entity, most likely of human origin– and that it is plausible that the suspect is linked to a criminal organization, but for now he believes that the hacker had been working alone and might be a new uprising… Gotham Rouge. " Karen rephrased the long message unprompted. 

"We're a what now?"  Peter didn't have any drink to drink, because who really remembered about hydration these days anyway? But If he did he would choke on it for purely theatrical reasons– he had to entertain himself somehow. 

"It's a word for a villain." 

"I know what it means, but we didn't do anything evil…" He squinted at the screen, eyes focused on Tim's annoyed nose wrinkle. 

"We didn't pay for the bus tickets." Karen said sternly– this high morality feature was also implemented by Peter, back when he was in a much better financial situation…

"That was in Metropolis not Gotham, and we were riding on top of the bus not inside it." He pointed out and Karen artificially sighed, too lazy to respond to him with words. 

Tim finished writing and went back to inspect the drone, he poked it with a pencil then grabbed it, turning it around before shaking it. 

"Why would you consider something trying to decorate itself  villainous?" Peter asked Karen, but before he could continue his musings his own voice echoed through the Batcave's speakers making Tim jump and look around frantic. 

Karen unmuted him. 

She fucking unmuted him! 

'Why did you do that?" He mouthed in panic, while Karen was already typing an explanation.

'Forced socialization' The text in the font that shall not be named, but hunted every graphic designer on earth, exclaimed. She had a dignity to add a little heart on the end though… so can Peter really be mad at her? 

"Who's here? Show yourself!" Tim screamed in a forcibly deepened voice that made Peter cringe. He already managed to put his mask on and grab a weapon, little did he know there was no one to hit, Peter was inside his walls only in a figurative sense. 

He had a feeling that trying to convince him he's just a friendly ghost hunting the most secure computer in the world wouldn't work…

Peter took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself to do one thing Parker's were awful at doing– lying. 

"Hello Tim." He said in the most costumer service automated voice he could manage. "I apologize for the abrupt comment, what can I help you with today?" 

Chapter Text

"Why would you consider something trying to decorate itself  villainous?" A soft masculine voice spoke through the speakers, and it made Tim's muscles tense up in an instant. His first thought was that Oracle was making fun of him by using a new voice changer, but then he remembered today was the first of the month which meant she was attending physical therapy until 10 a.m.

Someone was in the cave, it was impossible to remotely connect yourself to the speakers, Tim knew because he tried, they all did to insure Bruce's insane safety procedures worked, and if their attacker was smart enough to sneak into the cave undetected, and connect themselves to the speakers, then what was stopping them from getting into the computer? Was there even a point in putting on his mask? 

He grabbed his bo-staff and haphazardly put on his mask anyway, hoping that by some miracle his identity was still intact… wishful thinking, he's aware. 

Tim could feel the mask sitting crooked on his nose, yesterday's glue barely holding on. 

"Who's here? Show yourself!"  He screamed one of the most overused phrases in horror movies while readying himself for a fight. He needed to contact others and close the batcomputer immediately, he couldn't give the attacker any more time to steal valuable information-

"Hello Tim." They know, fuck, why didn't he sleep in today? Why did he have to be productive? This could have been Damian's problem! 

"I apologize for the abrupt comment, what can I help you with today?" And why did this voice sound like it was ready to take Tim's burger order? 

…

"… What?" Tim went from being ready to fight into a state of such childish confusion that it almost made Peter snort, but he obviously couldn't let himself do that on speaker. 

"I asked–" 

"I know what you asked! Who are you, and what do you want?"  The teen snapped, lowering his weapon, maybe realizing that Peter wasn't here in person, he started slowly approaching the computer, looking all over the ceiling at the cameras. 

And that was… that was a very threatening face for someone so young. 

"Apologies, I was under the impression that Batman already shared the news with his…" He cringed internally at his language, apologies– really Peter? Looks like a year working for a call center stays with you, ugh. He'll have to scroll his brain cells away today to fall asleep and reset himself from this costumer service mindset.

And  what word would be most appropriate to use? coworkers, associates? No,  Batman wouldn't use these words when describing his family, right? Peter wasn't so sure. "…team."  He ultimately decided on the safest option. 

"What news?" Tim was almost by the keyboard, still looking tense and ready to pounce, a bit like a cat. Peter loved stray cats, there was a bunch of them under his building and– don't get distracted. 

"News that I have been finally implemented into your data base." Was this tone too chipper? Probably, maybe he could audition for advertisement voiceovers, how much does something like that pay? 

"…implemented?" 

Pity he couldn't put this in his work experience, since it was illegal and these people didn't exist in his universe to begin with, probably…. he should check, and he shouldn't be thinking about work off work anyway. 

"You seem to be a little confused, let me clear things up; What I am is the cave's new artificial intelligence, an assistant to make your lives a little easier." He fiddled with the loose sticky note on his desk, Tim stopped in his tracks a while ago, so he wasn't too worried about the teen getting to the computer and calling for help. 

"What I am not is a threat, or a person like you assumed." A warm feeling of pride bloomed in his chest, was it just his delusion talking or was Peter actually pretty good at this whole lying thing? If he thought about it like selling toilet paper to the old ladies it was actually pretty easy. 

Tim blinked so hard his eyelids almost made that cartoonish noise you can hear in most animated movies. 

"I thought that project never went anywhere?" He sounded unsure and much less hostile, which meant Peters plan was working, ha! 

He couldn't believe it, now will he actually be able to interact with these hero's? Maybe even help on missions? His own 'the guy in the chair' fantasy might be coming true, thank you Karen, and oh, oh…

Oh, shit.

 There was a project? There was a project! Okay, maybe that's good, Peter can work with that. Like a god sent Karen pulled up Batman's files regarding artificial intelligence. 

Said project was a flop, obviously. The Justice League gave the prototype an unlimited access to the internet and it made the ai so depressed it turned itself off, relatable if you ask him. 

"I was under the impression that Batman never lets go of things for too long." He responded, getting a bit too cocky. 

 "Yeah, when you're his work he doesn't." Tim winced.

That right there was a middle child who's about to spill some tea, and Peter had to intervene. 

"Exactly, and hopefully I'll be a great help in maintaining a manageable level of work for all of you." Faces of all his managers flashed before his eyes in an instant, making him shiver in disgust, a similar reaction could be seen from Tim, which was interesting since this kid didn't look like he ever worked in retail, but who knows? 

"Given your facial expressions you don't seem to believe me?" He asked gently. 

"Well I- wait, you can tell what face I'm making?"  Peter wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not, but Tim's lips made a perfect straight line at this moment, something he heard referred to as a 'white people smile' he too suffered from this condition.

"I told you I'm not just a simple speech module, I'm an artificial intelligence, one made to co exist with creatures of biological matter like you, so of course I'm programmed to be sympathetic." Peter could already hear Karen's lecture about how she doesn't 'talk like that' coming, but he didn't want to act too human– this universe was clearly not used to robots not sounding like robots, from what Peter could gather. 

"Interesting…" There was that glint in his eyes, a glint Peter knew well, a curiosity of an inventor, something no tech person could resist. Tim fell right into his little web, and even if he didn't completely believe Peter's story he would be too interested in finding out the truth to sabotage whatever he thought Peter was doing here.

"I can tell that you're still weary of me, will showing you my code help?" Come child, there's candy in the back of the truck– god, he needed to stop talking to Deadpool, his gruesome humor was rubbing off on Peter, much like the man's sweaty palms. 

He'll tell him to piss off the next time he's out on patrol– that's what he's been telling himself for years. 

"That would definitely soothe my worries." Tim's tone was odd, what must be going through his head right now? Peter tried to place himself in situation such as this and failed, mostly because he couldn't imagine being a child of a millionaire, and not because the situation was too strange. 

"Look, don't touch." Tim sat down before the computer and Peter showed him Karen's code on the screen, the teens eyes went wide and he actually started reading it, his gaze traveling up and down, up and down, completely focused on the lines. "I would say that it's fragile, but it's not, you could delete paragraphs of it and I would still work, but this is still an equivalent of showing you my innards, like we're in a operating room or something close to that, so be mindful of it." 

"This is amazing." Tim whispered, and it made Peter feel warm inside, he spent ages trying to rebuild Karen, so she would remember him, almost half of the code Stark wrote was gone, now she was as much of  a Peter's creation as she was Tony's, and only recently Peter gave her full access to write her own code.

 Someday she'll be entirely her own creature and that made him feel good in a way, almost parental which was so silly because in this relationship Karen was so much more of a parent towards him then he could ever be towards her.

"Who made you exactly?" A fair question he had no answer for.

"It was a group effort, of course." Karen already started writing him a response, he didn't know who half of these people were, but he trusted her. "From the brightest scientists of the League who meticulously studied Red Tornado's operating systems and Lex Luthor's confiscated technology… but if you want to get into details and not names I can tell you exactly how I work." 

Tim's smile was bright, Peter wasn't sure if he believed him, but right now the kid seemed to have as much fun as Peter, it felt nice. He was smiling too, the corners of his lips hurt. 

"I would love to, but I have to check where this little guy came from through the Gotham's camera footage, Metropolis is a long way from here." Tim pointed at the drone. "Unless… you can help me with that?" He squinted up at him, this time eyeing the computer's camera. 

"What if I told you that I already did that?" Peter send a thumbs up to Karen who was getting all the video's ready for Tim's viewing. 

"Then I would have to thank you–" He stopped himself, nose scrunching in thought. "Do you have a name?"

"Peter." Tim eyed him weirdly, and yes this was a very human name wasn't it? " It stands for; Personalized, Efficient, Technologically Enhanced Robot, but that's a lot of words, so you can just call me Peter." He smiled, even though Tim couldn't see it, maybe it could be heard through his voice.

The aforementioned teenager was rubbing at his chin in such a way it made Peter anxious.

"It's pretty basic, but at least you don't have a prefix 'bat' like everything in here, so I can't be mad." He chuckled. "So, about these videos…"

Looks like Peter was officially in!