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Chapter Text

Peter awoke to the sound of his alarm blaring in his ear, amplified by what felt like a million. He groaned and instinctively swung a hand at the alarm clock, knocking it off his nightstand and ripping the plug out of the wall.  

He reluctantly lifted his head from his pillow to stare at the window, vision blurry. It was still dark outside. 

“What the heck?” he muttered, sitting up and squinting down at the alarm clock on the floor. What time is it?  he thought, trying to recall what time he had set the alarm for. Oh, whatever. He was already awake. The brunette let out a very disgruntled yawn, stretching his arms up in the air before forcing himself out of bed. He was definitely sore. 

Peter rubbed his eyes to try and get the sleepiness out of them, simultaneously stumbling over to his closet. Maybe he could stage some good photos of himself in the Spider-man suit as the sun rose. 

Out of all places, Dick had not expected to be in New York City today. Let alone, babysitting . 

“Bruce doesn’t take me seriously anymore,” he half joked dramatically as he walked across a rooftop in his Nightwing suit, Damian following close behind as Robin. 

Dick stopped to stare down at the city. It looked just like Gotham, but… more taxis. 

“Tt,” Damian scoffed, his usual scowl plastered on his face. Typical. Dick had barely said anything, and the kid was already angry. 

“This is not my fault,” Dick defended, folding his arms. 

Damian moved around him so he could lead the line, his posture no less brisk and precise than it would be had this been a real mission. “Which is why I don’t intend on staying with you, Grayson.”

Dick did a double take. “Well, now, hold on—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, Damian shot his grappling hook across the sky and jumped off the building.  

Putting on the gloves of his suit, Peter shot another glance out the window subconsciously. He was startled to see a figure suddenly swing past the window, gone before he could even distinguish who they were. 

He snapped into action, scrambling to pull his mask over his head as he pushed the window open. He leaned over the windowsill to try and catch another glimpse of the stranger. Who is that!?

“Hey!” Peter yelped, leaping out the window and shooting a web at the building adjacent to his. 

Something exciting to start the morning, how wonderful. Maybe this guy would be nice. “Hey buddy!” he yelled, trying to catch up to the stranger.

Damian was going to ignore the stranger until he caught a glimpse of him. 

Skin tight red suit. Black and white eye holes. He looked like a child cosplaying as Deathstroke. 

And shooting out of his wrist was… spider webs. 

He’d heard about this guy. 

Damian doubled back and leaped to the ground, his cape catching the wind. He pulled down his hood and drew a katana sword. 

“I’ve seen you on the news,” he announced, his tone confident and authoritative as always. “What do you want with me?”

“Oh, no way, the news! Guess that makes me a celebrity, huh?” Peter quipped, swinging down to the street and landing with a little backflip. He was careful to keep his distance, eyeing the stranger warily as he took a step toward him. 

“Don’t worry, you can have my autograph if you want it,” Peter assured him, shrugging his shoulders. 

He peered at Damian through his mask, the whites of his eyes narrowing as he looked him up and down. He’d never seen this guy before!

“You’re joking.” Damian gave the guy a death glare through his own mask. He sounded like a complete dork. Kind of like Grayson, but younger and more pathetic. The spider theme was a waste of potential. Spiders were evil. This guy sounded like he’d never hurt a fly.

“Uh, well, not really, no,” Peter shrugged again. “Cool suit, by the way.” He definitely could tell this guy didn’t like him, but he also hadn’t attacked Peter yet, so maybe he wasn’t a bad guy. Honestly, he couldn’t tell. 

“Tt,” was Damian’s reaction.

He hadn’t sheathed his sword yet, though he was growing steadily more sure that he wouldn’t need weapons to take this spider guy in a fight. 

“You never answered my question.” he pointed out.

“Wait, uh… what was your question, again?” Peter asked, scratching his head. Okay, maybe he was messing with this kid, just a little. But he definitely couldn’t remember what the question was.

His Spidey-sense was doing nothing to warn him, so he had relaxed slightly. This guy wasn’t trying to kill him. Not for now, at least.

Damian’s glare intensified. The spider guy was wasting his time on purpose, wasn’t he?

He was considering stabbing him when a swooping sound from above interrupted the thought.

Ugh. Grayson.

—

Dick had seen news stories about Spider-man, but he’d never expected to meet him. New York City was crime ridden, but not enough that he’d considered going before this morning. They had their own vigilantes— ones who strictly didn’t interact with the Justice League or the Titans or anyone else related to Batman. He’d assumed Spider-man was among them, but judging by the way he was talking to Damian, he either didn’t know about the unspoken rule, or he didn’t care. He seemed like more of a solo act than the others, which Dick respected.

He did a flip over to where Damian stood, not missing the murderous look on his face. It had been three minutes and he’d already made an enemy.

“Hi,” he said casually, waving at Spider-man. “I’m Nightwing. This is Robin. I’d like to formally apologize for his behavior.”

Damian kneed him in the abs for that.

Peter greeted Nightwing with a friendly wave. “Wow! Hi, I’m Spider-man,” he introduced himself, relaxing even further. He watched Robin’s retaliation to Nightwing’s comment, snickering quietly. 

“So what are you, this kid’s like…babysitter? Or something?” Peter asked, grinning underneath his mask. These guys were very interesting. 

“He only thinks he is,” Damian sneered, folding his arms. He did not need babysitting. He’d fended for himself easily before he’d been Robin, and he should’ve been allowed to do whatever he wanted. Father was weak for not trusting him.

—

As soon as Dick had recovered from Damian’s blow— which had hurt a lot more than he would admit— he smirked. This was an amusing situation. “We’re partners today, since he’s being punished for disobeying protocol,” he clarified. “Normally, he works with Batman.” He paused. “...You know who that is, right?” He hadn’t known who Robin was, so he was starting to second guess it. Had the other heroes been leaving him in the dark? What were they called again? The Revengers? No, wait, that wasn’t right.

“Um. Yeah, yeah, he sounds familiar,” Peter responded, nodding vigorously. He definitely didn’t know any Batmans. 

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that you guys are not bad guys? Is that- is that a fair assumption?” he asked, folding his arms. “I don’t need to web you up or anything?”

“I’d like to see you try,” Damian said arrogantly, holding up his sword. 

Dick directed an exasperated sigh in his direction, then turned back to Spider-man. “Robin needs to work on his manners. Again, I apologize.”

He shot Damian a glare before he could hit him a second time. 

“We’re vigilantes, like you,” Dick told Spider-man. “Need a break today? We’ve got you covered. Though, I’d be interested in learning how that webbing works before we go off and fight bad guys.”

Spider-man’s suit looked high tech, and Dick had heard his webbing was strong enough to hold the weight of a car, which begged a lot of questions. Where did it come from? Was he a metahuman, or had he engineered it all in a lab?

“I actually make it myself.” Peter felt slightly offended that these two random vigilantes had shown up in his neighborhood to fight his villains. 

“But it’s okay, I don’t really take breaks. Where are you guys from, exactly? I mean, there’s no way you’ve been here in New York this whole time.” He crossed his arms, glancing over as a motorbike drove by. The sun was starting to come up, illuminating Nightwing and Robin’s faces slightly better than the nearby street lamps were. 

“Gotham City,” Dick replied, raising an eyebrow. Apparently, Spider-man knew less than he’d thought. If he hadn’t even heard of Gotham, there was no way he knew about Blüdhaven. 

“It’s the most crime-ridden city in America,” he explained. “So, not for the faint of heart.”

“Sounds like a lovely place to live,” Peter said wryly. He’d heard of Gotham, but he’d actually never been before.

“So like, do people just know your secret identities? Do you have secret identities? I gotta ask, ‘cause, y’know, your masks only cover like a fourth of your face,” the brunette asked, rambling a bit. It felt really good to talk to other superheroes, actually. It had felt like forever since Dr. Strange’s whole spell mishap situation.

Dick had to laugh. No one had ever asked him that question before. It felt illegal, to be honest. “Well… People don’t usually pay attention to our faces while we’re fighting. For one, it’s normally night time, and for two, most of our villains are insane and couldn't care less who we are. Though, technically, yes, our identities are secret.” 

Spider-man had rambled and now he was rambling. This was fun. The more they talked to him, the more Dick liked him. He wasn’t used to people who actually wanted to chat.

“Right, right, that makes sense. ‘Cause like… my identity is secret, that’s why I got the whole body mask thing.” Peter loosely gestured up and down at himself. “People found out who I was a while back and it didn’t go well,” he said, wincing immediately afterward. He was grateful they couldn’t see the pain in his face under his mask. 

Dick exchanged a look with Damian. Bruce hid his identity for safety reasons as well, but the fallout had never been earthshattering when people had figured it out in the past. It was how Tim Drake had become Robin, and Joker himself had figured it out and straight up said he didn’t care. His obsession was with the Bat, not the man.

Damian moved on quickly. “A mask like that would restrict breathing and decrease fighting abilities,” he stated, being a know-it-all, as usual. Dick resisted the urge to slap him in the back of the head.

“Actually, you would think that, but really it’s super breathable,” Peter pointed out. He paused. “I can definitely breathe better without it, but it doesn’t really hinder me from doing anything I could normally. My senses are super heightened, so that helps. Spidey-sense,” he explained, almost proudly. He missed when Ned was the one asking him these kinds of questions. 

“Tt.” For a moment, Damian looked affronted, but he recovered quickly, his expression hardening. “Spidey-sense? Who picked that name, a five year old?”

Dick nearly groaned. Damian was such a menace.

Peter shrugged, relatively unoffended. “I mean, that is what it is. I was 14 when I got my powers,” he told Damian, rubbing his arm. 

“Pathetic. I was ten when I became Robin, and less than four when I learned to fight.”

“Robin,” Dick scolded. “Cut it out.”

“Dude, that’s crazy. No wonder you’re so mad about everything.” Peter gave him a sympathetic look, but he supposed that was indistinguishable through his mask. 

Damian held his sword up. “I could kill you, you know,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Easily.”

Dick facepalmed. Damian wouldn't actually do that— not with him here. He hoped.

Peter shrugged his shoulders. “I, arguably, could do the same thing. But I won’t, Spider-man doesn’t kill people,” he added quickly, straightening his posture a little. Too much trauma associated with that thought, he decided. 

“Just like Father,” Damian muttered, glaring at the ground. There was more anger in his voice now, so Dick opted to change the subject.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Crime here isn’t the only reason we came. At least, not your crime. There’s a person here connected to one of Batman’s cases we’re supposed to find.”

Spider-man looked at Nightwing, whispering as if Robin couldn’t hear, “Geez, is he really always like this?” 

He clapped his hands together immediately afterwards, rubbing them like he was plotting something sinister. “Hey, good luck, there’s a lot of people in New York City,” Peter pointed out.

Dick chuckled. 

—

Damian glared. “Both of you are insufferably annoying.” The more Spider-man spoke, the more ridiculous he sounded. He hadn’t thought it possible for another hero to be more ridiculous than Grayson. Though, he’d met several who’d come close. Superman, the Flash, Starfire, Beast Boy, Red Robin…

—

“We’re splitting up,” Damian announced.

“But Batman said to stay together,” Dick argued, his voice sharpening.

“Exactly.”

Tense silence settled between them before Dick spoke again. “You can’t keep disobeying him, and you know it.”

“I can do whatever I want,” Damian said stubbornly. 

That hit a nerve. “Do you want to keep being Robin or not?”

Peter was just standing there awkwardly, slowly inching away from the two of them. He was really hoping he could get some good photos for Jameson, but he let out a sigh when he realized that couldn’t happen yet.

“You guys probably want my help, right?” he asked, hoping to distract them from their arguing. 

“No,” Damian said, at the exact same time as Dick said, “Yes.”

Dick scowled, cursing Bruce internally for sending him on this stupid mission when Tim or Stephanie or even Jason could’ve easily gone instead. 

“Yes,” he repeated. “I want your help. If Robin doesn’t, he can face the consequences.”

“Oh, good, because I really didn’t want to go in to work today,” Peter said, sounding relieved. 

“So who’s this guy you’re looking for?” he asked, glancing to the horizon. The sun was peeking over the buildings around them, casting the street with a warm glow and quickly restoring the normal hustle and bustle to the street. 

“It’s classified,” Damian said immediately. 

Dick sighed. “Technically, it is. But Spider-man is a fellow superhero. I trust him.” He gave Damian an older-brother-ish look. “Are you helping us or not, Robin?”

“Not willingly,” was his answer, but Dick was relieved. That was a yes, even if the kid still needed an attitude adjustment. 

“Aw, thanks, dude, I trust you too,” Peter said, stepping forward to offer Nightwing a fist bump. 

Dick smiled, returning the fist bump. 

Then he continued. “The person we’re looking for is a man named Salvatore Mancini. We suspect he works for The Penguin, but we’ve traced his location here.”

“Okay.” Peter nodded vigorously. “Do you have his location now?” he asked, looking from Nightwing to Robin. 

Dick took a few minutes to show Spider-man the logistics. He had enough tech that it wasn’t hard, and the cases on his tablet were organized perfectly, thanks to Tim. They had Mancini’s exact location, since they were tracking him. 

“Okay! Um, wow, he’s just a couple blocks away,” Peter observed, studying the screen. 

Suddenly sounding excited, he said, “Let’s go get him!” Without moving more than his arm, he shot a web at the street light behind them, suddenly flinging himself up in the air and swinging around the lamp before landing gracefully on top of it.

 “C’mon, before he moves!” Peter called down to them from where he was crouching atop the street light. He waved at a car as it passed by with its windows down, the kids in the back seat excitedly yelling Spider-man’s name. 

Damian used his grappling hook to get onto a taller streetlight to his dominance. 

He did not want Spider-man to join the mission. …But he also didn’t want Grayson to tattle to Father that he’d run off by himself. He still wanted to be Robin, despite how much he hated the rules that came with it.

—

Dick let Spider-man lead the way until they got down to a very suspicious looking subway station. 

Damian had fallen back but was still following them, clearly brooding. All the Robins were guilty of it, but Damian was the worst, probably because he was directly related to Bruce. Like father, like son.

“His tracking beacon is here,” Dick announced, looking around. There weren’t any trains in sight, so he assumed this station was abandoned. Typical bad guy meeting place.

“Could he be under us?” Peter asked, hopping down from the railing he had been perched on as he pointed to the stairs beside him. They led down to the underground subway station, darkness shadowing the tunnel as it remained unlit by artificial or natural lighting. 

“Dude, it’s like a lair down there! I’ve never been to a villain’s lair before,” Peter said excitedly. 

Dick smirked. Spider-man was such a noob. He and Bruce had seen many lairs in their day. Batman HAD a lair. 

Damian gave a signature “tt” behind them, evidently thinking the same thing. 

“I have a feeling this one won’t be all that impressive,” Dick said, looking around for stairs. Nothing was sticking out yet. Were they even in the right place?

“Let’s go find our guy,” Peter said, shooting a web at the railing to swing himself down the staircase, disappearing into the dark tunnel as he swung underneath surface level. “Woo!”

Chapter Text

“Hey, anyone down here?” Peter yelped from the bottom of the stairs, his voice echoing up to where Nightwing and Robin still stood. 

“I love his energy,” Dick said, the smirk not leaving his face. Had Spider-man met him back when he’d been Robin, they would’ve been instant best friends, he was sure. 

Damian didn’t say anything, but Dick could feel an eye roll through his mask. 

He ignored it and followed Spider-man, doing his own gymnastics down to where he stood. Damian trailed behind him, his assassin skills shining through with his swift, stealthy movements. 

Peter closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to let his Spider-sense take over. He felt, oddly, nothing. “He must be further down,” he muttered, thinking aloud. 

“Do one of you guys have a flashlight?” he asked, turning as he heard Nightwing and Robin coming down the staircase. 

“Obviously,” Damian said, reaching into his tool belt and pulling one out. Yellow and black, to match his suit, complete with the strongest LEDs in Gotham. Spider-man didn’t have a tool belt, or anything else visible to hold weapons or other useful items. Damian had no idea how he succeeded in fighting villains. 

Night vision was built into all the Robin and Batman masks, so he’d never actually had to use the flashlight before, but he was sure it would be effective. 

“Oh, great,” Peter said, blinking through the darkness at the flashlight held in Damian’s hand. He was sure he would have been fine with his Spider-sense alone, but being able to see where you were going wasn’t terrible. 

Dick was following the tracker carefully, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of activity. This area was completely dark, abandoned, and smelled like sewer. The perfect place for a villain’s lair. 

“It says he’s just east of us,” he announced. A few more minutes and they’d be there. 

He turned to Spider-man. “You ever do stealth missions?”

“Um,” Peter tilted his head, thinking. “Yeah, a few times.” He kept his guard up as they walked down the corridor, looking down each intersecting tunnel as they passed it. 

The sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance echoed around the underground corridors, putting Peter on edge. “Do we know what this guy is doing down here?” he muttered as they hopped down onto a train track and began following the rails down a new tunnel. 

“Not exactly,” Dick said, shaking his head. “To be honest, we don’t have much information to work with. This guy is known for keeping things under wraps.” He was bending the truth a little with that statement. The main reason they lacked information was because Bruce hadn’t seen Mancini as a real threat, but he figured there was no use in telling Spider-man that and getting Damian mad all over again.

Soon, they came to a trap door.

“Okay, let’s—”

Damian had already opened it and jumped to the bottom before Dick could finish his sentence. He groaned. Damian was always five steps ahead, and most of the time, he lacked the patience to include others in his plans. Not exactly sidekick material, if you asked him.

He blinked and Damian was gone. He’d turned his flashlight off and disappeared. 

“Wonderful,” he muttered. He was going to have to tell Bruce about this.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Peter glanced at Nightwing. “Guess we’re following him now?” He hopped in after Damian.

“Hey, bird guy!” he whisper-yelled, “Where’d you go?” Peter found himself face-to-face with seemingly impenetrable darkness, and he took a deep breath, starting to feel a tingly warning feeling. They were close. 

No answer.

Dick peered into the darkness. Even with night vision on, he couldn’t see Damian. He couldn’t hear his footsteps either. He was either well-ahead of them or being stealthy enough that he was undetectable. Or both.

He sighed. “He’s a former assassin.” He was tracking Damian, but he figured they could humor him for now. 

Not that he would ever admit it, but Peter was a tiny bit scared. A brief wave of grief washed over him when he found himself missing Mr. Stark’s suits he had made for him. Night vision goggles would have made Peter feel a lot better right now. 

“How close are we?” Peter muttered to Nightwing, his voice staying steady despite his racing thoughts. 

“Close,” Dick whispered, squinting ahead. He couldn’t see anything yet, but he could practically feel evil nearby.

He pulled out his escrima sticks as soon as he heard voices up ahead.

There were two men arguing. One sounded vaguely Italian, so Dick was pretty sure that was their guy.

Peter narrowed his eyes once he had detected the voices, barely able to distinguish the words they were saying. 

He caught only a few words before they lowered their voices, and he could no longer hear what they were talking about. The brunette frowned, glancing to his right at Nightwing. “They said something about… water supplies?” Peter whispered, sounding a bit confused. “And nanobots?” 

He perked up when one of the voices became audible again. “The other guy just called the Italian guy useless,” he added. “I think they’re still about 200 feet ahead…” he mused, trying to focus on what he was sensing. 

Dick hadn’t been able to distinguish any words. He raised an eyebrow at Spider-man. “Do you have tech installed in your suit that enhances your hearing?” he asked. 

“No, actually,” Peter replied, reopening his eyes and turning to Nightwing. “It’s something that I can just kinda… do,” he shrugged, quickly realizing how horribly he explained it.

“I was bit by a spider that gave me superpowers,” he clarified, still keeping his voice low. 

Dick grinned. “So you are a metahuman.” Spider themed superpowers. He should’ve known. “Cool.”

“Water supplies, nanobots, and useless, huh?,” he recalled. “We should probably get closer.”

He wondered how far into the tunnel Damian had already gotten as he led Spider-man forward. 

Up ahead, there was an opening. 

“Aw, thanks,” Peter said, following after Nightwing. “Yeah, I guess I am a metahuman if that’s what you call it,” he said, smiling a little under his mask. That was a cool way of putting it. He really liked this guy. 

Peter felt the panicky feeling in his chest increasing as they approached the opening. The eye-whites of his mask widened dramatically, and the hero tensed and dropped lower to the ground. Keeping his mouth shut he quickly overtook Nightwing, gesturing for him to stay quiet and putting an arm out to stop him as they reached the end of the tunnel. 

It opened up into what appeared to be a huge, manmade abandoned cave. Two figures were standing in the center. Dim, flickering lights from the fixtures overhead barely illuminated them as they continued talking to each other. 

Peter was careful to stay in the dark, watching the figures carefully. He knew they were now within earshot and would be able to hear any move he or Nightwing made.

Damian was still nowhere in sight, but Dick had snuck a look at his tracking beacon while he’d been walking, just to make sure he was safe. According to that, he was somewhere in this room, hiding. 

Dick followed Spider-man’s lead, using his black suit, mask, and hair to his advantage as they snuck around. 

As soon as they’d found a decent hiding spot, he had a good look at the figures. Immediately, he recognized the one on the left as Mancini. He looked just like his photo. Stubby and bald. The other man was taller, with gray hair and a beard. Both wore black clothing, but no masks. They hadn’t known they were going to be spied on. 

“Boss is waiting,” the taller one spat. 

“You think I don’t know that!” Mancini retorted, clearly angry. He took a moment to compose himself before continuing. “Tell ‘im I’ll be done by this afternoon, and the plan can commence. Alright?”

Spider-man watched with narrowed eyes, crouching further to the ground as they eavesdropped on the conversation. He stayed extremely tense, ready to fight if anything were to happen. 

He blinked as the tall one reached into his back pocket, pulling out a gun. Peter tilted his head slightly, his Spider-sense tingling again.

“Good, ‘cause the boss don’t like waiting for people,” the taller one grumbled, peering at his gun as he cocked it. “This bullet’ll be for you if you don’t make it happen, and soon. ” He pointed the gun at Mancini briefly before returning it to his back pocket. “Understood?” 

Mancini suddenly sneered. “I take it back. I’ll tell ‘im everything myself.” He reached into his own pocket and pulled out a different gun, as if the first guy’s had given him the idea. 

Then he cocked it and shot the guy in the head. 

Dick would’ve tried to save him had he had time to react, but it had been so quick, he hadn’t even been able to move yet. 

The taller one had tried to reach for his own gun but it was too late. Peter flinched as the gun went off and watched in horror as he fell back, his body hitting the ground with a loud thud. 

The brunette stayed frozen, staring at the lifeless body in horror. “Oh my gosh,” he gasped. Suddenly the superhero realized he had spoken aloud and he slapped a hand over his mouth, inwardly cursing at himself. 

Dick winced. As much as he liked Spider-man, his approaches hadn’t been near as efficient as he was used to. He wished he could say he was surprised he’d blown their cover, but that would be a lie. 

Thankfully, Damian appeared out of the shadows and attacked Mancini before he could point his gun anywhere near them. 

Damian’s cape swooped as he disarmed and pinned down the criminal with ruthless precision. As soon as he stopped squirming, Damian held a Batarang to his throat. “Who do you work for?” he roared. 

Mancini only glared up at Damian, grunting and squirming again when he asked him the question.

Peter managed to quickly compose himself and he hopped up, stepping out of the darkness and trying very hard to avoid looking at the body as he approached Damian and Mancini. 

“Hey, Robin, there you are!” he greeted Damian with a pat on the shoulder. He looked down at Mancini, narrowing his eyes slightly. “You know, as evil villains go, you’re pretty lame. Like, seriously, only one gun?” 

Damian held another Batarang up to Spider-man’s throat so he’d back off. This was supposed to be an interrogation, and he was ruining it by acting like a child. 

“Woah!” Peter yelped, throwing his hands up in defense and taking a step back. “Whatthehell!? I thought we were working together,” he huffed, folding his arms. 

Mancini sneered up at Damian. “I don’t gotta tell you nothin’,” he hissed. 

Damian didn’t hesitate to punch Mancini in the face, still holding the Batarang. A sharp line of blood appeared from his jaw to his cheek. 

“Talk,” Damian warned. 

“I don’t know who the hell you are,” was Mancini’s only response, seemingly unafraid of Damian. 

Peter didn’t like Damian. At all. He also didn’t want to see anyone else get killed right now. “Wait, hold on- I have an idea,” he cut in suddenly, stepping towards Robin again. 

Dick pulled Spider-man back before Damian could threaten him again. He was willing to listen to the guy, but not before he got him out of stabbing range. Granted, Damian also had near perfect aim when he threw, but if it came to that, Spider-man’s sixth sense thing would hopefully keep him safe. 

“Robin. Take it down a notch,” Dick scolded. 

Damian growled in annoyance, but turned to him and Spider-man nonetheless. “Unless your idea involves violence, I guarantee you it won’t be effective.”

“Okay, just- trust me,” Peter told Damian, motioning for him to get off of Mancini. “I do it all the time.”

Damian stared at Spider-man like he was insane. Trust him? He’d not only intruded on their mission, but he’d blown their cover. 

“I’m not moving,” he told him arrogantly. 

—

Dick gritted his teeth. Damian and his power struggles. “You’re wasting time,” he called. 

“Just—please, man,” Peter groaned, clenching his hands into fists. 

Not more than a second passed before he just sighed and shot a web at the Batarang held to Mancini’s throat. It knocked Damian’s hand away from Mancini, sticking it to the stone floor beside his head and sending the Batarang flying across the ground with a soft clang. 

There were several things Damian could’ve done to reclaim his spot, but he settled for cutting through the web with his other Batarang, getting up, and letting Spider-man have his moment. 

He folded his arms and stood beside Grayson, unhappy but no longer arguing. 

“ Thank you,” Peter said to Damian, watching as Mancini suddenly scrambled to get up. 

“Oh, I don’t think so-” He shot two more webs at Mancini, milliseconds apart and binding his legs together. Spider-man walked up to him, suddenly reaching up to shoot a web string at the ceiling overhead. Still holding it in one hand, he picked Mancini up by the legs and tied it around them. When he let go, Mancini was left suspended in the air, hanging upside down and acting very upset about it. 

“You better let me go or my boss will-” 

Peter shot a small web at his mouth to keep him quiet. He turned to look at Nightwing and Robin, gesturing at the work he had done. “See? Does this make you feel better?” he asked Robin.

“Tt,” Damian scoffed. “I could’ve done the same thing with my grappling hook, easily.”

Dick smiled coyly. “You could've, but it wouldn’t have been near as entertaining as this.” Using webbing to cover villains’ mouths? That was hilarious. 

“Thank you. I think.” Peter couldn’t tell if that was patronizing or not. He quickly turned back to Mancini, folding his arms. 

“Okay, you wanna know why this is bad for you?” he asked Mancini, as if he were capable of responding.  

“Well,” he began, taking a deep breath. “Hanging upside down can be very dangerous for a regular guy like you, especially for extended periods of time. All that blood rushes to your head and can cause things like asphyxiation, brain damage, neck injuries, even death. And it all happens a lot quicker for big guys like you,” Peter pointed out. “Realistically, I got all day, but we can make it easy and you can give us answers now.”

Mancini began to grumble something inaudible and Peter reached forward, ripping the spiderwebs off his face. “What do you want to know?” he spat, glaring at the three of them. He wasn’t getting paid enough to care anymore. 

“Um.” Peter paused. “I actually kind of don’t really know who you are, I’m just helping these guys, so…” he trailed off, taking a step back so Nightwing and Robin could face Mancini. 

Damian looked like he was itching to get back in the interrogator spot, but Dick stepped up before he could take it. He hadn’t had a chance to be intimidating yet. 

“You don’t work for the Penguin, do you?” he asked, though it was more of a statement than a question. 

“That pudgy freak? No,” Mancini barked, thrashing a little and flinging his arms around, as if that would help anything.

Peter webbed his hands together, chuckling a little when Mancini kept squirming. “Good luck with that, those webs can hold a ferry together.” Well, almost. They almost could. 

What?  

Spider-man’s webs were strong. A whole ferry was insane. 

“You think Penguin is pudgy? You should see yourself,” he told Mancini. He paused and then got back to the point. “Who do you work for?”

Mancini grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. “He’d kill me if I told you,” he huffed, still slightly swinging back and forth. “And then he’d kill you too.”

Peter crossed his arms. “Okay, buddy, just tell us. We don’t wanna hurt you if we don’t have to.” 

“Debatable,” Damian muttered, gripping his Batarangs tighter. 

“I hate to break this to you,” Dick said, “but I’m pretty sure whoever your boss is plans to kill you regardless.” That was usually how it went with henchmen. “Tell us about him and we can keep you safe.”

Mancini scowled at the three of them. Admittedly, he was starting to feel faint. “Dr. Elias Veyl,” he said, closing his eyes with a sigh before opening them again. “But he calls ‘imself ‘The Plaguemaster’. A bit ridiculous, if you ask me.” 

Dick jotted that down on his tablet, though he figured he would remember the name ‘Plaguemaster.’ “Never heard of him,” he murmured. He knew most of the criminals in Gotham like the back of his hand. “He’s from New York?”

“Manhattan, I think,” Mancini responded. “He’s a real secretive guy, won’t tell anyone much about anything.”

“Woah, no way, Manhattan’s awesome,” Peter gasped. “I’m from Queens.” He stepped forward to offer Mancini a fist bump, then quickly snickered when he realized his hands were still webbed together. 

“I’m not the one from Manhattan, you moron,” Mancini snapped. “How do you guys work together? I don’t see the fit.” 

“We don’t,” Damian supplied, shooting Spider-man a glare for the millionth time.

Dick got back to business. “You wouldn’t happen to have his lair’s location, would you?”

“I don’t,” Mancini replied. “But the dead guy over there was supposed to meet with him in a few hours.”

“That’s convenient,” Dick groaned. It was always the important ones who got killed. 

“Although,” Mancini said a moment later, “I know where Veyl’s old office is.”

Peter perked up. “Seriously? Where?” 

“A hospital in Midtown Manhattan. I think he managed a wing there,” Mancini explained. 

Chapter Text

The sun had risen completely by the time the trio arrived at the hospital. 

Dick had been considering walking in and telling the workers at the front counter what they were looking for, though that would be difficult if they weren’t familiar with Batman. 

Thankfully, he realized it didn’t matter when they actually saw the place. 

“It’s closed,” he announced. 

“We can see that,” Damian replied flatly. 

The parking lot was empty and none of the lights were on. Except, it was a Friday morning, which made Dick wonder if it was closed for good. 

“Oh, I think I read about this place! It was shut down by the state because of poor maintenance, or… something. Patients kept dying in weirdly high numbers,” Peter said, his voice becoming more hushed by the time he got to the last sentence he spoke. 

He glanced up at the dirtied glass windows covering the entire east side of the building, shuddering inwardly. The whole place gave him a bad feeling. “This was probably pretty recent, when it closed down.” 

“Tt.” Damian was only vaguely listening, using the tools in his belt to pick a lock on the nearest door. 

People dying in weirdly high numbers wasn’t anything unusual where he was from. Though, it did give them a lead. They needed to go inside and see what else they could find. 

“Oh, wow, breaking and entering, that’s a good one.” Peter walked up to where Damian was standing, watching him in fascination as he picked the lock. 

“Or you could just…” he shifted slightly to the door to the right of the one Damian was working on. Without hesitation he swung a punch at the metal door, effortlessly knocking it off of its hinges and sending it flying inside the building with a loud clang. 

“Now there’s evidence we broke in,” Damian said sharply, folding his arms. Once again, Spider-man’s clumsy approach was grating on his nerves. He was undisciplined and aimless, completely unworthy of his position as a vigilante. “If the Plaguemaster finds out we’ve been here, we lose the element of surprise. Thanks to you, that’s highly likely.”

—

Dick hated to agree with Damian when he was being so cruel to their new companion, but he had a point. As detectives, they’d been trained to never leave traces. It came natural to him after working with Batman for so many years. Although…  their interaction with Mancini had probably compromised them already, so he wasn’t too worried about what happened in this building. 

“Well… no power, no cameras… no problem. Right?” Peter shrugged, stepping inside the building. 

He just wanted to find whatever they were looking for and get out. Even in the middle of the day, this entire block felt so strangely abandoned. Not at all anything like the normal bustling New York he was so used to. 

“That is not how it works,” Damian retorted. 

Dick could practically feel him seething from where he stood. Ever since Spider-man’s upside down interrogation bit had been a success, Damian had seemed to have it out for him— more than before. The kid was too arrogant for his own good. It would be a miracle if this day ended without him challenging Spider-man to a fight. 

They stepped into the building, which looked… significantly less creepy than Dick had expected. Probably because he was used to fighting Joker and Harley Quinn asylum level bad guys. 

He glanced at Damian to gauge his reaction, but he was still busy brooding. His glare pierced the back of Spider-man’s head even through his Robin mask. 

Peter could definitely feel Damian’s eyes on him, but decided to ignore it. He really didn’t know why the kid hated him so much. 

The hallway was eerily silent. Peter could almost feel the silence in the air. It was heavy and sticky and stifling, and also smelled really strange. “Dude, what the hell is going on with this place?” he muttered, looking down each side of the corridor. “Where to first?” 

Dick sucked in a breath. He, too, had noticed the smell, and he was trying to pinpoint what felt familiar about it. He’d dealt with chemicals plenty of times. The problem was, it was hard to remember which ones were which. Bruce and Tim were always better at keeping track of things like that. 

Something was setting off alarm bells in his head. Something smelled… foul. Like rotting meat. He was starting to think he’d underestimated this place’s creepiness level. 

“This way,” he guessed, following a gut feeling. 

The smell only grew stronger as they got further down the hall, and by the time they reached the office labeled ‘Dr. Veyl,’ he was almost gagging. There was something dead in here. It was obvious now.  

Peter nearly choked on the air as they neared Dr. Veyl’s office. “Dude, enhanced senses are great until you’re smelling something like this ,” he managed to choke out, having to pinch his nose through the mask, which, by the way, was completely useless at air filtration. He made a mental note to figure out that modification when he got home. 

Damian, as usual, looked completely unfazed. 

Dick should’ve been unfazed, since he’d dealt with situations like this countless times, but it was easier said than done, especially with Spider-man tagging along, reacting to things with no filter. 

This Veyl guy was clearly more evil than they’d anticipated, and Dick had to admit, he found himself wishing Bruce was helping them on this case. This wasn’t thugs in Blüdhaven. This was Batman’s forte— a grim mystery involving a sick, twisted villain who was probably homicidal. 

He held his breath and pushed the office door open. 

Nothing stuck out right away. It looked normal enough. There was a bed in the middle of the room, a counter with a sink in the corner, and two chairs by the door. The walls were a clinical shade of gray, with no decorations in sight. 

There was another door on the other side of the room that Dick was afraid to open, labeled with a sign that read ‘employees only, keep out.’ 

Damian went up to it immediately. 

“Wait,” Dick said. “Let’s try the cabinets first.” 

He bent down to open one and found a shelf of empty vials. Odd thing for a doctor to have on hand. 

He picked up a vial and put it to his nose, breathing in the scent. He recognized this one. Though, it was also labeled. 

Endocrasyne-14; Lot #: 0144-P; Cortisol Pathway Destabilizer – Hazard: Psychological Instability.

“Poison.”

He picked up another one. 

Vertigine-X; Lot #: 0279-B; Motor Inhibitor Compound – Risk: Loss of Equilibrium & Blackout

After inhaling that, Dick swore he felt dizzy. If that wasn’t just nerves, traces of these poisons still lingered on the vials. He was starting to think they should’ve come in here wearing gas masks. 

Spider-man was trying to breathe from his mouth to avoid the smell, but he could practically taste it on his tongue. “What the…?” he muttered, walking up to Dick and peering at the vials. “What kind of poison?” 

Dick held out a hand so Spider-man wouldn’t come any closer. “Dangerous poison. Lots of it.” He needed to log all of these, but he hadn’t brought the proper equipment. It wouldn’t be worth inhaling more.  

He shut the cabinet door abruptly. “They’re not safe to breathe.”

Damian looked like he wanted to say something— probably along the lines of, ‘tt, I could take it’—but he remained silent. Dick loved moments where he knew when to shut up. 

“…I guess we open that door now.”

Peter followed Dick’s gaze to the door in the back of the room. “I’m not doing it,” he said, putting his hands up. Besides, there was probably still more in the room they were in to explore. He was, admittedly, a little scared by the ambiance here. 

Damian did the honors. 

What he saw made his blood run cold. 

He was used to death— when it was fast and violent and controlled. He’d seen countless people die in combat, be executed, be assassinated . 

This was different. This was sloppy. Indignant. Multiple bodies were shoved against the wall, rotting and abandoned. Lacerations and bruises littered their limbs, suggesting surgeries or injections. The doctor had been experimenting on them.  

How had no one else found this?

“Robin?” came Dick’s voice. “You okay?”

Damian’s jaw tightened, and he stepped back to reveal the scene. 

Peter’s eye-whites widened in shock and he nearly choked on the stench. “Oh my go—” he cut himself off, retching dramatically and whirling around to avoid looking at the scene any longer. He actually thought he was going to throw up in his own mask. 

“I’m gonna throw up,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes firmly shut in a desperate attempt to eradicate the horrific image from his brain. 

Dick felt similarly nauseous at the sight and smell combination, though he knew how to keep his composure. He’d done it a million times. 

Plus, he’d expected a dead body. Not many , but still, it didn’t surprise him all that much. Like he’d thought, Dr. Veyl— the Plaguemaster— paralleled Batman’s most classic villains. 

Peter hated death. He had suffered through too many deaths already, but this was nauseatingly different. He’d never seen a rotting human body before, let alone smelled one. 

The brunette staggered towards the opposite door, his head spinning. He could taste the stench and it was suffocating. 

He felt vomit coming up and as quickly as he could he tore his mask off, deciding he would rather compromise his identity than throw up in his own mask. He hunched over the cold metal sink and vomited, letting out a nauseated groan afterwards. “Ew.” 

Dick had the courtesy to turn away.

“Alright there, Spider-man?” he called. Spider-man wore a mask for a reason. He wasn’t going to make him lose his anonymity when he didn’t have to. Besides, he did not want to see vomit right now. 

—

Damian watched with disdain. Not only was Spider-man so puny he’d just vomited at the sight of a crime scene, but he’d pulled off his mask to do so.

“You exposed your face because you can’t stomach death,” he observed, the words heavy with both judgment and disbelief. “Pathetic.”

Once again, Damian’s jaw tightened. The display of vulnerability was so ridiculous it made him uncomfortable. How was Spider-man still alive? He wouldn’t last ten seconds against Damian’s enemies. 

He was more sure of it after seeing the guy’s face. His features were boyish and his expression displayed fear and disgust like he was proud of them. He was soft . On purpose . 

“Wow, that was really gross I’m sorry,” Peter shuddered, turning around to face the two of them. His grip on the mask in his hand tightened and he ran his other hand through his tousled brown hair, taking a deep breath. 

He finally processed what Damian had said. “It’s okay, I trust you guys. I’m Peter Parker, by the way,” he huffed, sticking a hand out to shake Damian’s hand. Admittedly, he felt a lot better after vomiting. 

Damian stiffened. Spider-man had known them for less than two hours, and he already trusted them enough to introduce himself like they would be best buddies. That completely undermined the purpose of his mask. 

“You may trust us, Peter Parker , but that doesn’t mean we trust you,” he said coldly. They didn’t shake hands. 

Dick had turned around, but even he looked wary. “How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Dude, do I really look that young?” Peter said, sounding a bit exasperated. “I’m 18,” he pulled his hand back after a moment, folding his arms and giving Damian a pointed look. 

“My bad,” Dick replied, grinning a little. Eighteen. That was the last year he’d been Robin, plus, Tim’s current age. 

Part of him wanted to unmask himself to make it even, but right now wasn’t a great time. Neither of them were supposed to be breaking protocol either. Bruce was the one who enforced the code names only rule, and he was already pissed at Damian. 

Damian was currently scanning the room again, clearly feeling unsettled about what they’d uncovered despite his bravado. He hid fear well, but Dick had learned to pick up on it. He was his little brother, after all. 

“We should take notes on these bodies. …And then we should probably call the police,” he announced. 

“Yeah, that’s… disgusting. And horrible,” Peter agreed hoarsely. He ran a hand through his hair again, trying to hold his breath. He had gotten sort of used to the smell, but he still felt nauseous. 

“So we know this guy is insane. Unless this isn’t his doing…but I’m pretty sure it is.” 

Peter held his mask up to his face, trying to avoid breathing in the stench any longer. He didn’t dare look at the pile of bodies in the corner again. 

With the bodies for context, one more quick sweep through the office told them the gist of what had been going on. 

Veyl had a collection of poisons he’d been testing on patients through injections and gas. 

They’d had to open the cabinet of vials again to narrow down his goal. Dick hoped they were mistaken, but it looked like he’d been trying to develop a mind control gas. 

“How original,” he muttered. How many times had the Joker mind controlled his victims? Not to mention Scarecrow, who was practically the king of using poison as a weapon. And Poison Ivy? It was literally in her name. 

…But this was different. They’d fought Gotham’s villains so much, they’d become predictable. Bruce knew every toxin they ever used. There were shelves of antidotes in the Batcave that never failed. But this? This was completely new. 

An antidote could likely be made if they encountered the actual poison, but they had no idea where Veyl was located now, and poison wasn’t Dick’s expertise. Damian had experience with it, but that wasn’t the same either. He couldn’t lie… he was scared. 

“What is?” Peter asked, shooting a glance at Nightwing. He walked over to the cabinets of vials, picking up one and inspecting it closely. He felt a weird tingly feeling in his brain and moved it further away from his face, his brow furrowing. 

“It’s simple, Parker,” Damian said. “There are dead experiments in the other room and assorted poisons in this one. Anyone who isn’t incompetent can deduce that Veyl was perfecting a concoction designed for the harm these labels indicate.” He held up one of the vials to prove his point. 

Neurocrypta-V; Lot #: 0321-F; Limbic Override Agent – Hazard: Compulsive Obedience / Loss of Autonomy . 

“Mind control,” he stated. “Obviously.”

Peter gave Damian another indignant scowl. “Oh. Well, yeah, obviously, now that I’ve actually read the vial,” he huffed, throwing a hand in the air. He gave Dick a look.

“If you were more observant, you would have read it earlier,” Damian retorted coldly, not missing a beat. 

Once again, he considered stabbing Spider-man. His inadequacy for this case was dragging them down. That was the reason Damian was on edge. He wasn’t scared. He didn’t get scared. He was annoyed. 

Peter had to bite his tongue to keep himself from arguing further. These guys were way less cool than the Avengers. 

He folded his arms a little tighter. “O-kay, so what now? We gotta call the police, right?” he asked, looking back at Dick. 

He opened his mouth to say something else when he suddenly felt an all-too-familiar tingling in his brain. 

Something dangerous.

Peter’s jaw closed slowly as his expression turned to one of worry and concentration. His arms came unfolded and he put his mask back on, pulling it over his head. The eye-whites were narrowed. 

He whipped around, staring out the open door into the dark and empty hallway. He felt his heartbeat quickening, thudding in his throat as he tried to pinpoint what his Spider-sense was warning him of. 

Dick remembered the whole Spidey-sense thing and stiffened as soon as Peter did, pulling out his weapons. 

“What could possibly—” Damian started to say, but was cut off by the sound of the other door barging open. 

Four police officers stormed in, guns in hand, and immediately started firing bullets at the three of them. 

“Watch out!” Peter yelled as soon as the door swung open, immediately flinching into action and throwing himself at Damian and Dick, who had both been standing in front of the doorway. He tackled them into the wall, out of the line of fire.

He felt a bullet hit his leg as he dove past the open door, letting out a strangled yelp as he staggered up against the wall. It hurt a lot more than he would admit. Gosh , he’d never been shot before. 

Peter was thankful his mask was on again; pain was written all over his face, he was sure of it. He gulped, perking up when he heard the firing stop suddenly. 

“NYPD! Come out with your hands up, or we’ll open fire again!” 

There was something off about the officers. For one, they’d immediately started shooting, which was completely against their protocol— Dick would know, since he’d been one, but even if he hadn’t, that was ridiculous— but it wasn’t just that. Something looked weird about their faces. Their eyes. They were brighter . 

How much of a coincidence would it be if they were under the influence of the toxin Veyl had been working on? He didn’t want to believe it, but why else would they be here?

He turned toward Spider-man, his heart racing. He’d just taken a bullet to save them. The weight of that hit him immediately, but he didn’t have time to say thanks now. They were all going to get shot if they didn’t move. 

He lunged for a cop, and Damian, beside him, threw a Batarang at another one and disarmed him. 

Peter took a deep, shaky breath as he prepared himself to fight. Gritting his teeth he lunged forward out of the office, shooting a web at the ceiling and swinging into the nearest officer, knocking him down to the ground with a kick strong enough to shatter bones. 

He felt his leg wound throbbing violently, and he wondered vaguely if the bullet had gotten lodged in his leg or just passed right through. 

Pure adrenaline fueled a punch he suddenly threw at the officer to the left of him, and he shot a web at the gun in his hands, wrenching it from his grip and webbing it up to the ceiling. 

“Do these guys look kind of glowy to either of you?” Peter called to Nightwing and Robin, peering at the officer who he had kicked to the ground. 

The brunette caught a glimpse of light emitting from the veins in the officer’s neck as he struggled to get up. Not more than a second later Peter webbed him down to the ground, using his uninjured leg to kick the gun on the floor flying down the hall. 

“Good. I’m not the only one who noticed,” Dick said while disarming another officer with his escrima sticks. 

Damian had already pinned down and tied up the other two. Dick had almost forgotten how quickly he could beat people up. It had been months since they’d actually worked together, and he had to admit, he’d kind of missed it. Sure, the kid was a total brat, but he was powerful. 

Peter whirled around when he heard electricity crackling. The officer he had previously disarmed suddenly lunged for him, taser in hand. 

He yelped and flipped out of the way, shooting a web at the officer's hand. Peter yanked on the web, tugging the officer back towards him and using his other hand to deliver a nasty punch to his helmet. The officer fell to the ground, unconscious, the taser clattering onto the tile. 

Damian had taken down two officers before Parker or Grayson had finished with either of theirs. Clearly, both were insufficient fighters and needed more training. 

Since he wasn’t slow, he could look for more evidence before they had to get out of here and treat the injury Parker had stupidly let himself sustain. 

He pat down the first officer he’d tied up and found nothing. The second one, however, had one vial of green liquid in his front pocket. Poison . 

Damian held up the vial and narrowed his eyes. It was only half full, and it wasn’t labeled. “Tt.”

“You’re not supposed to have that,” the first officer warned. 

Damian moved to throw a Batarang at him and shut him up, but the officer had started to fight his restraints with a sudden newfound strength, his veins glowing and his eyes wide and rabid-looking. 

In his haste to stop him from escaping, Damian did the unthinkable. He dropped the vial. 

As soon as it shattered, the liquid turned to vapor and blew up in his face. 

He had no idea if he’d inhaled any before the cloud went away. He’d tried to hold his breath, but he’d been so surprised at his own mistake, he may not have been quick enough. 

Idiot, he told himself angrily. How could he have let his guard down like that??

He growled and punched the rabid officer in the face with a force so strong it cracked his jaw, instantly knocking him out. 

“Robin, what just happened?” Grayson called from the other side of the room. 

“Nothing,” Damian replied immediately, regaining his composure and walking to him. There weren’t any more vials. The only one—the one he’d stolen, the one they could’ve used to create an antidote— was gone, reduced to shards of glass on the floor. 

“Are we done here?” he asked the others, leftover fury seeping through his voice despite his effort to hide it. 

Peter turned when he heard the glass hit the floor and shatter, eyes darting around at Damian to make sure nothing was wrong. 

“Did you drop a vial?” he asked, thinking back to the empty ones that they had grabbed from Dr. Veyl’s office. His chest was heaving with the breaths he took, the pain in his leg dissolving into more of a numbness. He could practically feel his body working to heal itself. 

“Of course not,” Damian snapped. Spider-man did not need to know he’d made a mistake. No one did. If he was poisoned, he’d find a way to get himself an antidote before Grayson found out, and certainly before Father did. And it was absolutely none of Spider-man’s concern. 

He changed the subject. “You got yourself shot,” he said. “Would you prefer to treat it before you die of blood loss or continue to stand there being useless?”

Of course, Grayson jumped to defend him. “If he hadn’t jumped in front of us, you would’ve taken that bullet, Robin.”

“I would’ve dodged it, Nightwing . I’m not a beginner like he is,” Damian retorted. 

Peter only blinked at Robin wearily. “Don’t worry, I’m actually pretty hard to kill,” he said, limping over to them. 

“I think the bullet went straight through, so I should be fine.” He looked down at his leg, spotting the wound on his outer thigh. Blood soaked the blue fabric surrounding it, and the brunette let out a sigh. He was more disappointed about the hole that was now in his suit. He hated sewing. 

Dick knelt down to examine Peter’s leg himself. It didn’t look too bad— at least, not anymore. “You heal quickly?” he guessed, fascinated. The Flash could do that, but only because his cells moved faster than a normal person’s, and Superman was completely bulletproof, but he was from another planet. 

Damian folded his arms behind them. “Tt. Of course he does. He would never survive fights otherwise.”

“Maybe.” Peter folded his arms after a shrug. “I got hit head-on by a speedtrain once,” he recalled, his gaze flitting to Nightwing through the mask.

“Unimpressive,” Damian replied haughtily. Every superhero he knew would be able to survive that. It was practically the standard. 

—

Dick hid a smile. Peter’s earnesty clashed so much with Damian’s arrogance, it had become amusing. 

Though, he didn’t want to spend more time watching them bicker. 

Damian seemed to hate Peter more with every passing minute, and it was starting to concern Dick. He had a bad feeling something was wrong. Damian was a menace, but he normally didn’t waste this much time insulting someone unless he had an underlying reason to. …Or he was angry about something else. 

If it got worse, he would likely need to take measures Damian wouldn’t start a physical fight between them.  

“You know what’s unimpressive? Your attitude ,” Peter told Damian indignantly,  pointing at him on ‘your attitude.’ He glanced around him at all the officers, either webbed up or unconscious. 

Damian threw a Batarang at Peter’s chest quicker than Dick could stop him. If it hadn’t been for Spidey-sense, it would’ve hit him square on. 

“Dude!” Peter squawked, his Spider-sense sending off alarms in his brain as soon as Damian reached for a Batarang. He ducked down to the ground, the weapon narrowly flying over his head. 

The eye-whites of his mask widened dramatically as he whipped around, watching the Batarang hit the far wall. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he barked, standing up from his crouching position and turning back to Damian.

Damian remained silent until Dick turned on him as well. 

“What the hell is wrong with you? He’s not our enemy. How many times have we gone through this? Do you learn anything Batman teaches you?” It was more of an emotional outburst than a scolding, but he was trying his best. 

Damian, once again, resorted to violence, but he’d lost his edge of control… and he was out of Batarangs. He tried to punch Dick, and he blocked it easily. 

“Don’t start this,” he warned, the words holding more under the surface. 

Damian backed off at that, but he still looked furious. He was breathing hard, his shoulders even more tense than usual. 

He was upset about something else. Dick was sure of it now. 

He softened his tone. “What happened, Robin?” 

“Nothing.”

He didn’t want to talk. Big surprise. 

Peter’s panicked gaze shot from Damian to Dick as the former was scolded, but his shoulders relaxed slightly soon afterwards. Whatever. Damian didn’t have to get along with him. 

“We should probably go before more police show up,” he told them, taking a step backwards toward the exit he had kicked down earlier. 

Dick sighed audibly and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Damian didn’t say another word as they left the hospital and reconvened on a rooftop a few blocks away. His silence felt like a thousand pound weight on Dick’s shoulders, but he tried to ignore it. There was no point in trying to reason with him when he was being like this. 

“You sure you don’t need treatment for that leg?” he asked Peter. He’d mostly web-swung here, so it was hard to tell how much the wound was still bothering him. Though, with his superpowers, it could’ve healed completely by now for all he knew. 

“Um…” Peter sat down on the ledge of the building they were on, draping his legs over the edge. “I dunno, I haven’t gotten a good enough look at it,” he said, swinging his legs a little to distract him from the pain. He tossed a glance around the cityscape. Nobody was in view of his face, so he decided to take his mask off. Peter set it down on the ledge beside him, enjoying the fresh air thoroughly. 

He hunched forward, peering at the bandage he had wrapped around his leg to staunch the bleeding. He had only used his own webs, deciding those were sterile enough. 

“It probably needs stitches. It went straight through, which is crazy, so there’s an entry wound and an exit wound,” he muttered, still carefully inspecting the webbing that covered the wound on the front of his thigh. 

“I’ll stitch it up,” Dick volunteered. “Robin has the supplies in his utility belt.”

“Tt.” Damian unlatched his belt and threw it on the ground, barely looking at them. 

“Thanks,” Dick replied, rolling his eyes— though you couldn’t see behind his mask. It felt weird knowing Spider-man’s identity when he still didn’t know theirs, but he wasn’t sure how to approach that. Did Peter know anything about Bruce Wayne? Would revealing who they were compromise Batman’s identity? And would that even matter, since they were no longer in his territory?

“That’s okay, I can probably figure it out myself…?” Peter offered, looking over his shoulder at Dick, gratitude lighting his gaze up a little bit. 

A faint breeze ruffled his messed-up hair and he moved a hand to comb through it, silently thinking about the day so far. How grateful he was to have met Nightwing. For the first time in months, he didn’t feel so lonely. 

“Yeah, I’m not gonna let you do that,” Dick told him, picking up the supplies with a faint smile. “I’ve been trained for this.” He knelt down next to Peter’s injured leg. “I’m not sure you could stomach it.” 

Peter made a face. “Dude, yes I could,” he argued, albeit he didn’t entirely believe the words himself. “But sure, yeah… thank you,” he said a moment later, rubbing his arm. 

Seven minutes later, Peter’s wounds were stitched and bandaged properly. 

“There. Batman-approved,” Dick stated, sitting back to admire his work. “…I hope.”

Peter had stood up so Dick could stitch up the wound on the back of his leg easier. A few times the needle had poked him a little too hard and he would have to grit his teeth and wince slightly, but he trusted that Nightwing had done a good job. 

“Hey, thanks, man,” Peter said, awkwardly looking at the back of his leg before looking down at the stitched-up wound on the front. “That’s really nice of you to do.” 

“It was the least I could do after everything you’ve had to go through with us,” Dick told him. “Especially Robin,” he added pointedly. 

He looked up, intending on shooting Damian a glare, except… Damian was nowhere in sight. And his tracker was on his belt, which he’d left behind. 

“Ughhh. Seriously?” he muttered. He should’ve known. Damian had been itching to get away from them all morning. 

Peter had opened his mouth to reply to Dick’s first statement with a shy, ‘it was no big deal,’ but he quickly snapped it shut when he also realized that Damian was missing. 

“Where’d he go?” Peter asked, his brow furrowing. He hopped off the ledge of the building, taking a few steps away as he cast his gaze around the rooftop. “He can’t be far,” he added, turning back to look at Nightwing. 

“It’s not how far he is that’s the issue,” Dick said, not even bothering to hide his annoyance. “Remember the cave? He’s stealthy.” He was a trained assassin, and he was related to Batman, who could disappear off the face of the planet whenever he wanted to. “Finding him is gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack.” 

“Oh.” Peter rubbed between his thumb and forefinger with his opposite thumb, looking around. “Do we…need… to find him?” he asked carefully. 

Dick ran a hand over his face before he answered. 

“I’d like to find him,” he said carefully. “But it’s not our first priority.”

He was used to loyalty. To dropping everything for his loved ones. But Damian could fend for himself, and if they spent time looking for him right now, innocent people could die. The best he could do right now was hope Damian’s anger didn’t drive him to do anything too risky. 

“I mean—we can go looking, if you really want to,” Peter said, feeling a bit bad about the question he had asked. Although, he supposed Damian hadn’t done too much to make Peter want to find him. Especially when he was sure the kid would be fine. 

He narrowed his eyes and walked back to where Dick was standing. Peter grabbed his Spider-man mask from the ledge. “But finding Dr. Veyl might be pretty important, too.” 

“I agree. Stopping the insane doctor who’s developing a mind-control toxin is ‘pretty important,’” Dick half-joked. “Let’s go.”

As soon as he said it, he grappled off the building and plummeted downward without a second thought. He had a feeling Peter would follow suit. Spider-man seemed to like acrobatics as much as he did.

Peter couldn’t hold back a smile. He threw his mask on before effortlessly vaulting over the ledge, diving into a freefall after Nightwing. He let himself fall for a few blissful moments before he reached for the nearest building in front of him and shot a web. 

He felt it stick to the building in the distance and he swung back up in the air, releasing the web to do a quick backflip before shooting another web. 

As the two swung across the city, Dick started up a friendly conversation. As worried as he was about Damian, it was nice to have a new buddy, and he wanted to get to know him better. Besides, it kept his mind off their problems.

“You know, I brought my motorcycle,” he said, doing a perfect [insert circus acrobat stunt name because I have no clue what they’re called] as he talked. “But this is more fun, don’t you think?”

“You have a motorcycle!? That is awesome !” Peter exclaimed. The astonishment would have been much more obvious had Nightwing been able to see his face, but still. 

He let go of a web and shot another one ahead of him, effortlessly keeping up his rhythm with Dick. “I don’t even have a license yet!” he admitted, laughing breathlessly at himself. 

Dick chuckled, then shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t have a motorcycle. I got my first one when I was twelve.” He smirked. 

To be fair, Batman pretty much ruled Gotham City. If he said Robin was above the law, no one questioned it. 

“That’s insane!” Peter blinked. The load he felt he had been carrying on his back for the last several months finally felt a little bit lighter.

“I pretty much swing everywhere, which is a lot faster than driving anyways,” he added, looking at Nightwing. “I do have to use public transport sometimes, which totally sucks,” he shrugged. 

“Oh, I bet,” Dick replied. He would forever be grateful for the lavish life he’d had after Bruce had adopted him. Even before that, his parents had made a decent living, but he’d taken Gotham’s metros a time or two as a kid. 

“Wait, do you swing even when you’re not being Spider-man?” he questioned. 

“Ummm,” Peter tilted his head in thought for a moment. “If I’m not in a place where I can put on my suit, I won’t swing, if that makes sense? Like, if people saw me as Peter Parker just webbing around town, it’d be game over for me,” he explained.

Peter did another flip, firing his next web before adding, “So if I gotta go in to work or something, I’ll just take the subway or like a taxi.” Gosh , he loved web-swinging. 

“Cool,” Dick said. That made sense. 

“You ever use your webbing as a tightrope?” he asked after another minute. He’d tried that with grappling hooks. It had been pretty fun. 

“Yeah, actually. I’ve done tightropes, hammocks, parachutes, all sorts of stuff,” Peter responded. He had to admit, he was enjoying talking about himself to Nightwing. 

“So wait, are you and Robin related?” he asked suddenly as the thought crossed his mind. It would make sense. 

“…Was it that obvious?” Dick raised an eyebrow. He didn’t normally go around proclaiming that, but people had figured it out before. He and Damian tended to bicker like siblings. “We’re brothers. Adopted.”

“Just a little,” Peter responded, smiling under his mask. “Yeah, that- that makes sense.” He looked forward again, surveying the city skyline as he swung upwards again. New York City might have turned its back on him, but he would never turn his back on New York City. Peter would always feel attached to this place. 

“What’s Gotham like?” he asked. 

Dick huffed a laugh. “It’s rough. Like I said, crime ridden. And I don’t mean like here. Dr. Veyl? He seems tame compared to some of the stuff Batman and I have dealt with.” His voice went quiet near the end. Batman and I . He hadn’t meant to say it like that. 

He didn’t miss being Robin— not really. But he did miss Bruce. Not just seeing him, but being his partner. Everything had felt so much easier back then.  

“Really?” Peter replied, finding that a bit hard to believe. Maybe Gotham was worse than New York City, but Peter felt that he’d fought his fair share of world-level threats. Universe-level threats, even. 

“What’s this Batman guy like? I guess he just doesn’t get a lot of coverage in Queens, or something,” Peter asked next. 

It was more likely New York’s heroes had been having the media hide Batman’s existence, but Dick didn’t mention that. He didn’t want this conversation to turn into a dispute. 

He thought for a moment, trying to find the right words to describe Batman. It was difficult. 

“He’s… dark and brooding and scary,” he decided. “But he’s also the smartest, most powerful, and most heroic person I’ve ever met.” He smiled. “Plus, he’s a total badass.”

“Sounds like the total package,” Peter responded, smiling when Dick smiled. “Um… is Robin actually how he is all the time?” was the brunette’s next question. He could swing and talk for hours. He’d never had anyone he could swing with before—with the exception of the two other Peter Parkers he had met. He missed them, too. 

Dick winced. “Sort of.” He paused, not sure how much he wanted to talk about. Damian would be livid he was talking about any of it, but he figured Peter would benefit knowing. “I don’t know what got into him earlier. But he certainly isn’t a normal kid. …How crazy would I sound if I told you he’s an angel now compared to how he used to be?”

Peter actually laughed out loud—a light, airy laugh. “Yeah, you sound pretty crazy,” he said, still smiling under the mask. “There’s no way . I don’t get it, that kid’s like ten years old. When I was ten I was playing with, like, toy planes, or something.” And LEGOs. Lots of LEGOs. He still had a few from high school.

“He’s twelve,” Dick corrected. “He was ten when he first became Robin, and trust me , he was a lot worse back then.” He shook his head. “He was raised by the League of Assassins. They didn’t see him as a child. They saw him as a weapon. Their perfect heir who would grow up to be the most ruthless of all of them.”

“When he first came to live with us, all he did was train, and tried to murder every enemy we ran into. Killing was all he’d ever known. He was entitled, arrogant. He couldn’t relax, couldn’t socialize. No one had ever taught him how to be a kid.”

The story was even more tragic when you took Damian’s parents into account, but he wasn’t going to get into that right now. 

Peter didn’t respond right away. The story made his heart wrench a little. “That’s… wow, that’s awful,” he said, his voice low and hesitant.

It actually made him feel bad for the kid. He had been so lucky to have grown up with an aunt who loved him so much.

Owch. That thought stung. Peter winced and kept swinging. 

“Right?” Dick said, going back to his more chipper tone. “I despised him when we first met. He’s… intense. But don’t let that fool you. Deep down, he’s one of the most vulnerable people I know.”

“Well, that’s deceiving,” Peter said, his voice sounding a bit distant. He realized he was getting lost in thought and he forced himself to snap back in to the conversation. 

“I’d be surprised if I ever saw the vulnerable side of him,” he added hurriedly, looking at Nightwing.

“You won’t,” Dick assured. “Not if you don’t look closely.” 

Dick had spent thirteen years with Bruce before he’d met Damian. He knew emotional repression like the back of his hand. …However, Damian’s defenses were strong. He didn’t expect Peter to be able to see through them as easily as he did. 

Peter nodded vigorously. “Where are we going right now, exactly?” he asked. This was all really fun, but he did remember suddenly that they were kind of in the middle of saving the world from a creepy mind control doctor.

“Following a lead,” Dick answered. “There were some files in Veyl’s office with locations on them. I figured we could hit them one by one until we run into him.”

He grappled onto a taller building, grunting a little with effort as he pulled himself higher into the air. “I can’t swing the whole time, though. I love it, but it gets tiring, and, uh, I think these places are farther away than I thought.” Spider-man had super strength powers. He didn’t. 

“Oh.” Peter deflated after Dick’s last statement. He could have done this all day. “That’s okay. Should we find that motorcycle of yours?” he asked, brightening again as a mischievous smile lit up his face. 

Dick flashed a grin. “That’s an idea.”

He’d left his motorcycle conveniently close by, so they swung in that direction until they got to where it was parked. 

Except, it wasn’t. 

“You’re kidding me!” Dick exclaimed. Someone had actually had the audacity to steal his motorcycle. He didn’t know how , since the security measures he’d had in place had been—

Oh, wait. Damian . 

“I’m gonna kill that kid,” he muttered angrily. 

“Is this where it’s supposed to be? Did somebody take it?” Peter called, swinging down to the bottom of the alleyway where Nightwing stood. “Oh wait—did Robin take it?”

The exasperated look Dick gave Peter told him yes. “He’s the only one who could’ve,” he said. “There was serious security on that thing.” 

He really wished Damian hadn’t left his stupid utility belt behind. With the Nightbike, he could be halfway across the city by now. That thing went crazy fast. 

“Well let’s go find him,” Peter declared, looking down at his web shooters. Empty. “Do you have a tracker on the bike?” He reached into the emergency stash of web fluid that he carried in a small pocket fastened to the side of his leg, popping out the empty containers before sliding the new ones in. 

Dick frowned. “...No. Batman does, but I’d have to contact him to get the coordinates.” He didn't particularly want to inform Bruce that Damian had rebelled again, nor did he want to admit he’d lost track of his bike. That was just embarrassing.

“We may have to take public transportation,” he said after a moment.

“Dude, you don’t have a tracker on your own bike?” Peter asked, teasing. He looked up after replacing his web fluid, clutching the two small empty containers in his hand. “Where’s the first lead located?” 

“It’s called the Nightbike, for your information,” Dick muttered indignantly. “And I didn't think I’d ever lose it.”

He pulled up the first location he’d found. “[Insert place]. It’s in the middle of nowhere. None of the businesses nearby have been open in years. I’m guessing it’s another underground lair.”

“Oh, I know where that is,” Peter said, looking over Nightwing’s shoulder at the screen. “Down in Brooklyn—they say it’s supposed to be completely remodeled into apartments but construction hasn’t moved forward in years,” he explained, scratching his head thoughtfully. Another underground lair. Great. 

“Geez, that is kinda far away. I guess we probably should take the subway.” 

The subway was a hassle, and it didn’t help that they were in their suits. The majority of people ignored them, but Dick had noticed several gawking at him, and Peter had gotten acknowledged a few times. One guy had wanted Spider-man’s autograph. Another had tried to throw a rock at him. 

By the time they got to their destination, Dick had never missed Bat-vehicles more. “Finally,” he muttered, stepping out into the daylight. The Nightbike would’ve gotten them there in less than half that amount of time. For all he knew, Damian could’ve found Veyl and finished taking him down by now.

Peter followed after Nightwing, stepping up onto the sidewalk beside him and putting his hands on his hips as he surveyed the bustling Brooklyn street. “Yeah, I wished we used that bike, too,” he joked, turning to look at Dick when he sensed his frustration. 

“Welcome to Brooklyn,” he announced, his gaze trailing across the street to a sandwich place he’d never been to before. It reminded him of Delmar’s. “Um—I’m kind of hungry, do you think we have time to grab something to eat?” he asked hopefully. His stomach audibly growled at the thought of food. 

This part of the city was subtly different. A little more rough around the edges, but still uniquely New York-ish. Nothing like Gotham.

“Definitely,” Dick agreed. He was hungry too. “I could totally go for a sandwich right now. Maybe two.”

He and Peter swung over to the restaurant immediately.

Peter pushed the front door open, and the little bell hanging overhead let out a friendly jingle. The joint had a warm and homey atmosphere, surprisingly busy for it still being quite early in the morning. 

“Welcome in,” the cashier greeted them. Peter gave a friendly ‘hello’ and a wave. 

He turned to look at Nightwing as they walked up to the counter, silently praying he still had cash in one of his pockets. “Do you think they give superheroes food for free?” he whispered to Dick, staring up at the menu. 

Dick grinned. “They might, but it looks like these guys are working pretty hard. Don’t worry, I’ll cover you.” He pulled out one of the debit cards Bruce had given him for missions. He didn’t know how much was on it— practically unlimited. He’d learned to take advantage of Bruce’s money. Every time he’d tried to pay with his own for superhero purposes as Robin, he’d gotten stopped.

“Aw, that’s nice of you,” Peter responded gratefully, subtly patting the pockets on each side of his legs. Yeah, he definitely didn’t have any money with him. 

“Trust me, it’s no trouble at all,” Dick assured. It was the closest he could get to bragging that he was rich without actually bragging. 

He ordered Peter the sandwich he wanted and ended up getting the same one for himself, since it looked amazing. Plus they both got sodas, obviously.

Peter thanked Dick several times as they sat down, filled up their sodas, and ate their sandwiches. Peter had scarfed down his sub in probably only sixty seconds. 

“Oh my gosh, that was so good,” he said, putting his hands on his head and sliding back in the chair, kicking his feet up onto the table. “I could eat probably three more.” 

The brunette decided they probably didn’t have time for that, however. He took the last sip of his Dr. Pepper before pulling his mask down over his face, having only lifted it up to his nose so he could eat. 

“Do you want three more?” Dick asked seriously, craving at least a second sandwich himself. Though, his thoughts were running along similar lines about the time constraint.

Peter perked up and his wooden chair scraped against the floor as he moved his feet from the table back to the ground. “Can we get them to-go?” 

“Good idea,” Dick agreed. 

Shortly after that, they were back on the streets, sandwich bags in hand. 

According to his gps, they were only a block from the lair they were looking for. 

Peter looked up, noticing the buildings starting to appear more and more run-down. He shot a web at a streetlight, swinging all the way around it before landing back on the sidewalk beside Nightwing. He was starting to get bored of walking, but he wouldn’t admit out loud. 

“What do you think this guy is like? Dr. Veyl. I mean, he calls himself the Plaguemaster ,” Peter wondered aloud, making a face. He pulled his mask back up to his nose and reached into the paper back with his sandwich. He grabbed it and started to unwrap it, still hungry. 

“Honestly? He seems like a wannabe of Batman’s villains,” Dick said, stroking his chin in thought. “Remember how I told you Gotham is crime ridden? I didn’t just mean normal criminals. We have this place called Arkham Asylum… That’s o where we keep the worst ones when we capture them, because they’re all clinically insane.”

“Let me give you some examples.” He held up a hand for emphasis. “The Riddler: Makes everything into a puzzle. Can’t figure it out? Innocent people die. Mad Hatter: Only speaks in rhymes. Master of mind control. Two-face: Former lawyer. Bases his kills on the flip of a coin. Scarecrow: Uses fear gas to scare people into obedience. Poison Ivy: Well, I think her name speaks for itself.”

“And the Joker? He’s the worst. Completely psychotic. Makes everyone else look like minor inconveniences. He dresses like a clown and laughs while committing brutal acts of terror. His kill count is… hundreds.”

Dick shook his head. “Plaguemaster’s got a theme, he’s not afraid of murder, and he wants to control people with poison. I don’t know where he came from, but he’s gotta be taking inspiration.”

Peter listened intently to Dick while he ate his sandwich. He finished it by the time Dick was done talking. “Wow,” he said around a mouthful of food before hurriedly gulping it down. 

“You guys really work hard in Gotham.” He had never heard of any of these villains. It was puzzling for how close Gotham was to New York City. 

“You can say that again,” Dick agreed. “Though, I don’t usually fight villains there anymore. I live in—” He cut himself off when he saw the entrance to the lair they’d been looking for. “There it is.”

He grinned and jumped down the steps, descending into the dark hallway. Somehow, this place looked even creepier than the abandoned station from earlier. 

“ Blüdhaven. I live in Blüdhaven. That’s where I do most of my superhero-ing these days. Robin is Batman’s primary sidekick.”

Peter hopped down after him. “That sounds like a pleasant little city,” he commented on Blüdhaven’s name. He stayed alert and attentive as the corridor grew darker and darker the deeper they descended. He’d had enough of creepy underground lairs. 

Tim hadn’t told Dick he was coming to New York, because he hadn’t planned on coming to New York. He’d heard about Damian’s punishment this morning and had wanted nothing to do with it. Damian was an annoying brat, and he’d got put on a super boring case because of that. It hadn’t been Tim’s problem. 

Except, earlier in the week, Tim had hacked into Dick’s mission log out of boredom, and this morning, it had shown a list of poisons, lacerations on dead bodies, and obscure locations. He didn’t know what had happened, but they definitely weren’t still looking for a random thug who worked for the Penguin. 

He’d been too curious not to show up. If they were working a murder mystery case, he wanted in. Gotham hadn’t had one of those in months. 

By ten thirty, he’d ended up following Dick and Damian’s tracking signals all the way to downtown Brooklyn and into some underground passage. 

—

Someone cleared their throat behind Dick, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. 

“Relax, Nightwing. It’s just me,” said a deadpan voice. 

Dick turned around, jaw dropping when he realized who was standing behind him. 

Tim Drake, in his Red Robin suit. Smirking. 

“What are you doing here??” Dick stammered. 

“What are you doing here?” Tim retorted, one eyebrow raised under his mask. “And more importantly, who is this?” He gestured to Spider-man. 

Peter turned with Nightwing, a little surprised to be meeting someone else in a costume. “Hey nice to meet you, I’m Spider-man,” he introduced himself amiably, holding out a hand to shake Tim’s. 

He hoped this guy was less like Damian and more like Dick, since it seemed they knew each other already. All their costumes were similar, he thought. 

“Red Robin,” Tim introduced, his eyes narrowing as he sized up the new superhero. He knew about Spider-man. He’d researched him once a few years ago, but he’d worn a different suit back then, and Tim had never expected him to be hanging out with Dick, of all people. Though, he should’ve, considering they were similarly cheesy, quippy, and swung around their respective cities doing gymnastics.

Spider-man was shorter than Tim had thought. His build resembled his own, albeit slightly more bulky in the arms and shoulders. Next to Dick’s, Spider-man’s suit looked juvenile. Bright red and blue, with a simple design. Nothing tactical visible; no weapons, gadgets, belts, chains, or zippers of any kind. The way the spider theme was executed was charming, but Tim could think of ways to improve it. 

He shook Spider-man’s hand with slight reluctance. 

“You guys- you guys know each other?” Peter asked, taking a step back after he shook Red Robin’s hand. He glanced from Nightwing to Red Robin, pointing at the both of them and interchanging his points a few times. 

“No. We’re total strangers,” Tim said sarcastically. 

Dick elbowed him, then shook his head and looked at Peter. “We’re brothers.”

Tim froze. “…We aren’t supposed to tell people that.” He folded his arms. 

Dick shrugged. “I’ve already seen Spider-man unmasked, and he told me his real name. I think it’s safe to say we trust each other.”

Tim was silent for a moment, contemplating that. His eyebrows furrowed under the mask. 

“I need answers,” he finally said. “One: How and why did you two start working together? Two: What happened with your case? I know you’re investigating something bigger than Mancini— that’s why I showed up here. Three: Where’s Robin? His tracker says he’s here, but he’s clearly not.”

Dick held up Damian’s utility belt, which he’d grabbed earlier. It had already come in handy with the flashlight. “I have Robin’s tracker. The kid ran off.”

“Big surprise.”

“He also, uh, may have stolen the Nightbike.”

“…Seriously?” Tim’s tone was both incredulous and condescending at the same time. 

Dick sighed. “I know. I had one job. But to be fair, the morning hasn’t exactly gone as planned. We’ve been chasing down a creepy doctor who wants to mind control people.”

Tim’s eyes widened slightly. “I knew it.” A little smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me more. I need the details.”

“To be honest, we don’t really have time for that,” Dick said, wincing. He glanced at Peter. “Spider-man, you talk fast. Why don’t you explain everything while we’re walking?”

“Okay,” Peter said eagerly, quickly deciding how he was going to explain it all. 

“So basically- there’s this guy, Dr. Veyl—but he actually calls himself the Plaguemaster—and he used to be a doctor or something who would experiment on his patients as he tried to make a certain kind of hybrid toxin to control populations with. It’s uh—it’s a chemical-neuroviral compound which primarily hijacks the autonomic nervous system, making them increasingly complicit to any signal transmissions, creating a kind of mind control effect.”

“We don’t entirely know how it works but it’s different than anything either of us have seen before,” Peter explained, talking so quickly he almost tripped over his own words a few times. He was using dramatic hand gestures as he illustrated the story so far. 

“Me and Nightwing interrogated that Mancini guy and he led us to Veyl’s abandoned hospital office, where we found a bunch of dead bodies that had been experimented on.” Peter shuddered, clearly traumatized. “That’s where we found all the empty vials of stuff that had labels and files that kinda told us what this guy’s all about. And a bunch of cops almost tried to kill us.” 

Peter got excited to tell this part of the story. “They barged down the door and were all like—‘ NYPD, come out with your hands up ,’” Peter pitched his voice and pretended to hold up a fake gun with his hands, “and then they shot at us, and I had to save Robin and Nightwing’s lives, ‘cause well, I jumped out in front of them, and then I got shot, but then Nightwing totally—”

“Hold on.”

Tim’s mind had been racing to keep up with that. Dick hadn’t been kidding when he’d said the guy talked fast. 

It was kind of adorable. …Not that he found Spider-man attractive. That would be totally ridiculous. He could be thirty-five years old and ugly under the mask. 

“So, Mancini was connected to a new villain,” he said, thinking out loud. Everything he’d seen on Dick’s log held up against that story. He’d thought of mind control when he’d read the names of the toxins, though he hadn’t considered using remote signals. The Mad Hatter could only control people he brought into his lab, and Joker had used gas before, but only on mass groups of people. 

“How would that work, though?” he asked, shaking his head. 

—

Dick listened as Tim delved into a spiel about neurotransmitters, receptors, and frequency. It had been two minutes, and he was already nerding out.

Dick understood science enough to be working on this case, but he couldn’t lie, most of what Tim was saying was going over his head. 

Peter was listening intently to Red Robin as he spoke, trying to concentrate on what he was saying. 

When he caught a break in the ranting he cut in with his own points, “—Well, yeah, that makes sense, but what if we find a way to attack it from the source? Finding a cure to a non-organic neuro toxin would be pretty impossible,” he pointed out, staying polite while also sounding confident in his reasoning.

“Right,” Tim said, pointing at Spider-man excitedly. For once, someone besides Bruce was keeping up with his jargon. “Unless the cure worked by jamming the transmission. Then we could target the mind control and side effects at the same time—”

Dick interrupted before he could explain that further. “I know this will be important later, but can it wait? We’re, like, at the lair.”

“Oh—right.” Peter clenched and unclenched his hands at his side, looking around the dark corridor they had been standing in. 

“I’m sorry—how far down are we supposed to go?” he asked Nightwing before tossing a glance over his shoulder at the stairs in the distance, lit dimly by the daylight at the top of the steps.

Chapter Text

Damian had a headache. A sharp, piercing headache that made his skull feel like it was cracking open.

The poison was setting in.

“Tt,” he muttered, sheathing the swords he’d just used to take down four more of Veyl’s zombified soldiers. He wouldn’t let himself become like them. He was Robin, son of Batman, grandson of Ra’s Al Ghul. He could handle a mere toxin.

The sound of approaching footsteps echoed a few feet away. Three sets. 

Damian pulled out a Batarang, itching for another fight.

—

As soon as they entered the room, Dick breathed a sigh of relief. Four bodies laid limp on the floor, knocked out, and Damian stood among them. His shoulders were tense, fists clenched at his sides. 

“Since when was he part of this mission?” he said, acknowledging Tim with utter disgust.

“Nice to see you too, demon brat,” Tim replied coldly.

“Hey, it’s Robin,” Peter said excitedly when they spotted Damian, pointing at him. “Did the early bird catch some worms?” His gaze trailed to the four bodies on the ground, and he folded his arms, silently hoping they were all okay. 

“Your feeble attempts at humor are childish,” Damian told him, clearly unamused. 

Tim rolled his eyes. They were thirty seconds into seeing the kid and he was already hurling insults at them.

“If you’re trying to ask whether I did anything in the past hour, take a look around.” The men on the floor surrounding him were bruised and bleeding. Not surprising, considering Damian liked to get as close to killing his opponents as he possibly could without crossing the line.

Peter gave Damian an offended look, pretty much undetectable from under his mask. “I thought it was funny,” he muttered. 

He turned his attention back to the unconscious people. “Who are these guys?”

“The infected, ” Damian replied, glaring at the ground. His head throbbed worse with every passing minute. Tuning out the pain was growing increasingly difficult. “Their attacks were stronger than those of the police officers.”

“Sounds like Plaguemaster isn’t wasting his time,” said Dick.

Damian sucked in a silent breath. For once, Grayson was right. He had hours, at most, to find a way around the toxin in his own system.

“At least they seem pretty easy to beat up,” Peter pointed out, crouching down over one of the bodies. He looked fairly normal. Bruised and bloody, maybe a little glowy from the veins in his neck, but he was just a guy. He could’ve had a family—he looked maybe thirty or forty years old, Peter guessed. 

“How is Dr. Veyl infecting random people?” he wondered aloud, glancing up at his three acquaintances. 

“They had to have come in contact with the poison somehow,” Tim reasoned, watching Damian out of the corner of his eye. Something was off about him. He appeared the same as always; hood pulled up, edgy posture, blood splattered across the front of his red tunic. Pain was hidden in his expression, though. Tim could see it, even under his mask. …which meant it was bad. 

He glanced at Dick, wondering if he knew anything he didn’t. 

“But how is he doing it?” Peter asked, standing back up and staring at the three of them. He watched as Tim and Dick exchanged a glance. Did they know something? The silence from them was dragging on a little too long for Peter’s liking. 

Tim thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know yet. We need more evidence.” He was about to recap the facts of the case so far so they could discuss potential leads, but Damian caught his eye again. 

He’d stumbled. It had been so subtle, Tim had only seen it because he’d already been paying attention to his movements, but he was sure it had happened.

“Robin,” he said carefully. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

Peter stiffened. His senses were tingling again. He held a worried stare on Red Robin for a while longer before turning his head slightly to look at Robin. “Is something wrong?” he asked carefully, his eye-whites narrowing as he kept his eyes trained on Robin. He tensed, the warnings from his Spider-sense drowning out nearly every other thought of his.

One moment, Damian had been in control. The next, his body was moving toward Spider-man at full speed. There hadn’t been a clear trigger. His head had exploded with pain, and then Spider-man had spoken, and now he was attacking him.

The only thing going through his mind was ‘ kill’ as he drew his swords and went completely feral.

—

Dick moved to help Peter at once, Tim following his lead. Peter could defend himself, but he wouldn’t be able to win this fight alone. Not against Damian— especially not when he was acting like this. Bruce had taught him to show restraint when he fought, but he’d originally been trained to murder, and he excelled at everything he ever learned. If something had happened to his mind— if Plaguemaster had somehow gotten to him with his toxin— he was a threat to anyone he attacked. 

“Woah!” Peter yelped, instinctively jumping up to the ceiling to avoid getting swung at by Robin. He crouched down close to the cold stone bricks, craning his neck to look down at the three of them. “What the hell!?” He scrambled to crawl away from his attacker, narrowly dodging an upwards swing from Robin. 

He shot down a web at one of the swords in Robin’s grip, yanking it up and away from him before shooting another web at the other sword. 

Spider-man’s webs were strong, but Damian was stronger. He tugged his second sword free before it could escape his grip, and he was quick to pick up the first one he’d dropped. It was covered in webbing, but it would still be effective. 

He ran up the wall and did a backflip, slashing at Spider-man’s chest. He only missed by a centimeter. 

—

Dick’s heart sank as he watched the two fight. Peter was playing good defense, dodging and blocking most of Damian’s blows, but Damian was relentless. For every one of Peter’s strikes, he had three. He was faster, stronger than Dick had ever seen him. 

“He was exposed to the toxin,” Tim shouted, his bo staff drawn. He hadn’t attacked yet, likely strategizing. “When?” 

“I don’t know,” Dick replied, his voice hollow. He hadn’t attacked yet either, but only because Damian was so fast he hadn’t had an opportunity to. “He was acting different before he ran off. I think—”

At the sound of their voices, Damian turned. 

Even with his mask on, his expression was jarring. He didn’t look angry or spiteful. He didn’t look like Damian. He looked completely blank. The toxin had turned him into a mindless killing machine.

“Robin,” Dick said, heart racing. The word didn’t register. Desperate, he tried his real name. “Damian, this isn’t you. Fight it!”

Damian lunged at Dick without a word, swords swinging ferociously. 

Dick fought hard, but with his strength enhanced, Damian was too powerful. It didn’t help that Dick was trying not to hurt him. 

Tim came in from behind, trying to catch Damian by surprise, but Damian’s reflexes were fast. He disarmed Tim within seconds. 

Dick swung his escrima sticks at Damian’s legs and missed. The momentum sent him staggering toward the wall. 

Then it happened. 

While Dick was caught off guard, Damian threw a Batarang at his chest. He tried to get out of the way, but it still hit him below the ribs, lodging deep into his skin with a sickening squelch.

He dropped to one knee, crying out in pain.

“Nightwing!” Tim shouted.

“I’m fine,” Dick forced out, but he could already feel blood soaking his suit. This was not good.

Peter watched in horror as the Batarang hit Nightwing, unable to react quickly enough to stop it.  “Oh my gosh,” he gasped, flinging himself off of the ceiling in a hasty backflip so he landed in front of Nightwing. He stared down at his friend, trying to process the situation. 

His shock quickly turned into anger and he whirled around, glaring at Damian. Not a second had passed before he shot a web at Damian’s chest, yanking the kid towards him with his left hand before using his right to deliver a nasty punch to the head, immediately knocking him unconscious. 

Peter had to significantly temper his strength so as not to kill him, and he let Robin’s body fall to the floor after holding him by the collar a moment longer. He was not letting him hurt anyone else. 

Tim ran to Dick’s side, breathing hard. Spider-man had conveniently beaten him to knocking Damian out. They’d need to do something about him before he woke up, but that could wait.

Dick was clutching his abdomen, blood slipping through his fingers and pooling on the ground. His face had already turned shades paler than it normally was.

Tim had a bad feeling something vital was hit.

“Upper right side,” he muttered, his stomach twisting as he examined the wound. The Batarang had entered sideways, still halfway sticking out at an angle. Blood was steadily soaking Dick’s suit.

“Your liver,” Tim realized aloud, his voice betraying his panic. “Of course it was your liver.”

Peter stumbled back over to Nightwing and Red Robin. He couldn’t breathe. The brunette tore his mask off his head, his breathing hitching when he realized how bad the injury was. 

“How can we help him?” Peter asked huskily, crouching beside Red Robin and turning to look at him with worry written all over his face. 

Inwardly Peter blamed himself. Every time he grew close to someone, something terrible happened. He prayed Nightwing would be okay. 

Tim ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. Seeing Spider-man unmasked for the first time right now was not helping his stress. He looked young — close to his own age, his brown hair fell onto his forehead in perfectly messy curtains, and his jawline was sharp enough to cut steel.

Focus, Tim.

“He’s going to bleed out if we don’t apply pressure,” he said, pulling his medkit off his belt and dropping to his knees to rifle through it. He found gauze, but not enough.

Frustrated, he unfastened his cape. He’d wanted some excitement, but not this . Dick wasn’t only his brother, but one of his best friends. He could not die today.

“Hold him still,” he instructed Spider-man, moving to reposition Dick so he was lying on his back.

“Hey— hey!” Dick hissed, his face going whiter when Tim grabbed his shoulders. “I’ve got it.” He lowered himself down, wincing with every movement.

“You might wanna stop talking,” Tim told him.

Dick looked like he wanted to reply, but he only nodded, clearly in intense pain.

“And breathe shallowly,” Tim added.

He bent over Dick’s torso and used a knife from his belt to start cutting the fabric around the Batarang. Dick gritted his teeth and immediately tried to flinch out of the way when he was touched.

“I am so sorry,” Peter said to Nightwing in a hushed whisper, holding him still while his panicked gaze flitted from Red Robin to Nightwing to Nightwing’s wound. 

He swallowed thickly and shot a glance over his shoulder at Damian. Still unconscious. He committed the name ‘Damian’ to his memory before looking back down at Nightwing, heaving a deep breath. He ran a hand through his messy hair to try and calm himself down. 

“It’s fine,” Dick whispered weakly, trying to smile. “I’ve had worse.”

That was halfway true. He’d been stabbed before, but it had never bled this much. He could already feel it making him cold, clammy, dizzy, and sweaty. Though, that was nothing compared to the white hot pain that flared through his middle and up to his shoulder, made worse every time Tim touched his skin near the wound. 

—

Tim folded up his cape and positioned it around the Batarang to hold it in place. He couldn’t remove it because that would make the bleeding worse, but having it move around while it was still lodged in Dick’s liver was even worse. 

“This is going to hurt,” he warned after that. Then he pressed down around the wound with the palms of his hands and most of his body weight. 

Dick screamed. 

Tim remained as calm as he could. He couldn’t afford to falter and have to restart the process. 

Peter had to squeeze his eyes shut and look away. He still kept a firm grip on Nightwing, although his heart was thudding in his throat and he couldn’t help but wince when his friend screamed. 

He stared down at the blood pooling around his knees and he gulped. Peter screwed his eyes shut again, hoping Red Robin knew what he was doing.

“We have to get him to the Batcave,” Tim said, once Dick’s screams had died down and turned into involuntary whimpers. 

They couldn’t stay here. The bleeding wasn’t letting up, and he didn’t have the skill set to surgically remove the Batarang himself. 

Besides, Damian was poisoned and could wake up any second trying to kill them. They needed to get him somewhere safe until they could cure him. 

“The- the Batcave?” 

Batman. That was Batman’s lair, Peter recalled. His eyes blinked open and he looked at Tim, clearly stressed. “Will we make it there in time?” That was clear over in Gotham. They had to go to a hospital .

“What should I do about Damian, I mean, ‘cause what’s wrong with him?” Peter asked without giving Red Robin any time to answer the first question. His voice was hurried and panicked.  

Tim’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He didn’t know the answer to either of those questions. He couldn’t think when his hands were covered in Dick’s blood and he had to focus on continuously pressing down on his wound or he wouldn’t make it. 

“Batman has private jets,” he said after a few seconds. “He can get here fast, and he’ll help us.” Tim hated accepting help from people, but right now, they were desperate. 

He sucked in a breath. “I need you to take a turn with this while I call him.” 

Peter nodded vigorously. “Okay,” he said, taking a few shallow breaths as he moved his hands to take the place of Red Robin’s, applying firm pressure to Nightwing’s injury. He repeatedly whispered ‘okay’ under his breath, hoping Batman would hurry. 

“He’ll be fast, right?” Peter asked, shifting his position slightly, now unable to lift his gaze.

“Definitely.” As soon as Bruce heard Dick was in danger, he would book it here as fast as possible. 

Tim yanked off his gloves and dialed Bruce’s cell. 

He picked up immediately. “What’s wrong?” Naturally, he already knew there was an emergency. Tim didn’t call often. 

He got straight to the point. “We’re in New York City. Nightwing is injured— stabbed, bleeding out. Robin’s the one who did it. He’s under the influence of a mind control toxin and currently unconscious.”

Bruce didn’t waste time with extra words either. “I’ll be right there,” he said, and then hung up. 

Peter heaved a deep breath when he heard Batman was on his way. This was his fault. He shouldn’t have gotten involved with these heroes—they probably would have been better off without him, he realized. 

He turned to look over his shoulder at Damian, his brow furrowed with worry. He needed to web him up but he couldn’t move from his place at Nightwing’s side. 

Tim followed his gaze and could tell what he was thinking. “We can switch back. You get him.” He nodded to Damian as he pulled his gloves back on. 

“Thank you,” Peter told him, getting up once Red Robin was able to staunch Nightwing’s bleeding again. He stumbled over to Damian, crouching down at his side to grab his wrists to web them up. A faint glowing caught his eye, and he turned. 

“Oh gosh.” Peter blinked at the glowing from Damian’s neck, and he pulled his suit collar down to let more light out. His veins were glowing, ever so slightly. “This is bad,” he muttered, lifting up Damian’s limp body and leaning him up against the wall. 

He stood and webbed the kid against the cold stone wall before glancing at the civilian’s unconscious bodies across the room that had been fought earlier. He webbed them up too. 

  “No kidding,” Tim replied flatly. It got a smirk out of Dick, although he was looking worse by the minute. 

“How is he?” Tim called over his shoulder. 

“Um—he’s kinda glowy now,” Peter answered, watching Damian. His chest was still heaving with panicked breaths. “How’s Nightwing?”

“Never better,” Dick wheezed. 

Tim glared at him. Chatty all the time, even with a stab wound. It was annoying. 

Chapter Text

Half an hour later, Bruce showed up in the Bat-plane, which was easily large enough to store Dick’s motorcycle, and it had its own med bay area where they could get Dick and Damian situated. 

He was wearing his suit, either solely for identity-keeping purposes or because he’d come from another mission, Tim wasn’t sure. 

“Spider-man,” he greeted, his voice as deep and gravelly as ever. He seemed slightly surprised to see him but remained stoic. 

“Hi,” Peter greeted, a bit shy. He had put his mask back on earlier, just as a precaution. It was stained by Nightwing’s blood, the darkened splotches only barely visible against the red fabric. 

His eye-whites were wide and he gave a small wave, stepping forward to offer Batman a handshake. This guy was familiar. He remembered reading about him a while ago. 

He was definitely intimidating, but Peter hoped he didn’t let on too much. His suit was dark and his build was bulky. Peter could’ve mistaken him for a bad guy if these were different circumstances. 

Dick was still on the ground, pale as a sheet and half delirious from pain and blood loss at this point. Tim had given him painkillers from his medkit, but nothing in there had been strong enough to help much. 

“Bruce,” he mumbled, once again disregarding code names. He was clearly not in his normal state of mind. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Stop talking,” Tim told him for the sixteenth time. Every time he talked, he had to readjust his grip. 

Bruce walked toward them, concern visible in his expression despite his obvious efforts to conceal it. “He’s worse than I thought.”

“Yeah, um, let’s get him into that plane,” Peter cut in hurriedly, looking at Nightwing. He pulled his hand back after Bruce failed to shake it. Oh well. They could do introductions later. 

Tim and Bruce carried Dick to the Bat-plane while Spider-man got Damian. Alfred was waiting for them with medical supplies ready. 

Tim breathed a silent sigh of relief. As soon as everyone got out of immediate danger, they could resume their mission and catch the Plaguemaster before anyone else had to suffer. 

“And who might you be?” Alfred asked Spider-man, his posh British accent sounding out of place for the setting they were in, yet strangely comforting. 

Peter had been occupied gawking over the jet they were in. Highly advanced technology caught his attention left and right, and he let out an amazed, ‘wow,’ at least four times. 

He turned when Alfred spoke to him. “I’m—I’m Spider-man.” He decided to introduce himself with his alias. The brunette politely offered Alfred a handshake, asking, “Are you the butler?”

“Indeed. Alfred Pennyworth at your service, sir,” he replied, shaking the boy’s hand promptly. 

“He’s more than a Butler,” Tim piped in, knowing Dick would say that if he was in better condition. “He’s a friend.”  

“No way, that’s awesome,” Peter said, shaking Alfred’s hand for probably longer than necessary. 

A piece of tech on the other side of the plane snagged Peter’s interest and he let go of Alfred’s hand to scurry over to it. He inspected it closely, muttering something under his breath about how cool it was. 

This jet alone was pretty awesome, Peter thought. It reminded him of Mr. Stark’s tech, although he would never admit if he thought it was any cooler. 

Bruce was the only one allowed to fly his jets, so he went to the cockpit while Alfred and Tim took over the med bay. 

Tim glanced at Spider-man. “Just a warning, you might not want to watch what we do in here.” Removing the Batarang from Dick’s insides wouldn’t be pretty. 

Peter made a face at Tim from under his mask. “No, I can handle it,” he responded, walking back over to Tim. 

Tim nodded and led Spider-man down to where Alfred and Bruce had laid Dick in a gurney, hooked up to an IV and monitors. Damian was in another one beside him, strapped down. 

Both their masks had been removed, so evidently, no one cared if Spider-man knew who they were. 

Tim examined Damian. Unconscious, he looked disturbingly peaceful, but there was definitely still something off with his expression. The veins in his neck were whitish and ‘glowy,’ just like Spider-man had said. His suit was still intact, though his gloves and cape had been removed as well. 

Alfred was bent over Dick, preparing for surgery. 

“Oh wow, these guys totally do look the same without their masks on,” Peter whispered half-jokingly as he saw Nightwing and Robin. 

He scratched his head and peeked over Alfred’s shoulder at Nightwing, silently hoping that whatever Alfred was about to do wasn’t going to be as gross as he thought it would be. 

“I can help,” Tim volunteered, but Alfred brushed him off. 

“I’m afraid it would be best if you didn’t watch this, Master Timothy,” he said. 

Tim scowled. That was the same treatment he’d just given Spider-man. Plus, he’d used his real name. Was this kid that trustworthy?

Peter couldn’t stop himself from snorting in amusement. “Master Timothy?” he echoed, his voice a little squeaky from holding in laughter. It sounded so good in Alfred’s British accent. 

“It’s Tim,” Tim corrected, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t believe Spider-man was making fun of his name. …And he was embarrassed about it. 

He sighed. “And since everyone else has unmasked, here’s my face too, I guess,” he said flatly. He peeled his mask off, revealing a deadpan expression. 

“O-oh,” Peter cleared his throat, trying to control himself. “Sorry. My name’s Peter, then.” 

He tore his own mask off. It smelled too strongly of blood and it made his head hurt a little. Peter took in a relieved breath of air. Yeah, he could definitely breathe better without it. 

“Peter is just as bad as Timothy,” Tim pointed out with a smirk, but when Peter took off his mask, he felt his ears go red and cleared his throat. There was that jawline again. Maybe he would just look at the ground from now on…

“Wha—? Rude.” Peter gave Tim an offended look. “Peter’s way better,” he huffed, setting his mask down on the countertop beside him. He leaned against the counter a moment later, folding his arms and heaving a deep sigh. His leg was sore. 

Tim tried to ignore the way his heart  fluttered but but the when Peter sighed. He was not attracted to him. That would be completely ridiculous. 

“Anything is better than Nightwing’s real name,” he stated. 

Peter looked up. “Why, what is it?” he asked, his curiosity piqued. The brunette scratched his arm, vaguely thinking that he needed a new suit. This one was bloodstained and ripped, although the only backup of his was at his apartment back in Queens. 

“Dick,” Tim replied, his smirk coming back. “You know, short for Richard.” Why Dick still went by his nickname in today’s society, he had no clue. 

Peter actually choked out a laugh. He didn’t believe it. “No way,” was all he managed to say, his shoulders shaking with more laughter.

He partially felt bad laughing, since he considered Nightwing his friend, but that was funny.

Tim nearly short circuited at the sight of Peter’s smile when he laughed, but he regained his composure quickly. Spider-man was not attractive. At all. 

“Anyway,” he muttered. “Anything else you want to know?”

Once Peter had finally stopped laughing, he paused. “Um, yeah,” he ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it a little, “Batman’s name is Bruce, right? As in Bruce Wayne? That super rich guy?” It would make sense. This jet alone had to be worth millions and millions of dollars.

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Well, we’re in a high-tech private jet. What do you think?” 

It was weird talking about this with someone he’d just met, but it was also refreshing, in a way. He didn’t have too many other friends he didn’t have to constantly lie to. 

“Well, okay…” Peter adjusted his position slightly. “Does the high-tech private jet have a high-tech…coffee machine?” he asked slowly. This day was the most he had dealt with in a while, and the lack of sleep he’d been getting had finally caught up to him. 

“Oh yeah,” Tim said. He’d started leading Peter out of the med wing as soon as he’d heard the word coffee. It sounded absolutely wonderful right now. “I wouldn’t survive without one,” he stated as they entered a kitchen area. “Neither would Bruce, probably.”

“Dude, this place is huge,” Peter said softly to himself as he followed Tim. He spotted the coffee maker. 

“Can I live here? Like, literally in just the plane. You should see my apartment,” Peter chatted as they approached the coffee maker. “Actually, maybe you shouldn’t.”

Tim’s ears burned again. He totally didn’t want to see Peter’s apartment. Why would he want to go to Peter’s apartment??

“If you think this is cool, you’ll love the Batcave,” he said coolly, desperate to not look flustered.  

“Really?” Peter replied, getting excited. He loved technology, almost as much as he had loved science. 

“What sweeteners do you have?” he asked, looking around the coffee machine. 

“Sweeteners? Really?” Tim questioned, judgment slipping into his voice. He never drank his coffee anything but black. He needed pure caffeine. …And, okay, it also made him feel cooler. 

Though, of course Spider-man would sweeten his coffee. That was actually pretty cute. 

1. Not cute. Why had he just thought that??

“Uh. Honestly, Bruce and I are the only ones who use this, and we never use them. So… none.” 

Peter made a mildly offended face at him. “Not even sugar or honey? Maple syrup?” he tried. He didn’t want a black coffee. He had tried that too many times before. 

That was how MJ liked her coffee, and he didn’t want to have to think about that either. 

“Have you seen Batman?” Tim asked. They had plenty of sweeteners at Wayne Manor, but that was still a while away. 

He pushed past Peter to make a pot of coffee anyway, at least for himself. 

Peter frowned. “This is a kitchen, right? There’s gotta be something I can use in here,” he said, brightening a little as he turned to open a few cabinets behind him. Nothing.

He shot webs at the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, pulling each one open gently to reveal nothing he could sweeten his coffee with. This sucked. 

“Sorry,” Tim supplied, his usual indifference gone in favor of sympathy. Peter was just too likable. He genuinely felt bad that they didn’t have any sweetener. 

“It’s okay, I’ll still have a cup,” Peter sighed, looking back at the coffee maker as it hummed.

“Sorry, those will dissolve in like an hour, by the way,” he added, gesturing at the spiderwebs hanging from the cabinets on the far side of the kitchen. 

Tim eyed the webs, intrigued. He couldn’t help asking, “How do they work?” 

“Uhh, it’s a web fluid that I make,” Peter explained, looking down at the web shooters on his wrists. He popped out one of the tiny canisters to show Tim. 

He held out his other wrist so Tim could see the web shooter. “I push this button and it shoots out as a spiderweb.” He pointed his arm up at the wall before shooting a single web at it to demonstrate. 

“It’s a polymer, isn’t it?” Tim asked, reaching out to touch the web. He’d taken his gloves off as soon as they’d gotten on the plane, since they’d been soaked in Dick’s blood. 

The webbing felt more fragile than it looked, but that was to be expected. Real spider’s webs were incredibly strong relative to their size. 

“Yeah, actually,” Peter replied, a bit surprised that Tim knew what he was talking about. “Be careful, it’s super sticky.”

“The formula is primarily salicylic acid and methanol, with a bunch of other stuff,” Peter added, feeling proud of his work. He had spent a long time perfecting it. 

“Makes sense,” Tim muttered, his mind working to figure out what ‘other stuff’ would work with those two main components. 

He almost told Peter he’d done research on his web fluid before, but he didn’t want to look over eager. 

“I pretty much formulated it in my freshman year chemistry class,” Peter said, sliding the half-empty bottle of web fluid back in the web shooter. “And refined it a lot more my sophomore year.” 

“How long ago was that?” Tim wondered if he could confirm Peter’s age. Not for any particular reason. He was just curious. Totally. 

Peter struggled to count the years in his head. The blip had always thrown him off. “Uhh, a while ago. I graduated this year. I’m 18, my birthday was a couple weeks ago,” he explained, his warm brown eyes now hovering on the coffee maker as its whirring filled the silence in the background.

“Really?” Tim froze. “…Mine was a month ago. I turned eighteen too.” They were so close in age, dammit. 

“Oh, no way,” Peter said, holding out a fist to give Tim a fist bump. “August 10th. Yours?”

“July nineteenth,” he replied. He returned the fist bump reluctantly. 

“Happy late birthday, man.” Peter drew his hand back and folded his arms again, leaning back against the counter. It turned out everyone but Damian was great company. 

“Thanks,” Tim replied. “You too.”

That was awkward, so he changed the subject. 

“So…” he said, putting the coffee into mugs now that it was done. “Plaguemaster. I need to know more about him.”

Peter shifted his weight on his feet. “I’ve never met the guy. You probably know as much as I do,” he told Tim, watching him pour the coffee into two mugs.

He took one and held it gingerly in his hands, his gloves keeping him from getting burned. “He used to be some sort of doctor. He managed a hospital that closed down due to a bunch of sketchy stuff. One of the guys that works for him said he was cold and calculating and crazy, but that’s really all we know.” Peter blew on his coffee. 

“Cold, calculating, and crazy,” Tim muttered, committing that to memory. “Got it.”

He paused, his thoughts cut off by the muffled sound of Dick screaming from the other room. 

If Alfred had chosen not to sedate him, the blood loss was worse than he’d thought. 

Peter winced at the sound of Dick’s scream, a sharp twinge of guilt hitting his heart. “He’ll be okay, right?” he asked Tim, looking up from his cup of coffee. Worry stained his chocolate-brown gaze and he stared at Tim with his brows knitted together. “Alfred knows what he’s doing?” 

“Yes,” Tim answered, though his voice was clipped. He knew Dick was in good hands, but he couldn’t help worrying about him regardless. He’d been trying to put it out of his mind since they’d boarded the plane, but he couldn’t— not completely. The memory kept replaying of the Batarang slamming into Dick’s chest, and how Tim and Peter had practically held his wound together until Bruce had arrived.

Dick screamed again. More weakly this time, like he was fading.

Tim turned and left the kitchen without another word.

Peter blinked at Tim as he walked out. “Hey, don’t leave me here alone,” he called after him a moment later, standing up fully. 

He let out a terse sigh. No response. Peter walked out of the kitchen and into the med bay area again. He took a sip of his coffee that he almost choked on when he caught a look at Dick’s open wound being operated on by Alfred. 

Tim was sitting beside Dick’s head, leaning over him. Alfred was suturing the wound, and there was blood all over the place. More than earlier. The smell was sharp and metallic and made Tim want to throw up, but he ignored it. His focus was on Dick’s face. 

He’d seen him injured before, but never like this. He was paler than ever, drenched in sweat, and his eyes were glassy like he couldn’t focus on his surroundings. His eyebrows were scrunched, the veins in his forehead popping out under the strain. 

“Hey,” Tim said, putting a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. “The worst is almost over, okay?”

Dick only moaned in response. 

“I know,” Tim replied, his heart breaking a little. “Just hold on. Your blood pressure will drop if you pass out. Stay with me.”

Peter stood a little further back, unable to watch for too long. Gore freaked him out, he decided. The brunette held his cup of coffee close to his face, trying to cover the medical stench with the warm, bitter smell of his beverage. 

He realized his gloves were still stained with Dick’s blood and he turned to the counter behind him, pulling off both the gloves. He set them down beside his mask before picking up his mug and turning back around to face the medical table Dick was laying on. 

Peter swallowed thickly. “Alfred, how is it going?” 

“I’m afraid there’s been a… complication,” Alfred replied calmly. 

Tim groaned, though he’d already suspected something worse was wrong. Dick was barely stable. 

“Internal bleeding?” he guessed. It was the most plausible explanation, though the implications behind it made his stomach twist harder. 

“The laceration is deeper than I first realized,” Alfred said, confirming Tim’s fear. “If I attempt to close the wound as it stands, he’ll continue to bleed out internally. Until we get him to a fully equipped operating room, I can only keep him alive for the moment.” 

Tim clenched his jaw, fighting to remain calm. Anger at Damian coursed through him, though he knew it hadn’t been his fault.

Peter started taking more shallow, rapid breaths. “Okay, well, there’s one of those at the Batcave, right? Or- or a hospital?” 

He started tripping over his own thoughts in his head. Dick would be fine. He would. They just needed better medical equipment. Alfred did say he could keep him alive for the time being.

He scowled down at his cup of coffee. A part of him knew Damian hadn’t been in control when he attacked the three of them, but Peter still felt angry. He wanted to kill the kid. 

No—nope. Absolutely not. 

Peter took a long drink of his coffee. He needed to calm down. It wasn’t Damian’s fault. Dick would be okay. And they would figure out how to cure Damian and they would fix Dick’s injury. 

“We’ll be arriving at the Batcave in approximately twenty-three minutes,” Alfred calculated. “Thankfully, it’s equipped with a full medical unit.”

Tim wasn’t doing so well staying calm himself, but he was used to it. Damian had been causing them trouble since the day he’d arrived, and everyone in the family had been fatally injured too many times to count. Still, this was a highly stressful situation. 

“Let me help, Alfred,” he said again, his voice catching and nearly betraying him. 

“Master Timothy, leave this to me,” Alfred told him sternly. “Why don’t you go and treat your own injuries?” he suggested, more gentle this time. 

“What?” Tim didn’t have any injuries. …Well, maybe a few cuts and bruises from fighting Damian. It was only just occurring to him that some of the blood he was covered in could’ve been his own and not Dick’s. 

Peter’s gaze slid to Tim. “Yeah, I can help you,” he offered, knowing he probably couldn’t help much. He supposed Tim might appreciate the company, though, and Peter didn’t want to watch Alfred and Dick any longer. 

Tim reached up and touched his hairline. It was caked in blood. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered, standing up. 

Peter had a few visible cuts on him as well, though none of them seemed bad. In fact, some of them already looked half healed. 

“That one looks pretty bad,” Peter said with a tinge of sympathy, referring to the cut on his forehead. 

“Damian’s insane,” he added, walking with Tim. “We gotta figure out a cure. Who knows how many people that Dr. Veyl has already infected.” Peter was mostly talking to himself, his voice more of a low mutter as his mind became occupied with processing everything they knew so far. 

“I know,” Tim agreed, digging for medical supplies in the drawers on the other side of the room. He still had some left in his utility belt, but nothing in there was as good as what was here in the jet. 

He didn’t know how bad his cuts were. Most of the one on his head was under his hair, and the others would be under his suit… which he just realized he would have to remove to treat them. The idea of being shirtless in front of Peter derailed all his other thoughts, and he forgot what else he’d been going to say. 

“Uh. You don’t have to help me with this,” he said. “I’ve done it myself a million times.”

Peter seemed to snap out of his thoughts after Tim’s latest statement. “Oh, sure, sure,” he said, taking a seat on a wheeled stool by the drawers. He set down his coffee and spun around a few times before kicking his feet up on the table in front of him. 

“I wonder if there was a way we could locate the Plaguemaster himself,” Peter started, lowering his feet back to the ground only a few seconds after them being lifted. He started talking avidly about his theory on how the toxin worked, and ultrasonic signalling, and every other thought that was coming to his mind. 

Tim had opinions on everything Peter had to say, though his mind was already pretty occupied. Between worrying about Dick and doing his own stitches, it was hard to keep a steady conversation. He chimed in flatly when he felt like he needed to, but other than that, he remained quiet. 

When the time came to strip off his suit, he felt himself blush, but he promptly ignored that and got to work on the gashes lining his chest. They were deeper than he’d thought. Adrenaline had kept him from feeling anything earlier. 

Peter didn’t bat an eye. He was distracted by his web shooters, closely examining the tech on his left wrist. 

When he finally looked up to see Tim stitching up the wounds on his chest, he grimaced. “Ow. Do those hurt?” 

“No, not at all,” Tim muttered sarcastically. He pulled another stitch tight, gritting his teeth to keep from wincing. 

“They hurt me just looking at them,” Peter replied, stretching his arms behind his head and almost losing his balance in the chair. 

Tim pretended the sight of Peter stretching didn’t make his heart rate skyrocket and focused harder on his stitches. They stung so bad it was starting to make his eyes water, and the one he was currently working on arched around his side and up his back and was difficult to reach. 

Peter noticed Tim struggling. “Do you want help with that?” he asked, sitting up a little. He’d had his fair share of experiences with stitches, so he figured he could do his best on Tim. It was the least he could do after the events of the day so far. 

“Not really,” Tim replied honestly, but he put his tools down anyway, letting his shoulders sag in frustration. He was still processing how much the last hour had not gone how he’d planned. 

“But here,” he said, handing Peter the med kit. “Go ahead.”

Peter pushed against the drawers beside him with a foot, rolling around to Tim’s other side, still sitting comfortably in the wheely chair. 

He grabbed the needle and picked up from where Tim had left off, trying to be as careful as possible as he stitched up the gash. 

In the middle of his work a lightbulb went off in his brain. The brunette sloppily pushed the needle in too far as he looked up at the side of Tim’s head, announcing, “Oh my gosh, I got it.” 

“Gahh!” Tim hissed at the sharp pain the motion had caused, but when that had passed, he registered what Peter had said. “Wait, what? What do you mean, you got it?” He could feel fresh blood oozing down his side. 

“Oh shit—” Peter exclaimed when he realized his mistake. He frantically grabbed a wad of gauze from the table beside Tim, holding it up against his bleeding side. “I am so sorry.” He winced, guilt washing over him and distracting him from Tim’s latter statement. 

Tim ignored the pain in favor of hearing Peter’s epiphany. “What happened? What did you figure out?” he asked, only hissing a little when Peter pressed against his cut. The intimacy didn’t help. It was one thing for him to crush on the guy from a distance; another for him to let him put stitches in his bare back. 

“Oh! Well, uh—” Peter had to regain his focus. “I think I know how we can find Dr. Veyl. We got like a million leads from his old office we broke into, but that might never lead us anywhere. We don’t know a lot about him or his plan, but we do know that the toxin isn’t completely organic,” he explained, lifting the gauze slightly to see if the wound was still bleeding. It was. 

He pressed down against Tim’s skin again, looking back up at him. “Compounds in it literally bind to the neurons in people’s brains . That’s what makes the mind control thing possible.”

Peter paused, thinking. “It would make sense if those compounds are used to pick up certain signal frequencies sent by the Plaguemaster. And, well, I heard a news report a few days ago about consistent ultrasonic signals that have been going off in the city. They’re indistinguishable so far, but what if those signals are coming from the Plaguemaster? What if we can find one and trace it to its source?”

Tim looked up sharply, his blue eyes cutting into Peter’s gaze. “…How did you not think to mention that earlier?” He’d thought Veyl could only send out the frequencies in small amounts, which meant he could only control certain people at a time, but if there was a signal that reached the whole city…

This was bad. 

“That plan is genius,” he said. “We have to try it.”

“I might’ve forgotten about it until now,” Peter admitted sheepishly. He still kept his hands gingerly holding the gauze up against Tim’s wound. It hadn’t soaked through with blood, so Peter felt a bit relieved. 

The two discussed it for a few minutes longer, and Tim felt a lot better after they’d formulated a solid plan. Executing it would be challenging, and there were still Dick and Damian’s conditions to deal with, but he could rest easier now with more control over the situation. 

“This actually isn’t the worst Damian’s ever injured me,” he said absently, as Peter messed with the stitches some more. His touch was still nerve racking, but Tim was starting to find it comforting as well. 

“He’s hurt you worse when he wasn’t being mind controlled?” Peter replied wryly, making a few more stitches as they made their way around to Tim’s back. He had to stand up to reach the end of the gash, and he pulled the last stitch tight before tying a sloppy yet sufficient knot. 

“He tried to kill me when we first met,” Tim stated. “But he wasn’t normal then either. He grew up brainwashed by his mother and grandfather. He genuinely thought he couldn’t be Batman’s heir unless I was dead.” He paused, grimacing. “Sometimes I think he still does. He certainly still thinks he’s better than me.” It was clear, by the bitterness in Tim’s voice, that the two still had underlying issues to work out. 

“So you guys… aren’t exactly close,” Peter said, easily ripping the thread with one hand. He stared at the frayed end for a moment before realizing he should probably trim it, and quickly he looked for a blade or a pair of scissors. Once he found shears in the drawer beneath the table, he snipped the thread directly after the knot. “There you go.” He set down the bloodied gauze and the shears on the counter.  

“Thanks,” Tim mumbled. There was another cut on his upper thigh, but he’d deal with that one later. He was not taking his pants off right now.

“Yeah, no,” he continued. “We’re not close at all. He despises me, even though he’s the one who replaced me.”

“You’re welcome,” Peter chirped, walking over to a nearby sink. His hands had got a bit of Tim’s blood on them. 

“He seems to despise everyone,” he added over his shoulder. The brunette turned the knob and cold water gushed out of the faucet. Peter stuck his hands under the water, furrowing his brow at the sight of red running down the sink drain. 

“He does. To a degree,” Tim said, nodding. “But there are people he’s warmed up to. Like Dick, and Bruce, and Alfred. And you haven't met Jason— trust me, you don't want  to— but even he managed to get on the kid’s good side.” He scowled.

Peter hummed in thought, turning the water off. He wiped his hands on the sides of his suit to dry them off, walking back over to Tim. “I can’t believe I’ve never met you all before. I mean—you’ve heard of the Avengers, right?” 

Was Peter sure they weren’t from a different universe? It felt so unlikely that they had been fighting villains in Gotham while he and the Avengers had been fighting villains in New York, and never crossed paths before. 

“Heard of them, yeah,” Tim said. “I’ve never been allowed to meet them though. You haven’t met the Justice League, have you?” he asked.

Peter scratched behind his ear. “Never. But—but I’ve heard of them. Maybe only once, though,” he mused. He vaguely recalled hearing chatter about a ‘Justice League’ when he was at the Daily Bugle one day. But that was all. 

“I think they have a feud with the Avengers,” Tim said. “Bruce won't talk about it though. I’ve gathered some evidence, but I’ve never had a way to confirm if it’s actually true. …I’ve never had the guts to ask anyone else in the Justice League.”

Peter looked mildly surprised. “Wait, really?” A feud? With other superheroes? He couldn’t exactly picture any of the Avengers having conflict with other superheroes. Not that any of them were necessarily still here to keep a feud going. He winced at that thought. 

Tim raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, really. Half the time, neither team’s members can get along with each other. Naturally, they’d be rivals,” he said clinically.

“Yeah, I guess you have a point,” Peter shrugged. He thought back to the conflict with Captain America and Mr. Stark. That felt like forever ago. 

“Who’s all in the Justice League?” he asked after a moment, wondering if any of the names would be familiar to him.

Tim snorted. “We’d be here all day if I named off every single member,” he said. “It’s like The Avengers though. We’ve got a main roster. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter.”

Okay. Those names were familiar. “Wait.” Peter looked at Tim, his nose scrunching. “Batman’s in the Justice League?” he asked. 

If it was true that there had ever been a feud between the Avengers and the Justice League, did that mean Batman had some secret vendetta against Spider-man? Peter didn’t exactly want to be on his bad side. “Are you in the Justice League??” he questioned, pointing at Tim. 

For the first time all morning, Tim laughed. That was rich. Him, in the Justice League? He wasn’t even close to that powerful. It would be cool, but he doubted it would ever happen.

“I was on a team called Young Justice for a while,” he said. “Kids of the actual members.” 

“I don’t get it, what’s so funny about that?” Peter asked, confused as to why Tim had laughed. “I was in the Avengers probably the same time you were in that Young Justice team,” he said with a shrug, blinking at him.

“No you weren’t,” Tim accused, his smile fading in an instant. Peter was not powerful enough to be on a Justice League level team. He probably wasn’t even powerful enough to beat him in a fight. 

If he was telling the truth, The Avengers couldn’t have been as elite as he’d assumed.

Peter made another face at Tim. “Dude, yes I was,” he retorted with a laugh. “I fought Thanos. I literally joined when I was 16. I even helped Mr. Stark fight Captain America when I was 14 ,” Peter assured him, growing defensive. The brunette felt offended that Tim didn’t believe him. Was it really that hard to believe? 

Tim calculated that for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t believe you’re skilled enough to join a team like that, it’s just… None of us, not Damian, not even Dick, are considered good enough for the Justice League. Either you’re a lot more powerful than you look, or the Justice League has higher standards.” He wasn’t trying to offend Peter, but he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it either.  

“Ouch.” Peter felt ridiculously undervalued. “Well, maybe I’m just a lot more powerful than I look,” he said after a moment, as carefully and politely as possible. 

“Right,” Tim muttered. “But so am I.” Something still wasn’t adding up. He’d either been underestimating Spider-man’s abilities or overestimating his own, and he didn’t want it to be the latter.

“Sure,” Peter shrugged, a small amount of indignation still in his tone. He opened his mouth to say something friendlier when he felt the plane shudder, and he realized they must’ve begun their descent. 

“Are we there?” he asked instead, walking to the nearest window he could find. 

Tim was glad for the subject change. He pulled his undershirt on and glanced at the window Peter was standing in front of. He could already tell from the skyline that they were in Gotham, specifically at Wayne Manor. “We’re there.”

Chapter Text

“I’ve actually never been to Gotham City before,” Peter told him, curiously staring out the window. “I should probably grab my mask and gloves,” he thought aloud, turning and jogging back over to the counter he had left them on, in front of where Dick was still laying.

“Don’t worry about your identity,” Tim said, not completely sure if that was the reason Peter had announced that aloud, but letting him know regardless. “It’s completely secure here.” Wayne Manor was technically still in the Gotham City limits, but it was located on the island across the river, only accessible by tunnel or aircraft.

“Oh. Uhh—” Peter grabbed them anyway. “Just in case,” he muttered, running back to where he had left his cup of coffee. He downed the last swig of it, the bitter taste warming his throat. 

“I really gotta grab my backup suit,” he said to Tim, holding up his mask to peer at the bloodstains on it. His gloves were the same, if not worse, and he didn’t like it. 

“We have clean clothes you can wear, for the time being,” Tim assured him. They would probably be his clothes, since he was the closest to Peter’s size. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

The jet finally touched ground in the Batcave’s landing pad, next to all the other Bat-aircraft. Bruce and Alfred rushed Dick down the ramp and toward the medwing on a gurney, and Tim moved to get Damian.

“Maybe I hit the kid a little too hard,” Peter mumbled as he helped Tim with Damian, who was still very unconscious. “He’s not dead, is he?” he asked wryly, trying to listen for a heartbeat. 

“I’m assuming the plan is to keep him out until we know he’s stable,” Tim supplied. “Alfred might have given him a sedative earlier.” 

He looked Damian over himself, grimacing. He looked pale, almost feverish, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the glowing in his veins had gotten worse. He wished he knew what that entailed.

“Oh.” Peter immediately felt stupid. Of course Damian was sedated. “D—uh—yeah, obviously.” He facepalmed inwardly, deciding to keep his mouth shut for the time being.

“Come on,” Tim said seriously, but he was hiding a smirk. He led Peter out of the jet, across the landing pad, through the garage, and into the medwing, Damian in toe. 

Peter couldn’t contain his awe—it was made horribly obvious in the way his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “There’s no way this place is real,” was the first thing he said when they stepped onto just the landing pad. Countless bat-themed vehicles lined the walls, each one glinting in the dim lighting. 

“Dude. Can I please live here,” Peter said, only half jokingly. He followed Tim into the medwing, his brightened gaze darting from left to right. He couldn’t believe how advanced everything was. 

Tim grinned. “Cooler than Stark’s labs?” he asked. Judging by how impressed Peter looked, he figured the answer was yes, whether he’d admit it or not. 

“Ummmm,” Peter hummed for a thoughtful moment. “No, definitely not,” he said, sounding fully confident. Batman’s tech was cool, but he would always favor Mr. Stark’s. Even if it had tried to kill him once or twice before. 

Tim shook his head. He had to be lying. 

~

Once Damian was situated, he gave Peter an unofficial tour of the rest of the Batcave. He wanted to talk to Bruce, but he and Alfred were still busy with Dick, and he didn’t want to interrupt surgery. 

They ended in the main chamber, where Tim showed Peter Bruce’s work station as well as his own. It was messier than usual, since he’d left in a hurry this morning, though most of the files and notes were still organized meticulously. “I’ve cracked some of Gotham’s toughest cases in this very chair,” he stated, putting things back into their proper places as he talked. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself leave them like that. 

Peter watched and listened intently as Tim showed him around. This place was insane. “That is awesome ,” he said, sliding one of the pages of notes away from him to study it. 

“Uh, don’t— don’t touch that.” Tim pulled the page back to its proper place. If something happened to any of his notes, his entire system would be thrown off. Besides, the idea of Peter reading his hasty ramblings made him uncomfortable. Those were private. 

“Oh, sorry,” Peter apologized, moving his hand back to his side. He was still clutching his mask and gloves in the other hand. 

He lifted his gaze from the files, trying to take in the room in its entirety. “Do you guys all live here, or is it just Batman? Wait—does the Justice League live here? How big is this place?” 

Tim cracked another smile. Peter was adorable. 

Wait. He hadn’t meant to think that. 

He cleared his throat. “Damian and I live here— though I have plans to move out in a month. Everyone else just sort of… comes and goes,” he said with a shrug.

Peter nodded. “Oh, okay. Got it. Dick has his own place, then?” he asked, scratching his arm as he continued to look around.

“He doesn’t even live in Gotham,” Tim said. “But he’s Bruce’s golden child. He hangs around here more than anyone else.”

“Interesting,” Peter hummed, bringing his hands together and rubbing the fabric of his mask and gloves between his fingers. After a moment he asked, “Do you think we have time to run back to my apartment so I can change my suit…? Like—at any point in time. Maybe we can go later, I don’t know,” he added hastily, realizing that was probably too inconvenient of a request. 

“Your apartment,” Tim repeated. Then he realized he hadn’t formed a coherent sentence. “That’s all the way back in Queens. You’ll need a suit before then,” he added once he’d regained his composure. 

“You can borrow one of my extra ones. I think we wear the same size,” he said. “And don’t worry about your web shooters— I’ll figure out a way to add them in.”

“Wait—seriously?” Peter asked, surprised by Tim’s kindness. He’d never worn anything other than a Spider-man suit before—the thought of wearing a different hero’s suit felt odd. 

“Well, um, my web shooters can actually probably just slide over the suit, or something. I wear them under regular clothes all the time,” he explained, pressing his fists together with a shrug and a small smile at Tim.

“Oh… cool.” That was convenient. 

Tim led Spider-man down to the armory, where all the extra suits were kept. Once again, there was a specific section dedicated to him. It held everything from his first ever Robin suit, to that weird phase where he’d called himself The Drake, to duplicates of his current Red Robin outfit. 

“You don’t want these,” he said, gesturing to the early Robin suits. They’d be too small, and to be honest, they were ugly. They’d been an upgrade from Dick and Jason’s pantless costumes, but that was about it. 

“These are better.” He showed Peter some of the newer Robin suits, including the one he sometimes still wore when Damian was out of commission. They were a lot cooler than the others, as well as more practical. And, of course, there were weapons to go with them. 

“Or these.” On the far right side were the Red Robin suits. A few were earlier designs he’d disregarded, the rest ones he currently alternated between on his daily missions. 

Peter stared up at all of the suits, a bit overwhelmed. “Um.” He swallowed. He felt guilty wearing one of Tim’s suits. Guilty because they weren’t his, and also guilty because he was Spider-man, not Red Robin. 

Maybe he could just throw his suit in the wash to get all the blood out. “Do you guys have a washing machine I could use..?” he asked hesitantly, looking at Tim. 

“But, uh, if I could borrow some regular clothes, that would be awesome,” he added with a soft laugh. “I don’t have anything under this but I should probably just wash it.” His last sentence had become more of a mumble.

“So what I’m hearing is you don’t want to borrow a suit,” Tim said, just to confirm it. 

He paused, trying to remember if he’d left any of his normal clothes in the Batcave. He was pretty sure he hadn’t. 

“There’s a laundry room in my hallway above us, and all my clothes are in my room, so I’ll have to go up there. You can tag along if you want. Might as well show you some of the manor.” He gestured for Peter to follow him to the elevator. 

“Yeah, I—wait, upstairs ? There’s more?” Peter cut himself off after registering everything Tim had said. “Yeah, I’ll come along,” he said, clearing his throat and eagerly following Tim to the elevator. 

“You thought we lived down here twenty-four seven?” Tim asked, amused. He remembered wondering about similar things before he’d become Robin. “This is just where all the cool superhero stuff is. The rest is a normal mansion.” 

Peter laughed in disbelief. “A ‘normal mansion,’ oh my gosh,” he echoed softly, blinking at the elevator doors as they shut in front of them. This has gotta be Bruce Wayne’s mansion upstairs , he realized, perking up at the thought. He felt the elevator go up and he shifted his weight, excited to see what the mansion looked like from the inside. 

Tim took Peter up to the third floor, where his room was located. The manor looked the same as it always did. Lavish and spotless, thanks to Alfred. 

They deposited Peter’s mask and gloves in the laundry room at the end of the hallway, where Tim practically drowned them in hydrogen peroxide to get the blood out. 

After that, they entered his room. It was massive, but not particularly interesting. Minimally decorated. Meticulously organized, yet… messy. Sort of like his notes. Things had been thrown around in a hurry, but he’d put them where they were for specific reasons. 

Watching Peter react to it made him nervous, so he moved on to their task. 

“This is my closet,” he said, opening a door. It was a walk-in closet, of course. Lines of sweaters were hung up in rows in the front. Behind them were shirts, and further back than that was his collection of tailored suits. He kept Peter near the front. 

“You would look good in this.” Tim held up a partially cropped black one that was loose but would show off Peter’s waistline. Then he realized what he’d said. “I mean. It’s comfy. So it’s an option.”

Peter laughed, a bit awkwardly. Cropped? “Oh, uh, yeah—I mean, that’s an option,” he shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing from the sweater to Tim. 

“I’ll wear whatever,” he said graciously, although his gaze moved to the sweatshirts beside him that weren’t cropped. 

“What’s your style?” Tim asked, holding up different clothes. An oversized Gotham University hoodie. A blue button down. His own style was somewhere between preppy and comfortable, which he felt suited Peter as well, at least to a degree. 

“I’ll take…this one,” Peter said, grabbing the hoodie when Tim held it up. It was colder than usual today, and Wayne Manor was definitely kept at a chillier temperature than his own apartment. “What pants can I wear?” he asked next, clutching the hoodie to his chest.

Tim threw Peter a tight black t-shirt to wear under the hoodie, then rifled through the pants until he found some options. Dark-washed slim jeans. White joggers. Cargo pants. Skater-boy baggy jeans. He had pretty much anything Peter would want that would go with that hoodie. 

Then, on the floor, were racks of sneakers and boots that could pull the outfit together. 

Peter was clearly overwhelmed. He studied all of his options a moment longer before picking out a pair of comfy-looking cargo jeans. “What size shoe do you wear?” he asked, looking down at all the sneakers.

“Nine,” Tim told him, hoping that was close to Peter’s. It was small, but judging by looks, it was close. 

“Oh, no way, me too,” Peter said excitedly, snatching a pair of white-and-blue Reebok Club C sneakers. “Thanks so much, by the way,” he said, looking up at Tim with a grateful smile. 

“You’re welcome. The bathroom is that way,” Tim said politely, gesturing to the room’s interconnected bathroom where Peter could change clothes in private. 

Tim needed to get into another outfit as well. His own suit was similarly wrecked. He would replace it with a different one when they got back to the Batcave, but right now, his normal clothes looked too inviting not to put some on. 

He went with a Batman hoodie, wide legged jeans, and a simple pair of Converse. 

“Thank you,” Peter said, already jogging over to the bathroom door. He shut it behind him and flicked on the light switch. “Woah,” he breathed when the room was illuminated, looking around. This bathroom was huge . 

He scrambled to unzip his suit, stepping out of it and trying to pull it off the foot it got stuck on. Hopping on the other foot, he slipped on the rug below him and let out a yelp as he hit the floor with a thump. “I’m okay—!” 

Tim couldn’t stifle a laugh. Peter was a disaster. 

He finished changing much more quickly and gracefully, since his suit had been built to come apart with ease. 

Then there was a knock at the door. “Master Timothy,” came Alfred’s voice. “You and your spider friend will want to come and see this.”

Tim pulled the door open. “What happened? Is Dick alright?”

“Master Richard is expected to make a full recovery,” Alfred said, clearly concerned about whatever was going on but not losing his professionalism. “It’s Master Damian we’re worried about. Quickly, come with me,” he urged. 

“PETER…?” Tim called loudly, immediately following Alfred out the door but hanging back a tiny bit to wait for Peter. His voice had already betrayed the sudden panic that was coursing through him, but he tried to look calm regardless. 

“What—? Hold on, hold on, I’m coming!” Peter yelled, hurriedly pulling his cargos up and scrambling to zip them up. “What is it?” he shouted, grabbing the sneakers and suit and swinging the door open.

He stumbled out of the bathroom with the undershirt held in his mouth, still shirtless. He clutched his hoodie in his free hand, scrambling to hold everything he still had to put on as he jogged towards the far door.

Tim did a double take as soon as he saw Peter. Shirtless . The sight didn’t disappoint. His muscles were as sculpted as a Michaelangelo statue. 

Tim felt his entire face go red. This was worse than Peter seeing him without a shirt. So much worse. 

He stopped in his tracks. “I— um—”

Peter’s brow furrowed when he felt Tim’s stare on him. Was something wrong? He glanced down at his chest, only noticing a few minor scrapes and bruises from all the recent fighting. He brushed away the thought and began hopping on one foot to slide each sneaker on, quickly lacing them up. 

With his newly freed hand the brunette pulled the shirt out of his mouth, trying to turn it right side out so he could put it on. “What is it, what’s wrong??” he asked breathlessly, looking from Alfred to Tim. His spider-man suit and the hoodie were still clutched under his other arm. 

Tim tore his eyes away from Peter’s abs and stared strictly at the floor, his face still annoyingly warm. 

“Something’s happening with Damian. We need to go back to the Batcave.” As he said it, the urgency of the situation came back to him. They still knew concerningly little about the toxin. For all he knew, Damian’s life could be in danger, and as much as he disliked the kid, he didn’t want him to die. 

“Oh,” Peter said, pulling the shirt on over his head and leaving his hair ruffled. “Let’s go,” he added, taking another step towards them as he threw on the hoodie. 

Damian was sitting up when they got back to the Batcave. His green eyes were visible without his mask, but they didn’t look normal. His pupils were huge, and his gaze was completely unfocused. 

As soon as he saw Tim and Peter, he started talking. Except it wasn’t his voice. It was too loud. Too rough. Damian always spoke like he was the most important person in the room, but right now, he didn’t sound like that. He sounded angry and desperate. 

“I know what you all are up to,” he growled. “You’re trying to stop me. But your time is running out. Your precious Robin is already under my control! If you keep meddling, worse things will happen!”

“Dude, what the hell—?” Peter whispered, staring at Damian. This was creepy . “That’s not Damian talking, is it?” he asked. The question was directed at anyone else in the room, but he supposed they all already knew the answer to that. 

Everyone in the room but Dick— who was currently asleep— was staring at Damian. Bruce had removed his cowl and looked as troubled as Tim felt. 

Damian didn’t say anything else. Eventually, his shoulders sagged and clarity started to come back to his eyes. 

Tim breathed a silent sigh of relief. There was no way Plaguemaster was completely done with him, but at least he was getting a break. 

“Damian. Can you hear me?” Bruce asked, standing at his son’s side. 

“…Yes,” Damian mumbled. He sounded like himself again, but his voice was weak and strained. He was clearly in pain, fighting the toxin physically and mentally. 

Tim was about to chime in with a question, but Damian suddenly reached up and clutched his head, crying out through gritted teeth. 

Peter felt his heart twist and he shoved his hands in his pockets as he watched the scene with a wince. Poor kid. “We gotta help him somehow,” he quietly said to Tim, wondering if they should put him back under. Or had he woken up on his own? 

When Damian opened his eyes, they were glowing, just like the veins in his neck. 

Tim tensed, immediately looking at Bruce, who was already moving to restrain Damian should he go crazy and try to kill them again. 

“Consider this your final warning.” Plaguemaster’s voice came through even louder this time. 

After that, Damian went blank, the same way he’d been when Tim and Peter had entered the room. 

Bruce shook his shoulders— hard— but nothing happened. It was like Damian wasn’t even in his body anymore. 

Peter swallowed. He wanted to find Plaguemaster and put an end to this—quickly. He wished he knew how many other people were already infected. 

“Well, this guy sounds delightful,” Peter said wryly, heaving a deep breath that he had to force to keep steady. 

Tim moved to grab one of his backup notebooks from the nearby desk and began logging Damian’s visible symptoms and what he’d said. They’d need to keep track in case anything worsened or could give them a new lead. 

Bruce strapped Damian more tightly to the gurney he was sitting in, while Alfred hooked him up to medical machinery to monitor his vitals. 

Tim was still writing furiously. 

Peter watched everyone turn to their own respective tasks, standing hesitantly where he was for a moment. He glanced over at Tim, walking up to him. “Writing down symptoms?” he asked, tilting his head to try and read the handwriting sideways.

He lifted his arm up to hold out the suit he had still been clutching, pulling the webshooters off the sleeves. The brunette rolled up his sleeves to clip them onto his wrists, asking distractedly, “Can I throw this thing in the wash too?” Once he finished adjusting his webshooters and pulling his sleeves back down over them, Peter held up the suit for Tim to look at. 

Tim still hadn’t wanted Peter to look at his notes, but he was so zoned in on them at the moment, he barely noticed. He’d fallen far behind on keeping track of this case, and that was a problem. Other things had needed to take priority, yes, but he wished he wouldn’t have been so distracted. Particularly, with things like staring at Peter’s jawline. 

“Give me a minute,” he muttered, not looking up. 

“Okay,” Peter mumbled, lowering the suit. He tried reading Tim’s notes again, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder at Damian. 

Tim moved his arm to cover most of the notebook. “Why are you so determined to read what I’m writing?” he asked, masking his embarrassment with irritation. 

“Sorry,” Peter squawked, moving back when he sensed Tim’s irritation. “I was just curious,” he defended himself with an apologetic tone. He turned and started looking around the room, as if he were now trying to find something else to pique his interest.

Eventually, Tim took Peter back up to throw both their suits in the laundry with Peter’s mask and gloves, although the parts of Tim’s that weren’t cloth would have to be washed by hand. Alfred would deal with that later. He didn’t feel like it now. 

After that, they went back down to the Batcave. As much as Tim didn’t want to deal with everything that had happened, it was necessary. He needed to update Bruce.

Peter was always impatient when it came to laundry, so he had grabbed his mask and gloves and threw them into the dryer while his suit would wash.

He hurried after Tim, swinging through the hallways so he could catch up with him. Peter stopped when he saw Batman, quickly letting go of his web and dropping to the ground beside Tim.  

“Bruce,” Tim said, addressing him for the first time since they’d talked on the phone earlier. They were back in the Batcave’s main chamber. “I need to talk to you.”

Bruce spun around in his chair, his expression no less intense than it had been earlier. Come to think of it, that was his resting face. “It’s about time you stopped avoiding me,” he said darkly. 

“I wasn't—”

“You were.”

Tim swallowed. Yeah. He had been. Bruce was intimidating when something bad had happened and he’d been partially responsible. “Sorry,” he muttered. 

“You weren’t supposed to be in New York, Tim. You were supposed to be patrolling here. You broke protocol,” Bruce told him. 

“Yeah, I know.”

“…However, if you hadn’t gone, Dick could’ve bled to death, and Damian could’ve ended up in the streets committing mass murder.”

Tim nodded, relief spreading through him. He wasn’t in trouble. Hopefully. 

“You did good.”

Peter stood quietly, glancing from Tim to Bruce as they talked. He wrung his hands together as he watched, waiting to either be addressed or chime in to the conversation with something clever he would come up with on the spot. Although he started to assume the latter might not happen before the former. 

“Spider-man,” Bruce said, moving on to Peter. “Whoever you are— from what I’ve gathered, you’ve helped just as much, if not more than Tim has. You have my respect,” he stated, staring Peter down with his piercing blue eyes. 

Peter felt a little nervous under Batman’s stare, but once the weight of the compliment set in, he straightened his posture and had to hold back a smile. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “you can call me Peter.” 

Bruce only nodded in response. No ‘pleased to meet you.’ He wasn’t one for small talk. Or being friendly. 

After that, Tim told Bruce everything he knew about the case, Peter chiming in about the things that had happened before Tim had arrived. 

“Do you know when, exactly, Damian could’ve been exposed to the toxin?” Bruce asked him. 

Wringing his hands together again, Peter furrowed his brow in thought. “Well, when we first broke into the hospital, we found all those—all those empty vials. They smelled funny but none of them actually had any of the toxin in them,” he explained after a moment. 

“Unless… Oh gosh. I know when it was,” Peter said suddenly. His eyes widened and he focused his gaze on Bruce. “We were, like, fighting these bad guys, when I heard glass shatter—and I turned, and Damian was standing there and there were little itty bitty pieces of glass on the ground.” 

His explanation gradually grew quicker as the puzzle pieces fit together in his brain. “I didn’t think about it much at the time, but what if he had actually dropped a vial of the poison, and inhaled it somehow? That would mean the toxin’s not actually a liquid but a gas, or at least, it turns into a gas when it comes into contact with oxygen, because there wasn’t any liquid on the ground with the broken vial…”

Bruce was still for a moment, stroking his chin. “Seems plausible. And let me guess. He didn’t say anything about it afterward.”

Peter nodded. “I literally asked if he had dropped a vial and he said no,” he responded dryly. 

“Like father like son,” Tim muttered sassily. 

Bruce ignored him and continued probing Peter. “Then what? Any unusual behavior? How soon did symptoms set in?”

Tim wished Dick was answering these questions. He knew Damian better than Peter did, and he hadn’t been absent for most of the morning like Tim had. 

Peter rubbed the area on his hand between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze losing focus as he thought about the question. “Um, no, I think he seemed pretty normal the rest of the day. Snappy and irritated.” He shrugged. 

“Plus, he stole Dick’s motorcycle and ran off,” Tim added. That part made more sense if Damian had already been poisoned by then. As bratty as he was, he wouldn’t do it for no reason. He’d gone off to brood alone about his dilemma instead of communicating. 

The kid was so much like Bruce, it hurt. 

“Did he?” Bruce asked flatly, clearly unsurprised. 

“I arrived a few minutes before Plaguemaster started controlling him, which would’ve been… how many hours after the vial broke?” Tim said, turning to Peter for confirmation. “He was in a terrible mood. I mean worse than usual.”

“Maybe only an hour or so,” Peter said, folding his arms. He didn’t know much about Damian, so he honestly had suspected the kid was just going through something. But getting infected by a mysterious mind-controlling poison was probably actually the thing he was going through. 

Bruce started to type that in on his computer, but Tim interrupted. “I already have everything down in my logbook. Well, my backup one.”

“Naturally.”

“Our next step is locating the source of the transmission.”

“I read all about what kind of electronic signals they are,” Peter chimed in. “A news broadcast covered it briefly but I was bored and researched about it. The ones that we think Plaguemaster has been sending out are digital, periodic discrete-time signals, since they’re not consistent in values but they’re consistent in frequency,” he explained, using a hand motion to illustrate a chaotically-appearing signal wave. 

“They’ve been going off all the time so we just have to properly distinguish one to track it to its source.” He walked closer to Batman and looked up at the highly advanced computer screen looming over his chair.

“He hasn’t been sending out continuous signals,” Tim realized, letting that register with the rest of what he knew. “That’s why Damian has only snapped a few times,” he pointed out. 

“So tracking it won’t be easy,” Bruce said, confirming what Tim had been thinking. 

“Right.”

“Exactly!” Peter exclaimed. He loved working with people who could match his vocabulary. “Which would make sense, considering discrete-time signals are both easier to send out as well as harder to track. We’re dealing with a really smart guy,” he continued.

“Now, this is all assuming the frequencies we’re referring to actually belong to the Plaguemaster’s scheme, but we won’t know until we find one and track it. Or decode it ourselves.” Peter ran both of his hands through his hair, the gears in his brain clicking satisfyingly quick. 

“Sporadic signals like these require moving quickly, because as soon as they arrive, they can disappear.” 

Peter blinked at the screen. “Here, can I—?” he started, leaning over Batman’s chair as carefully as he could. He pushed a random button before Bruce could react and the computer screen flashed on. 

Both Bruce and Tim’s jaws immediately dropped, and they exchanged an appalled look. 

“Absolutely not,” Bruce said as soon as he’d regained his composure, reaching over to get Peter away from the Bat-computer. Not even Tim was allowed to touch that thing unless it was completely necessary. 

“Oh—sorry,” Peter stuttered, moving back. He sounded less apologetic and more disappointed this time around; he had really wanted to use the computer himself. 

Bruce pulled up the charts Tim assumed Peter would’ve pulled up himself if he’d been allowed. 

Peter watched intently as they studied the current electronic signals in the area. One caught his eye; it appeared suddenly, seemingly discrete, and the frequency was random and uninterpretable. Peter wished he knew binary code at this moment. 

“That’s it—that’s the one,” he had said, and quicker than he thought possible, Bruce had managed to track it to its source. 

A cell tower. About twenty miles from their location. 

“Got it,” Peter said, glancing behind him at Tim. “Can you grab those coordinates? We should go now,” he said. 

Tim checked the timer on his watch. “Your suit still has at least half an hour in the dryer,” he said, wincing. He didn’t know how long they had before that particular signal would disappear, but it would be best if they could leave as soon as possible. 

Peter groaned, bouncing on his feet impatiently. “We don’t have time for that—it’s fine, I put my mask and gloves in the dryer earlier. I’ll just go in this and grab those,” he said, already halfway out of the room. 

Tim was about to tell him that was a terrible idea, but he was too far away, so he simply followed him back up to the laundry room. 

The dryer did not sound okay. It was making a noise. A loud, weird one that Tim had never heard before. 

He was about to press the pause button at the top of it when suddenly, there was an explosion sound, and the entire side of the thing burst into flames. 

Peter shouted some kind of warning milliseconds before it had happened, flinching out of the way and hiding his face from the explosion. 

He turned back a second later, appalled. “My suit!” he squawked, clearly distraught. “What the hell happened to this thing?!” He swatted at the flames, trying to reach around them to pull the glass door open. 

It was extremely hot to the touch and it burned his fingers but he ripped it open anyways, partially breaking the door off of its hinges to reveal a fiery mess on the inside of the machine. 

Tim hadn’t moved. He was standing there in shock, a hand covering his mouth as he watched Peter freak out. 

“I am so sorry,” he said stiffly, finally forcing himself to walk to the other side of the room and get the fire extinguisher. 

He was still trying to figure out what could’ve happened as he put the flames out. He’d been the one to start the dryer, which he’d thought would be easy, but he must’ve messed up somehow. 

Peter was devastated. He watched helplessly as Tim extinguished the flames, leaving the dryer blackened and smoking faintly.

He reached into the dryer, pulling out the remnants of what he assumed was a glove. It burned his fingers after holding it for more than a second and he dropped it to the ground with a quiet ‘ow.’ The fabric was melted and burnt.

“How does this even happen? My dryer’s never blown up before,” he said. His tone wasn’t angry but it was definitely close. Much closer to frustration.

“…It was an accident. I think,” Tim said, thoroughly embarrassed now that the adrenaline had worn off. He’d completely destroyed Peter’s suit. 

Peter. Spider-man. The one with the immaculate hair, and the jawline, and abs, and who was adorably obsessed with science. 

“I’ve never actually used a dryer before,” he admitted. 

“You’ve never used a dryer before?” Peter asked incredulously. “Look, I appreciate you helping me out, man, but these were literally the only clothes I had with me,” he exclaimed, his voice cracking with distress. The brunette took a couple pacy steps back and forth, raking a hand through his hair and clutching his head. 

“We don’t have time to run all the way back to Queens for my other suit, and—and now I gotta go out there and fight without a mask and everyone’s gonna see my face,” he continued, still panicking.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Tim repeated, starting to become distressed himself. More because he’d made a mistake and Peter Parker was mad at him rather than because the suit was destroyed. That was unfortunate, but there were plenty of other suits here Peter could wear. Better ones, equipped with weapons. 

“We’ll find you a suit in the Batcave,” he said. He didn't know how else to make him feel better. “You can wear one of Dick’s, if you’d prefer.” Surely, Dick had worn Peter’s size at one point.

Peter scowled down at the dryer, clenching and unclenching his fists. He exhaled. “But I’m Spider-man ,” he said, looking back up at Tim. “I can’t wear someone else’s suit. Your masks literally only cover like a fifth of your face!” he pointed out, waving a hand in the air. 

Tim sighed. “If you’re wearing a Robin suit, no one will connect your face to Spider-man unless they see you use your webs out in the open, which isn’t all that likely considering how discreet Plaguemaster has been so far.” His words came out cold but rushed in an attempt to conceal his feelings. 

Peter still didn’t want to wear a Robin suit, but he supposed there weren’t any other options. “Fine,” he sighed, defeated. They had to go.

“Let’s just get one quickly,” he said, picking up the ruined glove off of the floor with a web and tossing it back into the dryer before hurrying out the room. 

Tim was silent as they once again made their way back to the Batcave. He wanted to say something to diffuse the tension, but he couldn’t think of anything that would make him look sympathetic. Peter had overreacted, and Tim had already apologized. He didn’t owe him anything else.

So he didn't know why he still felt uneasy.

Once Peter had calmed down, they reached the armory again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted,” he told Tim remorsefully. “It wasn’t your fault,” he added, clearing his throat softly as they approached the rows of Robin suits. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Tim told him, his tone clipped and his expression blank. He hated when Bruce did that to him, but he didn’t know how else to respond. Avoidance was his coping mechanism. He and Bruce were similar in more ways than he liked to admit.

The dryer thing hadn’t bothered him that much, but on top of everything else that had been piling up, he was growing increasingly tense and grumpy. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand to work with Peter before he went insane. The guy was attractive and insufferable at the same time.

Peter clasped his hands together. “Which one can I wear?” he asked awkwardly, although he was clearly in a hurry by the way he rocked on his feet and flicked his gaze from suit to suit. He was itching to fight someone. 

“Any of them,” Tim replied coldly, impatient because he’d already established that earlier. And he was stressed, and Peter had done one too many things to get on his nerves, including being adorable and making him deal with romantic feelings he no longer wanted to deal with.

He needed to pull himself together. 

“Except, don’t be Red Robin. That’s me. You can be Robin or Nightwing, since they’re both down for the count. The Nightwing suits probably won’t fit you, so that leaves mine or Dick’s old Robin ones to choose from.”

Peter studied his options for only a second. “I’ll take the red one, if that’s alright,” he decided, gesturing to it before reaching to grab it. 

It was equipped with several tools and weapons that Peter was sure he wouldn’t be using, and he wondered if the cape would be bothersome while webswinging, but he supposed it was the closest in appearance to his Spider-man suit. His best option. 

Tim blinked. Peter had picked the closest Robin suit to his Red Robin suit as he possibly could’ve. They’d practically be matching. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. 

He showed Peter how to assemble the outfit, since it would be a lot more high maintenance than his own. Going through everything in the utility belt took awhile, and he felt like the weapons would be pointless, since he doubted Peter knew martial arts, but he explained them anyway. “Your main tools are going to be the grappling hook, the Batarangs, and the bo staff. Though, I’m going to guess you’ve never used any of that before.”

“Uh—no,” Peter said, growing more impatient. “C’mon, though, let’s just go.” He unclipped his webshooters first, setting them down as he tore off his hoodie and shirt, moving as quickly as possible. He pulled off each shoe, tossing them to the side and grabbing the suit from Tim. 

Tim averted his eyes this time, but not before he was as red as a tomato. Again.

Why did Peter have to be so sculpted??

Peter had gotten used to suiting up in a hurry, but having to put on an entirely different suit was throwing him off. He had to hop a few times to get the pants on, and the cape confused him a little, but he managed to do it all relatively quickly. 

“Do I have to wear these?” he asked hesitantly, holding up the black trunks. He still had yet to put on his boots and gloves, which he eyed. The gloves looked too bulky to fit his webshooters over. 

“Do you want the color scheme to be balanced?” Tim asked, arching an eyebrow like Peter would be crazy for saying no. Personally, he preferred his red and green Robin suit with the armor and elbow pads, but the red one still had a place in his heart. Losing the green for the first time had made him feel cool.

“I guess,” Peter huffed, quickly throwing them on before moving on to the boots. He felt kind of silly in this suit, but he wouldn’t tell Tim that. The cape was awesome, admittedly. “I’ve never worn a cape before,” he said as he put on the shoes, his typical youthfulness returning to his tone. 

He picked his web shooters back up. They definitely wouldn’t fit over the glovesleeves. Instead he grabbed the gloves from the suit beside the one he had taken, still black but much slimmer and form-fitting to his arms. “There we go,” he muttered, clipping the webshooters on over his wrists. 

“Those gloves don’t match that cape, but… that’s… fine,” Tim pointed out, narrowing his eyes. Clearly, he had more fashion sense than Peter did. He wasn’t sure whether to be proud of that or embarrassed, so he tried to ignore how uncomfortable the juxtaposition made him. 

Besides that, the sight of another person wearing his suit was jarring. Peter looked good in it. Great , even, but it felt so wrong. His brown hair didn’t compliment the black pieces like his did, and his posture was completely different. He didn’t quite look Batman-esque enough to be a true Robin, but his boyishness got him part of the way there. Tim had to be honest, it was freaking him out a little. He had half a mind to make Peter take it off.

“Well, I need my webshooters,” Peter pointed out as he adjusted them. He held up the mask to his face and peered at it. “How do I put this on?” 

“Technically, you don’t need them— you just use them as a crutch because you’re not skilled in combat,” Tim said, but regretted it immediately. Was he trying to get Peter to hate him or what?? Why was having a crush so complicated? His need to feel superior had been heightened almost to the max. Except he wanted to impress the guy, not offend him.

Flustered, he moved on to the mask. “Press it down over your eyes. It should suction to your face and stick.” 

Peter lowered the mask and looked at Tim indignantly. “E—Excuse me? That’s not true. The webshooters are my combat. I don’t need all those extra weapons that guys use. I just need myself and my webs,” he responded tersely, feeling entirely underestimated. He stuck the mask on his face. 

“We don’t need the weapons either,” Tim informed him, pretending not to notice the way the mask brought out Peter’s cheekbones, not failing to make him look more attractive than he already was. “Batman knows one hundred and twenty-seven forms of combat, including hand-to-hand, and he’s trained me in most of them. Not to mention the ones I studied as a kid in my spare time. And any time those have failed, I’ve easily devised plans to outsmart my opponents with little to no resources,” he rambled. If that wasn’t impressive, he didn't know what was.

Peter hadn’t been entirely paying attention, although he managed to keep his concerned stare focused on Tim. Looking through the new mask was different but not worse than the eyes on his Spider-man mask. “Okay, dude,” he exhaled, patting Tim’s shoulder before turning to leave the room. He didn’t want to argue anymore. 

Tim dragged his hand down his face, groaning. Why was he such a disaster?? He’d never been this unfocused on a mission in his entire life. And hundreds of people’s lives were at stake, including Damian’s.

“Get it together, Tim,” he told himself angrily, throwing on his own suit and storming out of the armory as soon as he was finished.

Chapter Text

Dick was awake. And he felt like death. That wasn't an exaggeration. He wasn’t fully convinced he’d survived that surgery.

He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t even support his own weight. “…Ow.”

Peter was jogging past the medbay when he heard a familiar voice from inside. Clumsily he whirled around and went inside, grabbing onto the doorframe to keep his balance. “Nightwing?” he called, spotting his friend laying where he had been left earlier, in the corner of the room. 

“Hey,” Dick croaked weakly, pleased to see Peter standing across from his gurney. At least, he thought that was Peter. “Are you… wearing Tim’s suit?”

It looked interesting on him. Though, maybe not as good as his Spider-man suit.

“Yeah, because he literally blew up the dryer with my suit in it,” Peter replied, dramatically sticking his hands in the air. He was trying very hard to avoid looking at Dick’s abdomen, for fear of seeing an open wound that he wouldn’t want to see. The poor guy looked rough.

whAT?? That was hilarious.

Dick started to laugh, but that sent pain shooting down his entire body, so it only came out as a groan.

Alfred walked across the room to examine him. “How are you feeling, Master Richard?” he asked politely, not smiling, but clearly glad to see him awake. 

“Sort of like I’m gonna be sick,” he mumbled dizzily.

And then, without warning, he proceeded to vomit blood all over the floor beside him.

“Oh dear,” Alfred said, stiffening.

Peter jumped backwards instinctively. “Wow, that’s—disgusting,” he said, looking down at the vomited-up blood in horror. “I guess now we’re even,” he joked, gulping down nausea. He inched another step away from the mess. 

Dick would’ve apologized, but he was in too much pain to speak. The sudden movement had made everything hurt ten times worse than when he’d first woken up.

He clutched his torso, struggling to take deep breaths while he spit out lingering blood and bile.

“Easy now,” Alfred soothed, moving to Dick’s side to settle him down as well as clean up the mess. 

“Am I still bleeding?” Dick finally managed to choke out, alarmed at the onset of so much pain and visible blood after he was supposed to be recovering.

Alfred checked the monitors to assure Dick was stable. “Your heart rate and blood pressure haven't dropped, so no. It’s safe to assume you merely expelled residual blood that had pooled in your upper GI tract.”

“Lovely,” Dick breathed, rolling his eyes. If that was all it was, shouldn’t he feel better, not worse?

“Unfortunately, it appears your painkillers are wearing off,” Alfred pointed out matter-of-factly.

“...Ugh.” That explained the excruciating pain. 

Peter watched Alfred and Dick interacting, wondering where Tim had gone. “Um,” he said, glancing down at the blood still on the floor before looking back at Dick. 

“As much as I’d love to stay and chat, we’ve got an evil doctor to go catch,” he said, gesturing at the exit and inching towards it, waiting for a response from either of them. 

Tim entered the room right as Peter said that, his eyes widening at the sight of Dick awake and the fresh blood that had splattered the floor beside him. He’d missed something.

“Hello, Master Timothy,” Alfred greeted.

“What happened?” Tim questioned.

Dick looked worse for wear, but there was slightly more color in his face than earlier. And, unsurprisingly, he seemed a lot more chipper than most would be after getting stabbed in the liver with a Batarang. “I just puked blood. You should’ve seen it,” he said.

Tim scowled at him. “Gross.”

“What’s your deal?” Dick asked softly, his eyebrow arching. Beside him, Alfred filled a syringe.

“What are you talking about?”

“You look… irritated.”

Tim folded his arms. “Yeah. You almost died, Dick.” It came out more passionate than he’d meant. He may or may not have realized how much that had been affecting him. “Damian is… zombified ,” he continued. “And if we don’t stop Plaguemaster soon, everyone else in New York City will be too.”

Dick frowned sympathetically. “Yeah, I know. I wish I could help… but I can’t even stand up right now.”

Tim only exhaled. He wished Dick could help too. Normally, he preferred working without him, but after watching him almost bleed out, he had to admit, it would be refreshing.

“We have to go,” he announced flatly. Then he crossed the room, avoiding looking at Peter the entire way to the door.

Peter gave Dick a ‘help me’ sort of look before turning and following after Tim. He jogged to catch up, eventually falling in step with him. “You still have the coordinates, right?” he double checked, his cape swooshing behind him. 

Peter looked over his shoulder at it. That was different. It distracted his senses but he’d try to work on fixing that before they got to any sort of a fight. 

“Yes,” Tim muttered, still avoiding eye contact as he pulled up said coordinates. He’d resigned to talk to Peter as little as possible until his feelings went away. That was the only way he knew how to salvage the sliver of a friendship they’d built without making a complete fool out of himself.

Peter slid a sideways glance at Tim. He had become a lot less friendly since the dryer incident, and Peter felt a twinge of guilt at that. He hoped he hadn’t seriously hurt Tim’s feelings. 

“Are we taking a bat-car? A bat-bike? Can I drive?” he asked excitedly after letting the silence sit for a mere three seconds. He still didn’t have a driver’s license, but Tim didn’t need to know that. Peter was great at driving when necessary—and this was definitely a necessary moment. 

Tim had wanted to take his motorcycle, except it only had one seat, which meant Peter would have to straddle him and hold his waist to ride on it. So, there went that option.

“Bruce would kill me if I let you drive any of the vehicles in this garage,” he stated, not leaving it up for debate.

“Oh. Well, that’s okay,” Peter shrugged, looking at all of the vehicles as they passed them. “Woah, we should take that one!” he gasped eagerly, pointing at Tim’s motorbike.

There she was. The Red Robin Cycle in all her glory. 

“The thing is… that bike— my bike— only has one seat,” Tim pointed out. He didn’t mention the implications. 

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, still eyeing the bike. It was beautiful, but Tim didn’t sound like he wanted to take it. “Okay, then what else can we take?” he asked, blinking at the other options in front of them.

Tim looked around, thinking. They could take the Redbird, his sports car, but it probably wasn’t their best option. The newest Batmobile was far more versatile, being the fastest and sleekest vehicle in the garage… but again, Bruce would kill him. 

He went with one of the older Batmobiles near the back of the garage. A red one. 

“Dude, this is awesome,” Peter said, thoroughly admiring the Batmobile. “How fast can it go?” He was busy messing with his cape, trying to get it to lay straight. How did Tim’s sit so perfectly?

“I don’t know… two-hundred fifty miles an hour, at least,” Tim muttered, strapping himself in and revving the engine. 

They pulled out of the garage as soon as everything was situated, heading toward their target location. 

Peter had been sitting quietly despite his mind running at a million miles an hour. This car was awesome . Every time Tim revved the engine he could’ve melted. 

The car ride had been mostly silent, but Peter slowly began prodding at Tim with conversation as they neared their destination. He was currently talking about how he actually didn’t have his drivers license yet, because he lived in New York City, and he was a hero who could webswing everywhere, so really, it was unnecessary. 

Tim assumed an annoyed, deadpan expression. Because he was annoyed. Though, deep down… he had to admit, Peter’s ramblings were adorable in spite of that.

Pausing his chatter, the brunette looked out the windshield to see a person stumble onto the road in the distance, just a mere blob from where they were. Peter expected the person to just keep walking but instead they went still, appearing to turn to face their vehicle. He felt his anxiety rising as the Batmobile slowly neared the person, traveling at a highly fatal speed. 

“Tim—” he started, bracing himself with one hand on the dashboard and one on the side of Tim’s seat as they grew terrifyingly closer to the pedestrian. Why weren’t they moving ? “Tim look OUT—”

Suddenly panicking, Tim swerved out of the way. 

The momentum ended up carrying them off the road and flipping the entire car over. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it crashed into a pillar after it landed upright.

Tim clutched his head, which had slammed into the window in the same spot he’d already had stitches. His vision was blurry. That had happened so fast.

Peter had yelled when they swerved off the road, but as soon as he sensed the car was flipping, he hunched himself inward and covered his head and neck with his arms to try and keep himself protected. Eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted together, he tried to survive the car rolling as safely as he could. 

He made the mistake of relaxing too soon and he was jerked forward violently when the car rammed the pillar. His seatbelt went taut and almost strangled him. 

“Oh my gosh,” he groaned, dizzily clutching his own head. He, surprisingly, hadn’t been injured too badly, although the car roll had severely messed up his senses. 

Tim’s heart was racing. When the vertigo passed and the world finally came back into focus, he examined himself. He wasn’t injured, except for the gash in his head, and it didn’t look like Peter was injured either. 

He heaved a sigh of relief, wiping warm blood from his forehead. Thank God Bruce installed so many safety features in his vehicles.  

Peter’s ears were ringing and his head hurt. “Are you alright?” he asked, stunned. He scrunched his nose and squoze his eyes shut a few times to try and shake himself back to focus. When he finally turned to look to his left at Tim, he noticed the gash on his head had reopened. “Oh, dude—” he said, scrambling to look for something in the car that he could staunch Tim’s bleeding with.

  “I’m fine,” Tim replied immediately, though it was a complete lie, and the unsteadiness of his voice betrayed him. He was shaken to his core. He’d never been in a crash like that while he’d been driving. He could've gotten himself and Peter killed. And the Batmobile…

He didn’t even want to look at the damage.

Peter kept searching regardless of Tim’s response. He found a stack of Chipotle-branded napkins in the glovebox, shoving them in his arms. “Here. Chipotle’s got you covered,” he said, moving to unbuckle his seatbelt. “Who was that guy?” he asked, sitting up a little in his seat and trying to look out the back window at the road in the distance. 

“I don’t know. One of the infected, I’m assuming.”

Tim had to fight to keep his hands from trembling as he wiped the blood away with a wad of napkins and kept the rest of them pressed to his gash. Then he unbuckled himself and climbed out of the car.

The damage was bad. Worse than he’d expected. 

Glass was shattered. Doors were falling off, smoking. The tires had burst. The entire front was completely destroyed, the pillar splitting it in half and exposing the motor, which would certainly never run again. 

The car was totaled.

A lump formed in Tim’s throat. On top of everything else, he’d just totaled the red Batmobile.

Peter climbed out of the car after Tim, looking back at the damaged vehicle with a sharp wince. “Uh, just a few scratches on her. She’ll be alright,” he joked, itching his head. He stared at the car, frowning.

Wonderful. They were never going to catch the Plaguemaster. 

Tim stared at the car’s remains in shock for a few seconds longer. …And then he burst into tears. 

He couldn’t help it. So many things had gone wrong in such a short span of time, and this had been the last straw. All the stress he’d been bottling up was finally being released in its true form— raw emotion. 

He buried his face in his arm, humiliated, but he couldn’t stop. 

Admittedly, he had breakdowns like this pretty frequently. But normally, they only happened when he was alone.  

“Woah, uh—what the—” Peter stammered, facing Tim with his hands lifted. “Tim, you okay, man??” he asked, hopping over the destroyed car hood to get to Tim’s side.

He took a deep breath and put his hands on Tim’s shoulders, his gut wrenching. He felt bad for him. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he tried to comfort him, his voice softening slightly. 

Peter’s voice was soothing, but the fact that he, of all people, was the one standing here while Tim cried didn’t exactly make him feel better. He despised when people saw him like this. Especially when he’d wanted to impress them. 

He sniffled and wiped the tears off his mask as soon as they stopped flowing, trying to pull himself together. “Sorry,” he told Peter lamely. “That was uncalled for.”

“Umm… no, no, it’s alright. Really. You just wrecked Mr. Wayne’s car, it’s totally understandable,” Peter pointed out, patting Tim’s right shoulder a few times before lowering his hands. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve been a pain to you at all today,” he said guiltily. Peter barely even knew the guy and he already felt like he had ruined his life. 

Just his luck. He shouldn’t be trying to befriend these heroes—they clearly weren’t being benefited at all by him being here. 

Ouch. That thought stung. He quickly tried to shove it back down.

“No,” Tim said immediately, his voice hardening. “You haven’t.”

As much as he’d wanted to blame Peter for his own discomfort earlier, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Really, all he’d done was help him the entire afternoon. He’d sewn his stitches, and he’d given them multiple new leads on the case, and just now, he’d stopped him from hitting an innocent civilian with the Batmobile and was standing here apologizing like he’d been the one to wreck it. 

“Trust me. You’ve been the opposite of a pain,” Tim assured. It didn’t sound very sincere, but that was only because he was so furious at himself. His stupid feelings had been the pain, not Peter. They still were. 

Peter was being… perfect. And that only increased Tim’s humiliation. 

Peter felt better after that. “Thanks,” he said, smiling a little at Tim. He liked him, Peter decided. Both him and Dick felt like a breath of fresh air after the last few lonely months. 

He stiffened suddenly when he sensed something approaching them from behind, traveling in hasty, heavy steps. Peter whipped around to see what must have been the civilian on the road earlier lunging for him. 

The brunette yelped and then he was tackled to the ground, holding the infected person away from his face as he scrambled to attack him. “What the hell!” he squawked, kicking the person off of him and hurriedly getting up. This guy was rabid , behaving like a bloodthirsty animal. 

Tim’s guard immediately went up, and he ran to Peter’s side, drawing his bo staff. Just like when he’d been fighting Damian, he didn’t want to hurt the person, but they were putting up a good fight. 

Upon closer look, Tim could see it was a man, likely in his thirties. He looked like he could be a father.

Tim was still unsteady from the wreck, his head throbbing, making his movements sluggish. He was pretty sure he was concussed, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

He and Peter worked together until they knocked the man unconscious, and Tim bent down to bind his hands and tie him to another nearby pillar.

“Dude, this is all so weird,” Peter said, staring down at the unconscious man. “I mean, I feel bad beating up random people.” He watched Tim tie him up, folding his arms and scowling. It felt like they were living in some sort of apocalyptic video game. Come to think of it, Peter hadn’t interacted with a civilian who wasn’t trying to kill them in the past three hours. 

Tim pulled out his log book, writing down the man’s visible symptoms as quickly as he could. The page blurred in and out of focus, and he could barely read his own handwriting, but getting the words on paper was what mattered right now. If he missed something, the whole case could be thrown off. 

He flipped back to where he’d written Damian’s symptoms, comparing the two lists. They were almost identical, aside from when Damian’s eyes had glowed and he’d started speaking. 

“From what I can tell, they’re all the same,” he muttered, thinking out loud.

“What’s all the same?” Peter asked, turning to Tim. “All the people? No, they’ve all been different. They’re all just regular people, though,” he said, scratching his arm. 

“No, no, I mean the symptoms,” Tim said, his eyebrows scrunched in concentration. “The toxin. It’s an exact match. Plaguemaster hasn’t changed anything.”

His grip on his pen loosened, and he nearly dropped it. 

Ugh. He was losing his fine motor skills. Definitely a concussion. 

He realized he needed to write that down too, so he began scribbling furiously in the notebook once again. 

“Oh,” Peter said, nodding. “Right. Hey, I don’t think you’ve taken enough notes yet,” he added humorously, pointing at Tim’s notebook. Damn. He was writing a lot. 

Peter tried focusing on the words he was writing, and he frowned a little when he failed to distinguish a majority of them. Was Tim alright?

“I haven’t,” Tim said, but he was serious.

He stared at the page, his vision blurring again. No matter how hard he tried to focus, he couldn’t.

His comlink buzzed in his utility belt, and he groaned.

“Red Robin, report,” came Bruce’s voice, eerily calm. 

“I’m here,” Tim replied, only because he knew Bruce would show up in person if he didn’t. 

“Why did I get an alert that the red Batmobile is in critical condition?”

Tim almost started crying again, but he managed to keep it together. Now was not the time. Peter had already seen plenty of him being pathetic.

“It’s totaled,” he said flatly.

“Totaled? How?” Bruce replied. His voice didn't sound angry— it sounded gruff and void of emotion, like it always did— but Tim could tell he was pissed. He knew the signs.

“It was an accident.” Tim told him. “We ran into another infected.”

“Is anyone injured?”

“No,” he lied.

Bruce was silent for a moment. “Continue the mission,” he finally said. “I’ll take care of the mess.” And with that, he signed off.

Peter was standing by Tim’s side, listening intently to the conversation with Bruce. When the call hung up, he stood there quietly for a moment longer, rubbing his neck. 

“At least we have his blessing to keep going?” he tried, shrugging his arms a little. 

“Yeah. For now,” Tim said bitterly. “He’s waiting until after the mission to release his fury.”

The wreck had been Tim’s fault, which already stung. Failing was one of his least favorite things in the world, and Bruce scolding him later wouldn’t help. …But at the same time, he felt like he deserved it. 

“I can take it,” Peter offered. “The blame, I mean. It was partially my fault, after all.” He stared at the smoking Batmobile behind them. Bruce Wayne had plenty of other vehicles. Losing just one shouldn’t matter too much, right?

He messed with the mask on his face a little. It felt weird; different from his own Spider-man mask he was used to. And his cape had been strange while fighting, like he predicted.

Peter sighed. It’s been a long day.

“But, c’mon, we gotta keep going. We still have to catch Dr. Veyl—if he’s still even at that cell tower,” he said to Tim, turning back around. Peter hoped he was still there. It would be a lot more convenient if they could just catch the guy, beat him up, and get this whole freaky mind-control gig over with already.

Tim nodded and gathered up everything he thought they might need from what remained of the Batmobile, shoving it all into his utility belt. 

Chapter Text

Nausea churned in Tim’s gut as he and Peter walked through the city, triggered by the headache and vertigo that were only worsening by the minute. His head was still bleeding periodically, but he kept wiping it with his glove before Peter could see. They didn’t have time to redo his stitches right now. 

“I can’t let you take the blame for the wreck,” he eventually said. Minutes had passed, and he was still thinking about it, unable to focus on the case. “You don’t want to get on Bruce’s bad side. Trust me.” Bruce knew Tim well enough to let him off the hook a lot easier than he would Peter. 

A single car whizzed by, interrupting the momentary silence between them. Staring down at the ground as he walked, Peter shrugged and replied, “Well, his bad side can’t be that bad. I’m not worried.” 

He finally looked up from the line separating asphalt and grass to get a view of the scenery surrounding them. The Batmobile had crashed into a stone pillar supporting an overpass, and the amount of cars on the road there was concerningly low. 

Peter glanced over his shoulder at the wreck in the distance. Grassy fields laid ahead of them for another mile or so, making up an oddly rural area of Gotham City. The outskirts, he supposed. 

“Isn’t it weird how quiet it is out here?” he wondered aloud, giving Tim a sideways glance. “I mean—where is everyone?” 

Tim liked the quiet. For once, he could actually hear his thoughts. Not to mention, his head was killing him.

Still, it wasn't a good sign. This area did have less people than the inner city, but he’d never seen it this empty.

“...I think Plaguemaster’s made more progress than we thought,” he muttered darkly. He wanted to write that down, but he restrained himself. He wasn’t even sure he could write legibly anymore.

“Where do you think they’re all hiding?” Peter asked in a hushed tone, his eyes narrowing as he continued looking around. He shot a quick glance down at the web fluid in each of his webshooters. Yeah, it should last him through another fight at least. 

They were approaching the cell tower. If it were hijacked to send out signals, surely the Plaguemaster couldn’t be far. 

“The direction we’re headed is the same one that infected civilian came from,” Tim stated. His voice sounded hollow, and he felt distant, like he was underwater. 

He had too much on his mind right now. Memories of Dick, nearly bleeding out in his arms. Damian, with glowing eyes, possessed by Plaguemaster. His own failures; not only blowing up a dryer, but crashing the freaking Batmobile and immediately breaking down about it. And Peter, the annoyingly, adorably dorky spider boy with a perfect jawline and perfect hair and perfect abs, who’d been beside him through all of it. 

And on top of all that, the stupid concussion he was hiding.

He realized he hadn’t finished what he’d been trying to say. “Which means… they’re probably near the cell tower. And those two being in the same place would almost have to mean Plaguemaster himself is with them.”

“Yeah,” Peter replied, giving Tim a mildly concerned look after the longer-than-average pause in the middle of his statement. He sounded funny when he talked, too. How hard had he hit his head? Peter realized a concussion wasn’t unlikely. 

“Hey, buddy, are you alright?” he asked quickly, moving in front of Tim and stopping abruptly. Were his eyes dilated? Peter reached to pull the mask off of his face.

“hEY,” Tim snapped, trying to duck out of the way. “We’re not supposed to unmask during missions. It’s against protocol.” It was true, but not a great excuse to keep his mask on right this moment, considering there wasn’t a single person or car in sight.

The sudden movement made his head spin, and he stumbled back, the world going out of focus while Peter successfully removed his mask.

“Okay, you’ve definitely got a concussion,” Peter said before he had even inspected Tim’s pupils. His eyebrows scrunched together and he got closer to Tim, trying to get a good look at them in the harsh daylight.

“Dude, your pupils are huge,” Peter said, still looking worried. He stuck the mask back on Tim’s face haphazardly. “You can’t come fight—you stay right here and I’ll go handle the Plaguemaster.” 

Tim bent over, bracing his hands on his knees. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“I’ve fought through worse, Peter,” he forced out. “I’ll be fine.” 

He couldn't let Peter face Plaguemaster alone. Tim didn’t even want to fight him just the two of them. They needed Dick and Damian. Maybe even Bruce.

“No, I’m serious. Go find some shade to sit in, or something,” Peter said, taking a few steps backwards and away from Tim. He would’ve webswung away if there were more than just powerlines overhead. Last time he tried swinging from those it didn’t end well. 

Tim let out a dry, almost hysterical laugh. “There are innocent civilians being mind controlled by a psychopath through two entire cities, and you want me to ‘find some shade to sit in’?” 

He forced himself to stand upright, pushing down the lingering dizziness and nausea through sheer determination. “I’m going with you.”

Peter let out a terse sigh. “Fine, but if you can’t handle it, I’m calling it quits for you,” he said. Tim was reckless, but so was he. He saw a little bit of himself in him. 

He turned and started towards the cell tower, shaking out his hands a little as he walked. He was itching for a fight with this guy. 

Tim had thought, surely, there would be activity at the cell tower, but the closer they got to it, the more he doubted himself. 

By the time they were ten feet away, his doubts had been confirmed. There was no one here. The place was deserted. 

He bent over again, sluggish and breathless. “So much for that.” 

Couldn’t one thing today just go according to plan? 

Peter threw his hands in the air. “There’s nobody even here,” he said, exasperated. He wished he had a way to tell if there were still any outgoing signals from this location. 

The brunette raked his fingers through his hair, scowling afterwards. Of course they missed Plaguemaster. Getting here had taken forever. “This sucks.”

“There could still be evidence near the tower,” Tim pointed out, straightening and taking off in that direction. They needed another lead. Desperately. 

Peter followed after Tim. His senses still felt dampened from the car crash, which he didn’t like. Normally he was so in-tune to his surroundings, but everything was strangely… muffled. He looked up at the cell tower, fenced off and equipped with a power box directly in front of it. 

His gaze trailed down to a cluster of power cords, leading out of the power box and up to the base of the cell tower. That was odd; Peter was sure those weren’t supposed to be as exposed as they were. He tilted his head at them.

The brunette couldn’t shake the sudden feeling creeping up his spine–his lack of a Spidey-sense left him feeling unprotected. “See anything?” he called over his shoulder, looking at where Tim had wandered over to the opposite side of the tower.

Tim could feel his detective instincts kicking back in as he scanned his surroundings, looking for clues that might indicate Plaguemaster’s whereabouts .

He scribbled some observations in his log book, then sighed. He needed to get closer.

In a swift motion, he jumped up onto the fence, away from the wires, and started to climb. His grip was unsteady, and his coordination was off, but he was practiced enough to manage getting to the other side without much difficulty. Aside from the dizziness that almost swept him off his feet when he landed. 

Peter hopped over the fence, easily clearing it with his superhuman abilities. He landed on the pavement on the other side in his signature sprawl—knees bent in a crouch, one hand down, and the other cocked back at his side. He looked around dubiously for a moment before standing up fully. 

The brunette moved to look behind the power box when suddenly he was met with the surprising force of another person ramming into him. He let out a strangled yelp as he was thrown a few feet backwards into the mess of power cables, snapping several of them free as he became tangled and trapped.

Before he had time to react and tear himself loose he felt white-hot electricity surging through him. His vision shattered into static and his muscles locked up, his nerves shrieking as if his body was being torn apart. 

Peter’s spider-sense went haywire, a constant siren in his skull begging him to escape. The electric surge from the wires seemed to end its fit for just a moment, allowing Peter to finally piece together a thought other than ‘pain.’ He scrambled to free himself and then the shock started all over again. His cells were working furiously to keep him away from the line of fatality, burning and repairing his body all at once. 

Finally, the charge stopped. With a desperate heave with the last bit of strength left in him, he pulled himself free and collapsed on the concrete, barely alive. 

The brunette let out a dull groan, smoke curling from his suit. His ears were ringing and his head was reeling, unable to sense the mind-controlled civilian looming over him, or the one creeping up on Tim. 

“Peter!” Tim shouted, horrified as he watched arcs of electricity surge through Peter’s body, seizing him uncontrollably. 

Tim took off sprinting toward him as soon as his head hit the ground, completely abandoning his logbook and the mission. A shock like that would’ve killed a normal person, but with Peter’s powers, he could’ve survived it. 

Tim hoped and prayed he’d survived it. 

He didn’t know what he would do with himself if he’d—

His thoughts were cut off by a sudden jerk. The world spun, and Tim landed sprawled out on the ground with a sickening crack. 

He could feel blood gushing down his forehead— again— and his vision went black in an instant. 

Then someone dragged him up by his cape and he forced his eyes open. Everything was blurry, but he was able to make out the glowing veins of another civilian. 

Tim kicked hard before they could advance, knocking them both to the ground. Then, swiftly, Tim got up, drew his bo staff, and slammed it into the person’s temple. They passed out within seconds. 

Dazed and panting, Tim dropped to his knees. 

The last thing he saw before he blacked out again was a tall man in a lab coat and green gloves, smiling maniacally. His vision was swirling so much he thought he might have been hallucinating. That was Plaguemaster. 

~timeskip~

Peter’s eyes fluttered open.

Shit, everything hurt. He blinked slowly, groggily, as if he had never used his eyes before. Everything was muffled, still. The only sound he could hear was the constant ringing in his skull, reminding him of how many volts had shot through his body. 

He tried to move, but couldn’t. “What the hell…?” his voice came out hoarse and slurred, sounding far away in his brain. He was surprised he was able to speak.

The brunette looked down at himself—his suit was blackened and he was…sitting. In a chair. He tried to move his legs, to no avail. They were tied, like his wrists were tied behind his back. 

Peter’s breathing quickened and he took several shuddery, uneven breaths to try and slow down his panicking heart rate. Where was he? The room was too dim to see anything in front of him but a wall. 

He tried to call out but his voice caught in his throat and he coughed, the mere action alone hurting his muscles. “H-hello?” he tried again, this time successful. “Where am I?” he shouted, his voice cracking but growing stronger the more he used it. 

Tim had a splitting headache. The pain was sickening, piercing through his skull so intensely it dragged him out of unconsciousness. 

He groaned, cracking his eyes open. Wherever he was, the lights were dim, but he still had to squint for the sharp pain to be bearable.

Dried blood caked the left side of his face, plastering his bangs to his forehead. He tried to wipe it away but realized his hands were bound to something; the metal chair he was sitting in.

A chair, in a dark room. Facing a wall. He’d been in this situation before. Kidnapped by villains. He could figure out how to escape, if his head would stop hurting for a minute so he could think.

Peter thought he heard something. Gosh, his dampened senses were awful. Wincing in pain, he strained his neck to look behind him. 

“Tim?” he tried, barely spotting another figure in his peripheral. His ears were still ringing. 

“Peter,” Tim breathed, memories flooding back to him in fragments. He’d watched Peter get electrocuted— he’d thought Peter was going to die— but then. But then… 

He couldn’t think. His head hurt too much. 

It had all happened so fast. He’d fallen and hit the concrete, and after that… 

It was a blur. 

Plaguemaster, he remembered. He’d seen Plaguemaster. 

“What happened?” he groaned. 

He tried to turn his head, but the motion only sent more stabbing pain through his temples, so harsh it made the edges of his vision go white. Dizziness washed over him, and he had to fight to keep from vomiting. 

Peter felt a wave of relief wash over him when he detected Tim’s familiar voice. His exact words weren’t distinguishable. 

“Oh, good, I’m not dead,” he mumbled, taking a few deep breaths and leaning back in the chair. He still felt a searing pain on the skin of his arms, chest, and legs, and he wondered dizzily if there were marks left under his suit. 

He lifted his head a moment later and swallowed thickly. “Can you hear me all right?” he asked. The ringing was slowly subsiding. 

“…What?” Tim mumbled, not processing the question at first. It felt like his mind had been put in slow motion. 

“Sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his breathing shallow. It didn’t help anything. His head was still spinning. “Yes,” he said sharply. “I can hear you.”

“Are you okay?” Peter asked shakily. He tried to remember what had happened leading up to this moment. He was snooping around the cell tower, looking for Plaguemaster, when suddenly…

What had happened? 

Right. He got thrown into exposed power cables. Ten thousand watts of electricity shot through his body. Yeah. That’s what happened. 

“Are we hostages?” He blinked a few times, his vision finally sharpening. 

Tim didn’t answer the first question. No, he wasn’t okay. He felt like his brain had been spliced into a billion different pieces. 

“Hostages?” he questioned, the word slurring a little. He kept his head still, trying to make sense of it. 

Hostages. Why couldn’t he think?? He knew what hostages meant. “Yeah, we… It was Plaguemaster. I-I think… I saw him.”

He moved on more quickly than he should’ve. “Peter. How did you survive that shock? I… I thought…”

Peter took another deep breath. He tried moving his fingers, each one twitching just slightly at the thought. “Told you I have a healing factor,” he replied, though it came out as a bit of a mumble. 

“It still hurts, though,” he admitted, closing his eyes. His spider-sense was still dulled. And his head was still throbbing. 

Tim wanted to turn his chair somehow, to look at Peter, to see the rest of the room, but even the slightest motion was sending agony through his skull, as little as a blink making him so dizzy he couldn’t see straight. It was unbearable. 

“I don’t know where we are,” he finally said, pain and frustration leaking into his voice. If he was uninjured, he was sure he would’ve figured it out by now. In fact, he probably would’ve already had them out. 

Tim’s previous statement finally registered in Peter’s brain. “Wait—” He was interrupted with a coughing fit that made his lungs burn. “—Did you say you saw Plaguemaster?” he croaked out a minute later. 

“I…” Tim tried to think through the fog. Yes. He’d said that. “I might’ve seen him. …I don’t know for sure. I think I hit my head again.” 

He’d barely been holding onto consciousness when Plaguemaster had appeared. It was a wonder he remembered at all. 

“Oh, man,” Peter sighed, leaning his head back again. He was slowly starting to regain feeling in the rest of his body. 

Okay. He could do this. 

With a grunt, Peter used all of his energy to try and spin his chair around, hopping up and down in it a few times. He stopped when he had turned about 90 degrees to let out a pained groan. “Okay, c’mon Peter,” he whispered through gritted teeth, mustering up the strength to shuffle the chair all the way around.

Now he was facing the back of Tim’s chair, maybe six feet away. He looked up, squinting at the single light bulb that illuminated the room. The door was on the wall adjacent to the one he was now facing. “The door’s right there,” he told Tim, struggling to ignore the stinging pain in his muscles that re-emerged when he had moved so much. 

Tim glanced at the door. It was so close, it seemed like it was taunting them. All they had to do was get out of these restraints and they could pick the lock and be free. 

Carefully, he tilted his head down toward the ropes around his wrists. They didn’t look easy to get out of. Chains and handcuffs were loose enough to maneuver around, but these ropes were tied so tightly his limbs were numb. 

He sucked in a breath and eyed the rest of the room, avoiding the lightbulb. It was so dim it hardly illuminated anything, yet looking at it still seemed to magnify his headache tenfold. 

There was nothing visible they could use to get free— at least, as far as he could tell with his half blurry vision. 

Peter looked over his shoulder at his own hands tied behind the back of the chair. Rope. He could rip through that easily.

He tried pulling his wrists apart but quickly realized his muscles were still too sore for that. “Ow,” he muttered, wiggling his fingers again. How long had it been since he passed out? He’d never been electrocuted before, but he was healing slower than he would’ve liked. “Do you know how long we’ve been in here for?” he asked Tim.

“No,” Tim said. He thought back to when they’d arrived at the tower. It had been mid-afternoon. 

Now… he couldn’t tell. There weren’t any clocks or windows in the room.

Peter looked down at the ground in front of him. He could do this—he’d done way more after way worse events. Gritting his teeth again, he heaved a few shallow breaths before pulling his wrists apart with as much strength as he could. The rope snapped easily.

He let out a relieved sigh. “Here, I got out,” he muttered, leaning forward and ripping the rope apart that had bound his ankles together. 

“Get me out,” Tim told him urgently. 

He hated being the least useful person in the room. He was normally the one that solved everyone’s problems, that got his teammates out of binds like this. But right now, he could hardly move, let alone think. 

“You’re not comfortable all tied up?” Peter joked, sitting up and walking over to him, limping only slightly. 

He reached down for the bindings around Tim’s wrists, snagging the rope with both hands before ripping it apart. He then limped around to Tim’s front side, crouching in front of him to tear the ropes off that bound his ankles. 

“Thanks,” Tim breathed, flexing his wrists. 

Then he tried to stand, which was a mistake. As soon as he moved, vertigo washed over him, the room tilted violently, and his stomach lurched. 

He doubled over and threw up, pain splitting his skull with every retch. 

Blood slipped down his head, mixing with the sweat that had been beading there. 

Peter had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. “Oh—gross!” he yelped, getting up from his crouching position and taking another step away from Tim, his hands raised defensively. 

He stared at him for a moment before his brows knitted together in concern. “Look, man, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, blinking at the blood running down his face.

Tim bent forward and clutched his head, breathing hard until the pain subsided enough that he could let go and glance up at Peter. 

His stomach still roiled, threatening to rebel again, but he fought it. 

He pried off his mask, hoping that would provide relief, but it only sharpened his sensitivity to the light. 

“There’s nothing we can do,” he groaned. He’d left his med kit in the Batcave, so they couldn’t even stitch his cut back together. At this point, the best he could hope for was blacking out again so the pain would end. But that wouldn’t help them defeat Plaguemaster. 

Peter blinked down at Tim with a worried frown. “Well, we can—we can get out of here and get you back to the Batcave,” he said, moving closer to Tim and readying to steady him if needed. 

He didn’t want to retreat. He felt that they were so close to fighting the Plaguemaster, but maybe it was more important that he got Tim somewhere safe first. He clearly wasn’t in the state to continue with doing… well, anything. 

Tim groaned miserably, pressing his palms into his eyebrows. He didn’t want to retreat either. Going back to the Batcave would mean resting for days until he recovered, and he had no idea what would happen with Plaguemaster in the meantime. 

“We don’t even have a ride back,” he pointed out. 

It was over. He was going to have to call Bruce to come rescue them, and he’d be benched from the rest of the mission. Maybe even for longer, since he’d gone and wrecked the Batmobile. 

Peter bit down on his tongue, thinking. “That’s honestly the least of our worries right now,” he replied. 

The brunette looked at the door behind him. This whole thing felt too easy. Was something waiting for them on the other side of that door? Where was Plaguemaster? This was nothing like the movies—he was expecting some sort of torturous interrogation in a room like this.

Once again, Tim tried to stand up. He didn’t vomit this time, but it was close. He ended up swaying on his feet and falling into Peter’s chest. 

“Okay—” Peter stammered, catching Tim with his arms out. “You’re okay, c’mon.” He pushed him back onto his feet, holding his shoulders to keep him steady. “Can you walk out of here?” he asked, blinking at him. 

Tim felt his face heat up. This was so humiliating. Peter had only known him for half a day, and he was already seeing him at his absolute worst— medically compromised, hardly able to think, and emotionally… a mess. 

Peter’s touch wasn’t helping at all. It was making his heart rate skyrocket and his hands more clammy than they already had been. And yet… he wanted to lean into it. Desperately. 

“Yes,” he snapped, irritable. “I can walk. I just… need a second.”

“Sure,” Peter said quietly, moving his hands down to his own sides and stepping over to the door. He grabbed the rusted doorknob and turned it. It was locked.

Without warning he kicked down the door, busting it off of its hinges and sending it falling to the floor outside with a wooden thud. So much for sneaking out quietly. He stared out into the open corridor. Were they underground again? “I think we’re underground,” he said aloud, turning to look back at Tim. 

Tim followed him slowly to the door, squinting into the darkness beyond it. 

He wiped some of the dried blood from his face and pressed his mask back on, using its night vision feature to get a better look. 

The hallway was just like the room they’d woken up in. Completely deserted. There were no signs of people anywhere, no evidence they could use to get a new lead on Plaguemaster. 

He braced his hand against the wall, eyebrows furrowing as he replied to Peter’s question. “We must be.”

He reached for the gps in his utility belt but found it gone. Whoever had tied them up must’ve taken it. 

Peter aimed for the end of the tunnel and shot a line of webbing. It disappeared into the darkness, beelined for a moment, then he felt it fall and hit the ground. He released the web and let the rest of it drift to the ground. This was a long hallway. “You ready to go?” Peter asked Tim, glancing at him. 

“Yeah,” Tim lied, forcing himself forward after Peter. Pain stabbed through his temples relentlessly, worsening with every step. He sucked in a shaky breath through his nose, trying to ignore it.

Peter moved slowly, quietly, trying his hardest to listen to his Spidey-sense, which had finally sharpened again. 

They took several silent steps before he froze suddenly, putting out an arm to stop Tim behind him. Something wasn’t right. Someone else was here, he could sense it. He felt a creeping feeling prick his throat and he held his breath, looking over his shoulder before back in front of him. It was too dark to tell if there was another person down the hall or not. 

Tim wanted to ask what was happening, but he kept quiet, not wanting to lose the element of surprise if they were about to run into someone who didn’t know they were coming. 

Slowly, he drew his bo staff. 

He wasn’t prepared for what came out of the shadows. 

It was Damian, mask off, eyes and veins glowing neon green in the darkness, coming at them at full speed with two swords. 

Peter saw the glowing before he saw Damian. “Oh Gosh—” He jumped to the side and pulled Tim with him, hurriedly shooting as much webbing as he could to trap Damian up against the wall. 

What was happening? How did Damian get here? And why was he charging at them?

Tim clutched his head, vertigo from the sharp motion making the room spin violently. He leaned over and gagged, his ears roaring as sounds of Damian’s sword clashed beside him. 

—

Damian cut through the webbing easily, his expression completely blank as he charged at Peter once again, swords swinging at incomprehensible speeds. 

Peter ducked down and away from the blades, webbing Damian’s legs and pulling them out from under him. Damian was fast, faster than anyone else he’d fought before.

“Hey, Damian, you in there somewhere?” he barked, scrambling a few steps backward. He wasn’t as good at close-range combat, especially against a murderous mind-controlled super-child. 

Damian flinched slightly at the sound of his own name, but he recovered within seconds, not hesitating to strike Peter down with his swords. 

He landed several hits, but Peter’s spider-sense was too intuitive to let him get anywhere vital. 

Peter recoiled after sustaining a particularly painful strike to his arm, slicing through the muscle of his bicep. He immediately put his hand over the gash, his heart thudding in his throat at the feeling of hot blood soaking his gloves. 

“That’s not fair, I don’t have a sword,” he said, out of breath. He looked up to see Damian lunge again and he furiously shot webs at him, managing to successfully trap his one arm against the wall. Peter hurriedly covered his arm wound with webbing, hoping to staunch the excessive bleeding. 

“Tim, are you planning on helping at all??” he shouted. He knew Tim was practically incapacitated. This was his responsibility—he didn’t know why he yelled that at Tim. 

Tim had been busy puking his guts out. Again. 

He wiped his mouth shakily, breathing hard. Now was the worst possible time for his body to be giving up on him. Damian was the most elite fighter he knew besides Bruce, and they’d already seen him under mind control once. He was relentless. Peter needed Tim’s help. Now. 

“Sorry,” he groaned, blinking hard through the nauseous dizziness and forcing himself upright. 

He turned and gripped his bo staff, sheer determination driving him forward. 

While Damian was distracted, Tim struck his lower legs, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling across the concrete. 

Peter was mildly surprised to see Tim advancing to help—he had prepared to fight Damian solo, since it was what he had gotten used to. He watched Tim knock Damian to the ground and turned to cheer, “Hey, nice hit!”

“Thanks,” Tim panted. 

Damian growled and pushed himself back to his feet, charging at Tim furiously. 

Tim’s arms shook as Damian’s swords slammed against his bo staff, and he barely managed to stay on his feet as they tussled. 

Peter didn’t hesitate to jump back into the fight, snatching one of Damian’s swords with a web and yanking it into his own hands. “There we go! Now it’s a fair fight!” he said, lunging forward and swinging the sword at Damian without any sort of skill. 

Dick was benched from the mission. Bruce had made that very clear, even after Dick had been fully bandaged, his painkillers had kicked in, and he’d felt well enough to be up and around without wanting to pass out. 

But by now it was nighttime. Damian had managed to escape the Batcave, and Bruce had left Dick with Alfred to go look for him over an hour ago. 

No one had heard from Tim or Peter since they’d crashed the Batmobile much earlier, and Dick had started to get concerned. 

Since he couldn’t outsmart Alfred, he’d had to bribe him to let him leave, and he figured he’d regret that later, but it would be worth it if it meant possibly saving his brother’s and his new friends’ lives. 

He took the Redbird to Tim’s location on his tracker, which led him past a cell tower and underground to yet another dark evil lair. 

He snuck inside using stealth, and was surprised to see not only Tim and Peter, but Damian. The three were in the middle of a fight. 

Damian looked the same as he had all evening; poisoned and zombie-like. Peter— still wearing Tim’s old Robin suit— looked worse for wear. The suit was charred and blackened, there was a bleeding gash on his arm, and he was flailing a sword around like he’d never seen one before. And Tim looked terrible. He was frighteningly pale, blood caked half of face, and he was barely standing upright. 

Dick used his black suit to his advantage, sneaking in behind Damian and catching him off guard. There was a short fight, but even injured, Dick managed to get the upper hand because Damian had been so unprepared for his appearance. 

As soon as he had Damian pinned down, Dick pulled out one of the syringes from the Batcave and injected him with it. Instantly, the boy’s head lolled to the side, and he fell against the ground, unconscious. 

Peter looked pleasantly surprised to see Dick’s sudden arrival. “Nightwing! Dude, you should’ve given us, like, twenty more seconds, we totally had him,” he said, lowering the sword. The tip of the blade clattered against the ground and he tightened his grip on it slightly, all too thrilled to have been wielding a sword. Like in some sort of medieval movie. 

He blinked at Dick. He had gotten much better since Peter last saw him—Shoot, how long were they unconscious?

“Really?” Dick replied, arching an eyebrow. “To me, it looked like he was about to crush you guys.” He pointed at Damian on ‘he’, grimacing at the kid’s condition. He looked miserable, even knocked out. Dick hated to admit it, but he missed Damian’s real personality. He may have been a menace, but anything was better than Plaguemaster. 

He set Damian up against the wall and turned around, finding Tim crouched on the ground, holding his head. 

“Shit, Tim, what happened to you?” Dick asked. Tim looked a lot worse up close. His face wasn’t just pale, it was a sickly green, he was sweating, breathing hard, and there was blood all over him. 

“Hit my head. A few times,” Tim admitted, his gaze clearly unfocused even his mask.

Dick’s eyebrows furrowed. “How many fingers am I holding up?” He held up two.

“...Four,” Tim guessed.

Dick exhaled. This was worse than he’d thought.

He peeled Tim’s mask off, tilting his chin up and checking him over. His concern was amplified when he saw the size of his pupils. “Jeez. How were you just fighting Damian like this??” 

He opened the med kit he’d brought and cleaned Tim’s wound as gently as he could. It didn’t look near as bad once he was done. There was only one gash, and it was hidden under Tim’s bangs. But it was long and deep, and there was no doubt he not only had a concussion but had lost a lot of blood.

Dick glued the wound together and bandaged it, then sat back on his heels, admiring his work. “There. That’s probably not much relief, but now at least it’s not actively bleeding.”

Peter had been busy reaffixing the web-bandages on his arm, after they had nearly soaked through with blood and begun to peel off. He wrapped it in a thicker layer of webbing before walking over to Dick and Tim.

“It’s really good to see you, actually,” he told Dick, panting quietly. “It’s been a long day,” he added, putting a hand on Dick’s shoulder and heaving a sigh. 

“I was starting to get worried,” Dick said, grinning at Peter fondly. It was a huge relief to see him in one piece. “I didn’t have a way to contact you, and Tim wasn’t answering his com or his cellphone.”

“Sorry,” Tim muttered. “We both passed out and woke up down here.”

“Yeah, I figured you were in danger,” Dick replied. Once again, he looked Peter over. “What happened to that suit??”

Peter gave a small smile at Dick’s grin. “Oh, I got—I uh, I got electrocuted,” he admitted after a second, looking down at his blackened suit and rubbing the back of his neck. 

“I’m good now, though,” he added quickly, looking back up at Dick, pursing his lips in an awkward smile. 

Dick chuckled. “No way.” He shook his head. That sounded like something Bruce would do. Just casually get electrocuted and then move on with his life. 

“How’d you like being Robin?” he asked cheerfully. 

In front of him, Tim swayed. Dick took his shoulders before he could pitch forward. “Woah. Easy there, Timmy.”

Tim’s head still landed against Dick’s chest, and Dick sighed and pulled him into his arms. “Alright. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He was clammy and shivering, his breathing dangerously shallow.

Peter had started to respond to Dick’s question when Tim had basically collapsed into him, and the brunette quickly gave Dick a worried look. “Let’s take him back to the Batcave first,” he suggested, peering at Tim. He winced, because Tim looked awful, and also because his arm was hurting. 

“You’ll have to help me,” Dick said. “I didn't have Damian in mind when I drove here. …He’ll ride in the front seat with me so I can monitor him, and Tim can get in the back with you— there’s more room to stretch out and lie down that way,” he decided aloud.

Peter nodded. “Yeah, that’s great,” he agreed, glancing down to the ground at where Damian sat unconscious. “Do you… do you want me to carry him?” he asked, gesturing loosely at Damian. 

Dick glanced down at Tim. Since he was already cradled against him, he figured he might as well carry him. 

“Yes,” he told Peter, glancing at Damian, who was still slumped next to the wall. “If he stirs, let me know. And… be gentle, okay? He may be ruthless, but he’s still my little brother, and he’s hurting more than we could know right now.” Dick was sure that when Damian finally came down from the toxin, he’d completely resent himself for letting it affect him. Not to mention whatever physical side effects he’d already been dealing with.

“Well, yeah, sure, he tried to kill us all like four times, of course I’ll be gentle,” Peter muttered under his breath as he walked away, pitching his voice slightly. He bent over Damian, grabbing his arms and heaving him up over his shoulders to carry him. This kid was so light! 

Chapter Text

Dick took off in the Redbird as soon as everyone got situated, driving at a dangerously high speed down Gotham’s backroads. 

Damian was strapped into the passenger seat beside him, still out cold, and Tim had settled across Peter’s lap in the back.

Dick glanced at the two teenagers in the rearview mirror. “Keep him awake, Peter,” he said worriedly. “And keep his head elevated.” Tim had hardly said a word since they’d left the underground lair. He was fading. They needed to get him back to the Batcave, pronto.

Peter was staring out the window, his elbow propped up on the armrest and his chin resting in the palm of his hand. He glanced forward at Dick before down at Tim with a small sigh. When Dick had explained the stretch room in the backseat, Peter hadn’t exactly pictured Tim laying down with his head in Peter’s lap. 

He supposed Tim was half-dying, though, so he just politely let him be. “…Should he be sitting up?” he asked Dick, turning his attention back to the front seat. 

Dick shook his head. “No way. He needs rest. He’s already pushed himself to the point of collapse. Just… keep his head elevated.” By now, it was becoming apparent that the situation was stressing Dick out. He’d seen Tim injured before, but never quite this helpless. At least… not in a long time. Tim loved to frequently remind him that he wasn’t a kid anymore. 

“Yeah, it is,” Peter replied. He scratched the back of his head and returned his attention to the window at his right. “So—okay,” he started, scrunching his brows together. “Did you know Damian got out? And why was it just him left in that underground tunnel with us? This whole thing is so weird, like, where was Plaguemaster?”

“No idea,” Dick replied, frowning. “I’ve been cooped all day, recovering. I was asleep when Damian disappeared and Bruce went off to look for him, and Bruce was still gone when I left to find you guys.”

“I saw Plaguemaster though,” mumbled Tim from Peter’s lap. The mere act of talking made him go paler, and Dick scrunched his eyebrows. 

Peter looked down at Tim. “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” he said as his gaze flitted up to meet Dick’s in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t see him ‘cause I was kinda half dead, but Tim came and fought off a couple guys,” he continued. “I really wish Plaguemaster was easier to catch.” He had to shift his position awkwardly since Tim was still laying in his lap, and he didn’t want to jostle him too much. 

He frowned in thought. Okay. So someone had dragged him and Tim to another underground bunker, and then left them there alone? What was the point of that? He made a face at the back of the headrest in front of him. It made no sense. 

“I thought you were gonna die,” Tim admitted, his words slurring. At this point, he was completely disoriented and practically delirious. The stabbing pain in his temples was unbearably severe. He was nearly blacking out every time the car hit a bump, and if his stomach wasn’t empty, he would’ve thrown up again. 

Peter snapped out of his thoughts and moved his gaze down to Tim. “Me? Oh, no I was totally cool,” he lied, combing a hand through his own hair. 

“You—you doin’ okay?” he asked next. He peeled off his own mask and set it down on the seat beside him so he could rub his eyes vigorously.

“No,” Tim groaned, too miserable to lie this time. He stirred, trying to get more comfortable on top of Peter’s legs without moving his head. Every time he moved his head, the pain amplified tenfold. 

Wincing, Peter returned his attention to Tim. The poor guy was clearly not doing well. “Is there anything else I can do to help him?” he asked Dick anxiously. “Are we almost there? Does he need more painkillers, or something?” 

“I’ve already given him everything I could from my medkit,” Dick told Peter, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “Try to keep him talking. We don’t want him losing consciousness in this condition.”

Tim buried his face into Peter’s thigh. “You’re helping,” he croaked. “You’re… soft. And warm.”

Peter squirmed awkwardly. Even MJ hadn’t been this affectionate. “Uh, thanks, man,” he said, although it sounded like more of a question. He cleared his throat and kept his arms raised slightly over Tim’s head, not sure where to rest them. Tim had to be insanely delirious.

“Peter,” Tim whispered, voice muffled by the fabric of Peter’s suit. “I have to tell you something.”

In front of them, Dick stiffened. He didn’t know what bomb Tim was about to drop, but he had a feeling it would be something big. The guy kept a lot of secrets. 

Peter laughed, clearly uncomfortable but trying not to show it. “Really? Um. Yeah, go for it,” he responded as he gave Dick a baffled look through the rearview mirror. 

Tim could hear what was coming out of his own mouth, and yet… he didn’t stop it. He wasn’t himself right now. He couldn’t tell up from down, his head hurt so bad he couldn’t form a single coherent thought, and his emotions were all over the place. 

“I think I’m in love with you,” he stated, without any sort of explanation. 

“What?” Peter immediately asked, looking down at him. In love? With him? That didn’t make sense. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” he asked very carefully, clearing his throat with a little awkward laugh. Tim must have been in a lot of pain and shock to say something as out of pocket as that. 

“You’re… you’re perfect,” Tim continued, barely processing Peter’s words. “Just my type… Jawline… Hair… Abs… You’re obsessed with science, and your laugh… makes my heart race,” he rambled. 

Peter nearly choked on the air he was breathing. “Oh my God, is he okay??” he asked Dick, something like panic in the look he gave him through the rearview mirror. He didn’t believe the words Tim was saying—was he about to die, or something?

“Uhhhh.” Dick was caught between sympathy and wanting to laugh. He should’ve known Tim would have a crush on Peter. He really was just his type. 

Peter’s reaction was priceless, though Dick knew if Tim were lucid right now he’d be extremely upset at himself for what he’d said. 

“Peter,” Tim spoke again, still muffled by Peter’s legs. “You can’t leave. I mean… after. If… we catch Plaguemaster. You can’t go back to New York. You have to stay in Gotham… with me.”

Running both of his hands through his hair, Peter’s panicked gaze stayed locked on the rearview mirror as he listened to Tim talk. Oh gosh. He wasn’t lying. 

“Tim,” he said suddenly, looking down at his friend. How was he supposed to say this? “I don’t—I—Tim, I like girls,” he stammered, probably as awkwardly as possible. 

“You… what?” Tim asked slowly, trying to process what Peter had just said. He couldn’t do it. His brain was too scrambled. 

Peter had kept looking up at Dick, as if he could be some sort of help. “Dude, I… I had a girlfriend. I’m not—I’m sorry, I don’t like you like that,” he explained carefully, wincing. He had never thought he would be having a conversation like this with someone.  

“I had a girlfriend too,” Tim rambled absently. “Stephanie. Miss her.” 

Clearly, he hadn’t understood Peter’s rejection. Dick was sure that if he had, he would’ve started crying. 

And… wait, did he actually miss Stephanie like that? Man, Tim was full of surprises. 

Peter had opened his mouth to say something else but decided against it. He pursed his lips and gave Tim a very small pat on the back. “That’s great, man… that’s great,” he said, staring out the window at the city lights flashing as they sped down the freeway. He thought they were getting close to Wayne Manor—which was great. 

Maybe Tim would forget about all this when he finally came to his senses, and maybe he didn’t actually mean any of it in the first place. Peter blinked, still mildly in shock. Surely Tim just said it all because he wasn’t in a proper mental state. Right?

Tim nestled further into Peter’s lap, bringing a hand up grabbing onto the fabric of Peter’s suit. He was desperate to make the pain in his head go away, and the harder he pressed, the less he could feel it. 

“Dude—” Peter squawked, squirming again. “Do you have to sit this…much…on me?” he asked, giving Dick another pleading glance. It was uncomfortable for more than one reason, now. 

“Don’t worry, Pete,” Dick said, trying not to smile. “We’ll be back to the Batcave in three minutes.”

“Three minutes,” Peter echoed blankly. He heaved a sigh and leaned his head back against the headrest. “Great.” 

Three minutes later, Dick pulled into the garage. Alfred was waiting for them, looking displeased until he saw Damian lying in the front seat and his expression turned to one of surprise. 

“I didn’t expect you to be the one coming back with Master Damian,” he couldn’t help but state. 

Dick grinned nervously. “Yeah. Me neither.” He got out of the Redbird, walking around to the backseat. “Master Timothy needs medical attention, by the way,” he said, purposely imitating Alfred when he said Tim’s name to lighten the mood. 

Peter pushed the door open and blinked up at Dick and Alfred beseechingly. “Yeah, he’s got a really bad concussion,” he told Alfred, unsure whether to get up or wait for Tim to get moved off of him. He still looked panicked.

“I’ll move him,” Dick volunteered, reaching down to get Tim off Peter’s hands. Carrying him hadn’t been so easy earlier, what with Dick’s stab wound, but he’d managed. 

“You keep an eye on Damian for now.” 

With that, Dick scooped up Tim bridal-style, careful not to jostle his head. Immediately, Tim clung to him, and he had to smile. He’d seen Tim injured, but never delirious. This was way too amusing. 

Peter had to exhale with relief once Tim was finally off of him. He watched Dick carry him away, scratching his head again. That had probably been the weirdest reaction he’d ever had. 

He sat up and peeked over the seat at where Damian still sat, unconscious. The brunette got out of the car and opened the front passenger door, glancing behind him at Alfred. “Should we uh…should we move him somewhere?” he asked with a vague gesture at the kid. 

“Yes,” Afred said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to contain him in one of our more… secure areas.”

He picked up Damian over the shoulder, taking him past the med wing and down to the bottom floor of the Batcave, where they had cells to temporarily keep criminals. He hated to have to put the boy where criminals went, but they couldn’t have him escaping again. 

Peter followed after Alfred, staying relatively quiet while he continued to take in the Batcave in all its glory. He felt very hungry again, but he supposed that could wait while Damian and Tim got settled into their spots. “How long had he been missing?” he finally asked Alfred, wringing his hands.

“Approximately six hours,” Alfred stated calmly, placing Damian in one of the cells, handcuffing him, and locking it down. Truly, it pained him to even see him like this, but it was what Bruce would do. They had to keep him safe. 

“Gotcha,” Peter replied, nodding slowly. He clapped his hands together after a moment. “So, like, is there a way I can run back to my apartment in Queens really fast? To grab my old suit, ‘cause surely I should just use my own suit.” He shrugged his shoulders and gestured down at the terrible state he’d left the red Robin suit in—blackened and torn and bloody. 

“Actually, sir, I did you a favor and repaired your original suit,” Alfred told him. It had taken Bruce’s technology and the sewing skills Alfred had acquired working on all the Batman and Robin suits in the past, but he’d managed to get the Spider-man suit back in good condition. He may have even added some upgrades. “You’ll find it in the armory.”

“Wait—really?” Peter stammered, visibly surprised. Stinging memories of Mr. Stark and the first suit he gave him came to mind. Tears threatened to well up and he swallowed thickly, forcing the grief along with the memories back down. “Thank you, sir,” he said, blinking rapidly and smiling at Alfred. 

“The pleasure is mine,” Alfred replied politely, his usual blank expression still on his face as he nodded and gestured for Peter to head back up to the armory to retrieve the suit.

Peter looked as if he were going to say something else, but hesitated and took a step back. “R-Right—okay, thank you,” he said again, giving Alfred another smile before turning and jogging up the stairs.

He skidded to a stop once he reached the armory, which took him a little bit of time to find. This place was still huge. “Woah,” he breathed when he saw his refurbished suit displayed at the front of the hall. “This is awesome,” he said to himself, grabbing a sleeve and inspecting it. It looked good as new! How had they fixed it up so well? 

He quickly pulled it down, eager to put it on. The brunette hurriedly took off the Robin suit before jumping into his Spider-man suit, arching his back to reach for the zipper and zip it up as fast as he could. Gloves and mask in one hand, he snatched the webshooters from the Robin suit and clipped them over his own sleeves as he ran to the medbay, where he assumed Dick still was. 

Dick had dimmed the lights, given Tim an IV for fluids, more painkillers, and oxygen so he could breathe easier, and after he’d finished monitoring all his vitals, he’d let the kid fall asleep. He was exhausted. 

Now Dick was sitting at his bedside, redoing his stitches. “It’s funny.” He knew Tim couldn’t hear him, but he talked anyway. It helped him cope. “Half a day ago, our roles were reversed.”

Peter looked down at his suit as he ran, inspecting any differences. The fabric was new. It felt thicker and sturdier, and the blue pieces had become more of a muted blue, complimenting the red much better. He noticed a small amount of webbing under his arms, which he assumed would allow him to glide like one of his older suits. A few more storage pockets were added to the sides of his legs, slim but still appearing to be highly functional. “This is so cool,” he said to himself, looking back up just in time to see the medbay door. 

He clumsily skidded into the room, catching himself on a table in front of Dick and Tim. “Dick! Alfred fixed up my suit!” he said excitedly, sticking out his arms before gesturing at himself. 

Dick looked up, grinning when he saw Peter wearing the upgraded suit Alfred had shown him earlier. “That looks amazing on you,” he said. It had looked good on the mannequin, but seeing it on Peter made it even better. He brought it to life. “What do you think about the webbing under the arms? I suggested that.”

“Thanks!” Peter beamed, slightly out of breath. “Yeah, I like it,” he responded, holding out his arms again and looking down at the webbing. He slid both of his gloves on, momentarily holding his mask in his teeth. “I had something super similar on one of my old suits,” he said around the fabric, his voice muffled. 

Dick and Peter talked about suits for at least ten minutes, enthusiastically exchanging stories about old ones they’d worn, including Peter’s metal Iron Spider suit and Dick’s original Robin outfit with no pants.

Dick was about to explain why he’d ditched his cape when Tim stirred, his eyes fluttering open and squinting at the dim lights above them. “Do you guys have to talk so loudly?” he asked irritably.

Peter closed his mouth and gave Dick an awkward look, pursing his lips to hold back a smile. “Sorry,” he quickly apologized, looking at Tim. He looked… sort of better? Rest was doing him good, Peter thought. “Feel better at all?” 

Tim took a deep breath, then let it out sharply. “Yeah.” He still felt awful, but he wasn’t so dizzy anymore, and the pain in his head had dimmed from unbearable agony to bothersome throbbing. “How long was I asleep?”

Dick grinned. “Like… fifteen minutes.”

Tim’s eyebrows furrowed. That was a lot less time than he’d expected. He must’ve been out of it for longer. He could barely remember anything after Dick’s arrival earlier.

“What happened with Damian?” he asked weakly.

Running a hand through his hair with his mask still clutched in the other hand, Peter blinked down at Tim. “We got him back here, Alfred locked him up downstairs,” he explained. He wondered absently if Tim remembered the love confession from earlier, because Peter sure did. 

“Where’s Bruce?” Tim mumbled. 

“On his way back, I would assume,” Dick said, fairly confident. Though Bruce could track them, and they could track each other, none of the Robins actually had access to his location. It was incredibly inconvenient.

—

Tim glanced up at Peter. He was wearing a different suit now— a variation of his old one. It looked good on him. 

Something about his expression, though, was off. He wouldn’t meet Tim’s eyes, but he’d been able to feel his gaze digging into him when he hadn't been looking. Something had happened. He didn’t know what, but he didn’t need detective skills to see that Peter was acting different.

Peter’s gaze slid to Dick. “We gotta get back out there. Track another signal down, or something,” he said suddenly, clearly itching for a rematch. The car wreck had thrown him off—but he was ready for a fight, now. 

That statement stung. Not because the mission wasn’t important, but because Peter clearly wanted to avoid Tim, and he still had no idea what had happened. He had a terrible feeling he’d revealed something he hadn’t meant to, that he’d said something wrong that had made Peter regret ever talking to him. It was written all over Peter’s face. 

—

Dick glanced at his brother, sensing his unease. It could’ve just been the concussion making him miserable, but he figured there was more to it. He didn’t remember what he’d said in the Redbird, did he?

Dick wanted to press, but he didn’t. When he wasn’t delirious, Tim was terrible at expressing his feelings. In fact, he hated it with a passion. He didn’t even want to know how Tim would react if he tried to get him to talk about emotions right now.

“The problem is,” Dick said to Peter. “I’m still technically benched.”

Peter was wringing his hands during the long silence between Dick and Tim, partially understanding what was going through both of their heads. He felt a twinge of guilt for the new awkwardness between him and Tim, but Peter didn’t know how to help it. 

“Well…” he started, shrugging his shoulders a little, “technically, Bruce isn’t here right now.” 

“I know,” Dick said. “But Alfred is, and he’s even harder to get past.” It didn’t help that was already in hot water with him for leaving to get Tim and Peter. 

Peter bit his tongue, crestfallen. “Yeah, but we’re heroes,” he said a moment later. He nudged Dick. “And, I mean, c’mon, basically the whole world is at stake,” he pleaded. 

“You have a point,” Dick agreed. Then he paused. “…but you’ve never seen Alfred when he’s angry. Trust me, it’s not pretty.”

Peter didn’t believe that, but he stayed quiet. He could convince Dick to go later—for now, he wanted food. He scrunched his nose. “Can we get food?”

“Oh— yeah.  Of course. I forgot you haven’t eaten in… what, seven hours?” Dick said, arching an eyebrow. 

“You hungry, Tim?” he asked as he moved toward the kitchen. 

“No,” Tim replied, turning green at the mere mention of food. 

“Alright, well, I’m getting you something anyway,” Dick called to him as he left. 

“Yeah, something like that,” Peter responded, following after Dick. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food. He tossed his mask in the air and caught it a few times as they walked. 

“So… Tim has a crush on me?” Peter asked. He failed to catch the mask and hurriedly scooped it up, jogging up to Dick’s side again. 

“I should’ve known,” Dick said casually, digging through the cabinets in the Batcave’s kitchen. “I mean, look at yourself. You’re adorable. And Tim’s been… a mess lately. It was bound to happen.”

Peter made a face. “Adorable? What? I’m not adorable,” he retorted indignantly. He didn’t know how to feel about that statement. Almost grumpily, he opened the cabinet in front of him and snatched a box of cereal. 

“Look… You don’t swing that way, right? The crush isn’t mutual. So, there’s not much you can do,” Dick told him. 

He opened the fridge, looking for something easy on the stomach for Tim. He snagged a can of ginger ale from the bottom shelf. 

“No,” Peter sighed, finally finding a bowl. He started pouring the cereal into the bowl, thinking to himself. He’d never thought of another boy that way. Girls were just too pretty. 

He glanced at Dick. “I feel kinda bad.”

“Well, yeah.” Dick dug through another cabinet, looking for bread. He doubted Tim would actually want to eat toast, but he needed something on his system. “He’s gonna be heartbroken.”

Pulling open a few drawers to look for a spoon, Peter frowned. “Aw, thanks, that makes me feel a lot better.” He grabbed a spoon and turned behind him to open the fridge with his foot, snatching the jug of milk and pouring it into the cereal one-handed while shutting the utensil drawer with his other hand. 

“I know, I know. It’s not ideal,” Dick said sympathetically. “But when Tim falls, he falls hard. That’s why he didn’t tell you before— he hates vulnerability.” He paused. “Don’t tell him I told you that,” he added. 

“Ooh— those Reese’s Puffs smell amazing,” he said distractedly. 

Peter put the milk away and shut the fridge, his brows scrunched together as he listened to Dick. 

“I won’t. And yeah—yeah, it’s the best,” he said, pointing his spoon at Dick before leaning over the counter, propping himself up with one arm as he stuck the spoon in the bowl and scooped up a bite. 

Dick pointed to Peter’s cereal after Peter had eaten a good portion of it. “Uh— can I have a bite?”

He was still in his Nightwing suit, but he’d removed his mask when he’d been getting Tim situated. It felt good getting to talk to Peter face to face. It didn’t happen all that often, getting to know other superheroes both masked and unmasked. 

“Uh—yeah, have the rest,” Peter offered, pushing the bowl towards him. He grabbed the box of Reese’s Puffs from the counter beside him, opting to just keep eating it from the bag instead. Munching on a handful he pulled out, he chatted, “This stuff is so good I could literally eat boxes of it.”

Dick grinned. “I know, right?”

After a minute of them both eating, he went back to their serious topic. “Listen, about Tim. Maybe you should just talk to him. Let him know you still want to be friends. …You do, right? You’re not gonna start avoiding him, are you?”

He said that as if Peter would be around for longer, though really, he’d probably have to leave after they solved their case. That made Dick sad, so he pushed it out of his mind. 

Peter reached back in the bag to realize he had literally eaten the entire box. He pulled out the last three pieces of cereal, popping them in his mouth. “…Y-yeah. We can still be friends,” he said, gulping down the food. The word ‘friends’ made him want to cry or smile, but he quickly swallowed down any feelings of grief. “Totally. You guys are both great friends,” he said, offering a smile. 

Dick hopped off the counter where he’d been sitting to get the toast he’d made out of the toaster. “I like to think you and Damian would’ve grown to be friends eventually,” he said. “Or, at the very least, to tolerate each other.”

“Uh—yeah, maybe,” Peter replied absently, his gaze following Dick as he moved. He blinked back to focus. “He seems so….friendly,” he tried. Nope, that didn’t sound right. The brunette furrowed his brow—again—since he clearly did that a lot. “Really, I want to get to know him better,” he said a second later, clearing his throat. 

“He’s more closed off than Tim. More closed off than Bruce, even. But he has a soft spot. You just have to earn his trust,” Dick informed Peter.

Peter smiled. “Yeah, yeah.” He folded his arms on the counter in front of him, putting his head down and stretching backwards slightly with a muffled groan. His head popped back up a moment later and he raked a hand through his hair, ruffling it and glancing at Dick again. “You need to bring that to Tim?” he asked, nodding at the snacks he had accumulated. 

“Yeah,” Dick replied. “If he’s still awake.”

He gathered the items he’d gotten together— ginger ale, toast, and a peeled banana, and headed back toward the med wing, glancing back at Peter. “You should talk to him. Trust me, I think it would make you both feel better.”

Peter had grabbed a bag of Goldfish on the way out, munching on them as they walked. “What? Talk to him—about what?” he stammered around a mouthful of Goldfish before trying to quickly choke them down. He knew the answer to the question, but he didn’t like it.

“The crush thing,” Dick replied, grinning a little. He couldn’t help it. “He doesn’t even know he confessed… but I’m pretty sure he’s already figured out something’s off. He’s scarily good at reading facial cues.”

“But—no—exactly!” Peter squawked. “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, and there’s no point in him knowing and just getting hurt,” he whispered-hissed, shoving another handful of Goldfish in his mouth. 

“He’ll figure it out eventually. He’s like, the smartest guy I know,” Dick said. “You might as well get it over with now.”

They arrived at the medwing. 

Tim had removed his oxygen tube and IVs and was lying on his side, one arm over his face. Dick figured he was still awake, but it was hard to be sure. 

Peter scowled. He was not going to get it over with—absolutely not. He perked up slightly as they entered the medwing, and he peeked over Nightwing’s shoulder at where Tim was laying. 

The sinking feeling of guilt returned to his stomach and he swallowed. It wasn’t his fault Tim had fallen for him—there was nothing he could do about it. It was, however, likely his fault that Tim had gotten a massive concussion and was in the state he was in. 

“Timmy? You awake?” Dick called softly. 

Seconds later, Tim sat up, clutching his head. “I am now.” He still looked worse for wear. Face pale, dark hair sweaty and matted to his forehead, blue eyes squinting like the mere act of keeping them open made his head hurt. 

Dick winced. “Sorry.” He should’ve been more considerate, but he figured Tim would’ve woken up on his own within a few minutes. Concussions made it impossible to sleep well. “…I brought you food.”

Tim groaned. “I told you, I’m not hungry.”

“I know,” Dick replied, setting the plate and drink down on the table at Tim’s bedside. “But you need to eat.”

Tim rolled his eyes but reluctantly reached over and grabbed a piece of toast and started nibbling on it. 

“So.” Dick said after a beat of silence. “You don’t remember the ride back from the lair at all, do you?”

Tim took a moment to think, like his brain was loading. Then he blinked and answered. “No. Not really.”

“Well… you said something you might want to know about.”

Tim froze, like he’d been dreading that exact statement. He probably had. “…What?”

Dick hid a smirk. “Peter, why don’t you tell him?”

Peter choked on the Goldfish he was eating. “Tell him what—?” he asked with watery eyes after a violent bout of coughing. He sniffed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, eyeing Dick almost threateningly. 

“What he said,” Dick replied. “It was about you, and it was important.”

Tim looked like he wanted to throw up the toast he was eating. If he hadn’t figured it out by now, he was close. 

“No—no, I don’t think it was that important,” Peter retorted, shaking his head. He shot the briefest of glances at Tim, hoping he didn’t notice. He was not saying anything. 

Dick facepalmed. Seriously? 

Fine. He’d just say it. Tim needed to know. “You confessed your crush on him.”

—

Tim’s face flushed. 

No. No no no. Not that. Anything but that. 

At first, he’d thought maybe he’d revealed something about his past, or possibly classified information related to Batman or the Justice League, but when Dick had mentioned Peter, Tim had done a double take. He’d been hoping— praying— that it wouldn’t have to do with romantic feelings, but apparently, he’d been more delirious than he’d thought. 

“Actually, ‘crush’ might be an understatement. I believe your exact words were, ‘I think I’m in love with you,’” Dick clarified. 

Tim wanted to die of embarrassment. This entire day had been humiliating. He’d destroyed two valuable things in front of Peter, cried in front of Peter, and puked in front of Peter. Twice. And he felt like it was about to be three times. 

How could he have let that happen?? ‘I think I’m in love with you’??? What was he, a fictional character??

“Oh, and then you kind of begged him to never leave Gotham,” Dick added, wincing.  

Peter wanted to melt into the floor and disappear forever. He was staring at Dick as he spoke, a bit like he had just seen a ghost. Something worse than a ghost, actually. “Um.” The brunette looked down and scratched the back of his head rapidly. 

“It’s true,” he said a moment later after clearing his throat. He pursed his lips in a very nervous smile, finally looking at Tim. “It’s okay, though, I mean…” he trailed off. 

“You mean… what?” Tim questioned, daring to glance up at Peter’s face. He looked completely mortified. 

Of course he was. He clearly wasn’t into guys. Tim had expected that. 

So why did it hurt so much?

“Oh—nothing, sorry,” Peter replied, his hands tightly clutching both his mask and the bag of Goldfish. He shrugged. "It's alright. Well—you know I don’t like you like that, right?” he clarified hurriedly, scrunching his brow.

If Tim didn’t remember confessing his interest, then he wouldn’t remember Peter’s actual rejection, either. He didn’t want to deal with that all when he was actually coherent. He squeezed his eyes shut. Shoot. 

Tim’s expression hardened. 

Fine. This was fine. He’d expected this. Big deal. He’d been rejected before. He’d dealt with things far worse than rejections plenty of times. 

Peter had seen enough messy feelings. Tim could be rational about this. He had to be. There was no use in humiliating himself further. 

His only response was an empty, detached, “Okay.”

—

Dick watched, his heart sinking. This was bad. The conversation had barely started and Tim was already turning clinical. 

Peter faltered. “W-Well—” he stammered, putting a hand out pleadingly. He didn’t want Tim to hate him now. It was awkward when he found out, maybe, but it didn’t have to turn into resentment. He still wanted to be friends! “Wait, I still want to be friends. We can still be friends, right?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Tim replied, still expressionless. They could still be friends. He would just never reveal any of his feelings to him ever again. He’d been naive to think it was safe in the first place. Obviously, it wasn’t. Peter was no different than anyone else. 

Peter’s pleading stare turned to one of frustration as it flicked back to Dick. “Thanks a lot,” he hissed under his breath, scowling. “I literally told you we shouldn’t have told him.” 

He ruffled his hair angrily and paced a few steps back and forth, as if trying to decide whether he was going to say something to Tim or walk out of the room. 

“Um—Tim—” He stopped his stammering and growled, turning tail and simply storming out of the room. He couldn’t handle this any more. 

“Ouch,” Dick muttered. He’d never imagined he’d see Peter angry. At least not at him, of all people. He’d only been trying to help. 

He glanced at Tim, who didn’t seem much better, although his expression, on the surface, appeared a lot calmer than Peter’s had. Too calm. That was what gave it away. 

“…Sorry,” Dick told him. “That didn’t go how I thought it would.”

“Unbelievable.” Tim’s single word response was cold and bitter. 

“I really should’ve left you in the dark,” Dick decided. “But, in my defense, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it right now, Dick,” Tim interrupted. “My head is killing me.”

Tim was upset, and he wanted time alone to process that. Or possibly just brood and spiral. Dick could respect that, though it made him feel useless. 

He sighed and nodded, walking out of the med bay. He hoped at least Peter would hear him out. 

Deep down, Peter knew he was probably overreacting, though he had shoved down the thought. He hadn’t made it far down the hall before he flopped against the wall, groaned, and slid down to the floor.

This sucked. He liked Tim. Not in the way Tim liked him, but—but he still wanted to be friends. These guys were the only chance he had at new friendships. He had no one else.

Tears threatened to well up and he let out a terse sigh, setting down his mask on the floor beside him so he could run both his hands through his hair. He was so tired. 

Dick didn’t say a word as he entered the room and sat down next to Peter, letting silence stretch out between them for at least a minute before he spoke. 

“He won’t stay like that forever,” he clarified softly. 

Peter stayed stiff where he was for a moment as the tears finally came—blurring his vision. He quickly blinked them away, hopefully before Dick had noticed. 

Somehow his memories of everything that had happened a few months ago resurfaced suddenly. The teenager let out a shaky sigh, dragging his hands over his face and peering through the gaps in his fingers.

“Are you sure?” he muttered, still staring absently at the floor in front of him. 

Dick laid a hand on Peter’s shoulder, offering comfort. “Yeah,” he said with a half smile. “Trust me. He’s been through a lot worse than accidentally confessing a crush and getting rejected. I can’t even count the number of times he’s given me the cold shoulder… but he always comes around. Eventually.”

He could feel that more was bothering Peter than just Tim, but he figured his words would still offer reassurance. 

The feeling of Dick’s hand on his shoulder only made Peter want to cry more. He missed his girlfriend, and Ned… He missed May. He missed Happy, and—and everyone. 

He felt his thoughts starting to spiral and he screwed his eyes shut, putting his head in his hands for a moment. 

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault, I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you,” he apologized quietly, lowering his hands and finally looking at Dick. 

“No hard feelings, man,” Dick told him. 

After another short silence, he spoke again, his tone more serious. “…Listen. I know we bat-folk can be… intense. And cold. And probably intimidating.” Dick liked to think he was the least like that out of everyone in his family, but he was still Bruce Wayne’s son. He wore a black suit, a mask, and ran around beating up criminals. That didn’t exactly scream ‘warm and fuzzy.’ “But if you ever need to talk about anything— you know, not related to the case or Tim’s crush on you—” he continued, “you can talk to me. Or cry on my shoulder, for all I care.”

That’s it—Peter couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t bear to keep it all inside anymore. “I screwed up really bad a few months ago and now everybody who I cared about doesn’t even know who I am,” he blurted, surprised by how quickly he had felt relieved after speaking. He took another deep, shaky breath before adding, “My girlfriend, my best friend—no one. And the only family I ever had is gone.” Mr. Stark. May. He had to bury his head in his hands again, letting tears well up and spill over. One ran down his cheek and he sniffed, keeping his head down.

“No one should have to deal with all that alone.” Dick’s eyes were wide. He wasn’t surprised Peter was breaking down, but he was surprised by the weight of what Peter was dealing with. Dick had experienced countless family deaths, horrors, and challenges that had felt impossible, but he’d never had to go through something as terrible as his loved ones forgetting him. He couldn’t even imagine how it would feel. 

“Come here, man,” he told Peter, pulling him into a hug. The gesture said more than any other words could. 

Peter hesitated as Dick pulled him into an embrace. Why was he being so kind to him? 

He had to stay quiet, because he knew he would only cry harder if he tried to explain the story. Instead he tentatively put his arms around Dick, his breathing uneven as he hid his face in his friend's shoulder.

The moment didn’t last much longer before the two were interrupted by a high pitched yell from below them.

Damian’s yell.

Dick let go of Peter, his entire body going rigid. That was Damian’s voice, not Plaguemaster’s… meaning, he’d broken free from the effects of the toxin. This was huge.

“Tell me I’m not the only one who heard that,” he said quickly, pushing himself to his feet.

Peter had to quickly regain his composure, sniffing again as he wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. “No, I heard it too,” he replied, his voice still shaky. He grabbed his mask and stood up as well, looking worriedly in the direction of the sound. 

The first thing Damian had noticed when he’d woken up, aside from the stabbing ache in his temples, was that he was in a cell. The reinforced glass around him was familiar, though it took him a moment to realize why.

He was in the Batcave.

Immediately, he’d gotten to his feet, moving to draw his weapons. …Except they were gone. Several components of his Robin suit were gone, including his mask.

“What happened? Why am I being detained?” He’d lashed out as soon as he’d spotted the butler lurking nearby, angry and horrified at the same time. “Pennyworth! Let me out of this cell!” he’d shouted, banging on the walls.

By the time Grayson and Parker descended the staircase, he’d hardly calmed down. Pennyworth’s recollections of the things he’d done over the past ten hours sounded completely preposterous.

Though, deep in his gut, he knew they were true. He’d dropped a vial full of poison. He’d inhaled it. He’d allowed himself to be compromised, and this was the result. He’d hurt his own family.

Peter followed hesitantly after Dick, gripping his mask tightly in one hand. His worried gaze was trained on Damian, dark brown eyes hardly illuminated by the dim lighting in the corridor. “Damian?” he tried, walking closer to the cell with Dick. 

Damian looked like a mess. His eyes were glassy but no longer clouded or glowing from the toxin, which brought out the dark shadows under them, and there was sweat beading at his hairline.

Besides that, he was clearly distressed.  

Dick folded his arm, standing in front of the cell. “Welcome back, Dami,” he said with a small grin. 

Damian looked from Dick to Peter, then back to Dick. “Pennyworth said I…”

“Stabbed me in the liver with a Batarang? Yeah, you did. I almost bled out. Wasn’t a great experience— I don't recommend.”

Wringing his hands, Peter pursed his lips as he listened. “Yeah, that wasn’t super cool of you,” he told Damian after clearing his throat. 

It didn't seem like Damian appreciated them making light of what had happened, so Dick didn’t keep it up. No reason to make the kid more miserable than he already was. 

“We know you didn’t do it on purpose, though,” he assured him. 

“I didn’t do it at all,” Damian snapped furiously. 

Peter made a puzzled face. “Well, hold on—yeah you did, I saw it happen,” he cut in very matter-of-factly. 

Damian wanted to punch Parker for the way he was speaking to him, but that wouldn’t help his case, and besides that, he was still trapped inside this stupid cell. 

He settled for an insult. “That wasn’t me, you idiot.”

He’d wanted to stab Grayson before, plenty of times, but he wouldn’t actually do it. Not on purpose. 

He tried to ignore the guilt pooling in his stomach, reminding him of his mistake. He’d been conscious when he’d broken the vial. It was still his fault. 

Peter folded his arms. Okay. The kid had a point. “Okay, that’s… Okay. You weren’t in control, we understand that,” he responded sympathetically. 

“He’s doing a lot better now anyways, right Dick?” he hastily added, patting his friend beside him on the shoulder. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m totally fine. It’s just a flesh wound,” Dick said, gesturing to the bandages wrapped around his middle. It really wasn’t bothering him anymore— although that was only because he was on so many painkillers. 

“What about Drake?” Damian questioned. “Where is he?”

Peter’s gaze moved from Dick back to Damian. “Drake? Tim?” he guessed. “Yeah, he’s not doing too well, actually,” he admitted, his voice becoming quieter. He shifted his weight as his chocolate-brown eyes flickered to Dick. 

“Tim isn’t hurt because of you,” Dick clarified, wincing. “At least, not directly. …Although, you did kidnap him and Peter earlier.”

“Tt,” Damian responded. 

“You don’t remember anything, do you?”

Damian shook his head. 

Dick wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told any of them he’d dropped the vial in the first place, but he refrained. He figured that would only get Damian more stirred up. 

Peter blinked at Damian. “Well, we’re actually not sure if—we’re not sure if it was you who kidnapped us, since there were a couple other guys who attacked us first,” he explained quickly. “But you were there when me and Tim broke out.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you just tell me when you dropped the vial? I literally asked you if you did.”

“I had it under control,” Damian answered, gritting his teeth. 

“You thought you had it under control,” Dick corrected. 

Damian turned and glared daggers at him. 

The kid was deathly afraid of admitting weakness. He could be visibly dying and he’d still deny it. 

Peter adjusted his stance again. “Dude. You know, he got you there,” he told Damian, holding out a hand and wincing as he spoke. 

“I didn’t mean for it to come to this,” Damian admitted quietly, looking at the ground. “I… I made a mistake.” For a second, his expression softened, and Dick could see the vulnerability in his eyes— doubt, frustration, hurt, fear— but that second was gone as soon as it had come, and he resumed his usual scowl.

His jaw clenched. “It was childish,” he continued, back to sounding harsh. “Pathetic. Weak. Unacceptable. I’ve been a disgrace to the Robin mantle. It will not happen again.”

Peter caught the vulnerability too. It made his heart sink and he folded his arms a little tighter. It looked like Dick was right about Damian. 

“Well, you’re gonna be okay. We’re going to stop Dr. Veyl and find a way to help you get better,” he said, hoping to comfort him.

Damian stiffened. He never knew how to respond to encouraging words. Dick would know. That was his go-to for helping people feel better. It was what had made him such good partners with Bruce. He’d been the light to his dark. The gentleness to his brutality. 

But Damian had grown up believing he was elite. That he couldn't make mistakes or he’d be a disgrace to his family. He’d never been shown love or encouragement, so he had no idea how to deal with it. 

“Grayson. Release me from this cell,” he commanded. 

Dick wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. He looked around for Alfred, but he’d disappeared— He’d probably gone upstairs to check on Tim. 

“Uh, look, Damian,” Dick said. “Until we know the toxin is completely out of your system, we probably shouldn’t.”

Damian clenched his fists. “You think I’m going to let a mere toxin control me again?”

Peter frowned at him. “I mean, it’s not exactly your choice…” he responded. Damian was a real go-getter, that was for sure, but Peter wasn’t sure he fully comprehended how mind-control worked.

Damian’s eyes flashed angrily. Dick cut in before he could lash out at Peter. “Okay, well… we might be able to let you out for a little while. At least, until Bruce gets back.” He couldn’t help caving. Damian looked miserable. “You could use food and medical attention anyway.”

Furrowing his brow, Peter looked at Dick again. He wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Memories of Green Goblin flashed through his mind. “Are you—are you sure?” he asked quietly, leaning closer to Dick. 

“No, not really,” Dick admitted. “We’ll have to be extra careful. Plaguemaster could corrupt him again at any moment. But… for now, he’s himself, and he doesn’t deserve to be locked up.”

He unlocked Damian’s cell and opened the door, examining him more closely once he stepped out. The veins in his neck were still discolored, but as of now, they weren’t glowing. 

Peter rubbed the back of his neck as he too inspected Damian’s veins from afar. He took a step back to give him some space. “Okay, if you feel yourself being mind-controlled… just—don’t stab Dick this time,” he told Damian with a breathy laugh and a wince.

Tim was nowhere in sight when the three got up to the medwing, though Alfred was standing near his empty bed. 

Dick raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Master Timothy is indisposed at the moment,” he announced vaguely. 

Dick folded his arms. “In what way?”

Alfred offered a hint of a frown. “I’m afraid he’s been… quite violently ill.”

“That makes three of us today,” Dick muttered to Peter, joking to cover up his concern. Evidently, forcing Tim to eat toast and telling him he’d confessed to Peter at the same time, on top of his concussion, had been a bad idea. 

Peter gave Dick a nervous smile. He hadn’t had it nearly as bad as him or Tim, he realized with a twinge of guilt. “Does he need anything from us?” the brunette asked Alfred a moment later, wringing his hands out gently. 

“I would advise you not disturb him until he returns,” Alfred told him bluntly. 

Dick could hear water running nearby, probably from the bathroom. 

“He’s in a mood,” Dick translated. At this point, it was understandable. It seemed like nothing had worked in Tim’s favor all day. 

Peter nodded. “Uh- that’s, that’s okay,” he said, letting out a small sigh. He hoped Tim would be alright. 

“I see you’ve released Master Damian,” Alfred noted, scrutinizing the kid. 

Damian’s arms were folded like Dick’s, his stance tight, guarded, and subtly unsteady. 

“Sit down, my boy,” Alfred said to him, apparently noticing the latter. “Being under mind control has, without a doubt, left you exhausted.”

He reluctantly obeyed, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to the one Tim had been using. “I’m Robin,” he said bitterly, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t get exhausted.”

Peter’s expression softened as he listened to Damian. He seemed to see a tiny part of himself in the kid. He shifted his stance, folding his arms again. It felt odd not being the youngest hero in the room, he thought, as he watched Damian absently. 

The teenager tilted his neck from side to side with a satisfying crack. “Hey, sir, do you know if Mr. Wayne’s gonna be back soon?” he asked Alfred after a moment, moving his attention to the butler. 

Alfred clasped his hands together, his faint hint of a frown returning. “He hasn’t contacted me since he initially left to look for Master Damian.”

“Me neither,” Dick piped in, mildly worried. He’d messaged Bruce a few minutes ago when he’d had a moment, updating him on what had happened, but he hadn’t gotten a response yet. 

It wasn’t abnormal for Bruce to disappear for long periods of time, especially at night, but with the Plaguemaster situation happening, it was concerning that he hadn’t returned yet. 

“I mean, do you think he’s okay?” Peter asked worriedly. His gaze flitted between Alfred, Dick, and Damian. In a hushed whisper, he added, “What if they got him?”

“He’s Batman,” Dick said, trying to reassure himself as well as Peter. “He’ll handle it.”

Neither Alfred nor Damian disagreed with the statement. 

Peter really didn’t know much about Batman, so he wasn’t entirely convinced. “Well, okay. Let’s go out and track down another signal, then,” he said, suddenly reminded of the urgency of their mission.

As soon as Peter said that, Tim appeared from behind the bathroom door. He was pale and sweaty, hardly standing upright. 

“Drake,” Damian greeted darkly, his teeth gritted as he took in Tim’s sickly appearance. 

Tim ignored him and looked at Peter. “Take me with you. Please.”

The brunette unsuccessfully held back a grimace. “Yeah, um—I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Peter responded hesitantly.

“You were joking, right?” Dick asked Tim, incredulous that he was asking to rejoin the mission in his state. The thing was, Tim didn’t joke like that. Dry sarcasm was much more his style. 

“Did you not look in the bathroom mirror a minute ago? Your face is the color of Elmer’s glue,” he continued. 

Tim shot him a withering scowl. “You can’t be doing much better than I am, Dick. I have a concussion. You got stabbed.”

“Yeah, but he’s actually kinda doing a lot better than you are right now,” Peter pointed out, shy and polite. His ever-worried gaze moved from Tim back to Dick. Maybe they both should stay here. He could handle the next fight by himself, surely. Maybe he’d have to find Batman.

“Take me instead, Parker,” Damian told him, completely serious. 

Tim flashed him an appalled look. “He’s still poisoned! He could turn on us any second! If he’s going, I’m going,” he insisted. 

Peter looked mildly stressed. “Um. No, you should all probably stay here,” he said, shaking his head. The brunette shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll just go to this next signal on my own.” 

All three Robins looked at Peter like he was insane, but Alfred had to agree with the boy. 

“I’m afraid he’s correct on this matter,” he said. “None of you are in any condition to be out in the field right now.”

—

Dick nodded reluctantly. It felt unfair, but he understood. All three of them were compromised beyond fighting capabilities, whereas Peter was in fine physical condition and used to working alone anyway. 

However, it didn’t look like his brothers were going to surrender so easily. 

Tim looked on the verge of tears. “Peter, you can’t risk running into Plaguemaster alone. He’ll mind control you!”

Peter pursed his lips, looking at Tim. “I’ll be alright. I’ll just…hold my breath if he tries anything,” he told his friend with a shrug. Seemingly unworried, he continued, “Seriously, I’ll be okay. I usually work by myself, anyways.” He was appreciative of Tim’s apparent concern, so he offered him a small smile. 

Tim groaned frustratedly, dropping his head into his hands and digging them into his eyes so hard he saw spots. His head was killing him. Actually killing him.  

Peter couldn’t go out alone. Not with what had happened last time they’d tracked a signal. It was too risky. Tim had already been dreading Peter eventually going back to New York City. If he was put under mind control, or worse, Tim didn’t know what he’d do. 

He felt Dick come up beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Tim, buddy. Breathe.”

Peter glanced at Alfred. “Maybe he should go back to bed,” he told the butler quietly.

Clasping his hands together, he walked over to Tim and Dick. “You don’t have to worry about me, really. I mean—someone needs to go find him. We can’t let him get any more people,” he said to Tim. 

Damian watched them from where he was perched, green eyes narrowed in contempt. He agreed with Drake, though he was acting utterly childish. Parker didn’t stand a chance against Plaguemaster by himself. 

Damian didn’t remember much of anything from the time he’d been under the toxin’s effects, but the flashes he had of when he’d been fighting it were intense and horrifying. The toxin had wrecked him mentally as well as physically, and it wouldn’t stop completely until Plaguemaster was defeated. 

That was why he didn’t speak up. As terrible as Parker’s idea was to continue the mission alone, Damian knew going with him would only worsen his chances. 

—

Tim was still having a hard time letting Peter go. Deep down, he knew it was irrational— which would normally mean he’d ignore it— but he didn’t care right now. He was sick, in pain, irritable, and possibly still partially delirious. 

“Please, just let me come with you,” he tried. 

“Look, I mean—I can’t—” Peter stammered, letting out a frustrated sigh. “You know I can’t do that. You’re not even thinking straight,” he told Tim. “You need to stay here and actually rest if you wanna get better.”

Tim tried to argue again, but Dick cut him off. “Tim, drop it. We don’t have a choice. You’re barely standing up.” He softened his tone. “You don’t have to prove yourself to Peter.”

“I’m not trying to—”

“Yeah, you are.”

Peter looked at Tim anxiously. Did he really feel the need to prove himself? He stepped back from his two new friends, moving his attention to Damian. 

“If I’m gonna be waiting for Plaguemaster’s next signal, you should—well, you should probably go back… to… the cell,” he told the kid awkwardly, twiddling his thumbs. 

It was a fight to get Damian cooperate, but after he’d been fed and medically examined, he agreed to return to his cell, lest Plaguemaster take control of him again. 

Alfred got Tim to lie down and he fell asleep almost instantly, utterly drained. 

Meanwhile, Dick stayed in the Batcave’s main chamber, where he could comm Peter and monitor his location as well as Plaguemaster’s signals. 

Chapter Text

It had taken a surprisingly long time to detect the next signal from Plaguemaster. It was as if the entire city had gone radio-silent. No transmissions were being sent out the entire time Peter had been waiting anxiously with Dick in the Batcave.

Once one had finally been picked up and traced, Peter leaped into action. Literally. He’d swung out of the room and out the nearest window with only a shout goodbye to his friend Dick. 

The brunette was now swinging through the city, staring down at the coordinates he had logged in a small tablet watch borrowed from the Batcave. The coordinates led to a radio transmitter atop a building on the next city over from Gotham. He lifted his head to shoot his next web, yanking himself upward. “C’mon, c’mon,” Peter muttered to himself, webswinging as quick as he could. 

He needed this. He needed to catch Plaguemaster. 

His gaze wandered down to the streets below. Frighteningly sparse. He watched as a car suddenly swerved off the road into a streetlamp, and he hurriedly veered around to make sure the driver was alright. 

“Hey! You okay?” he shouted, swinging to the streetside several feet away from the vehicle. He eyed the smoking car warily. The female in the drivers’ seat, the only passenger, opened the door and glared at Peter with glowing eyes and a snarling expression. “Woah!” Peter yelped, stumbling backwards as the infected person suddenly threw herself out of the vehicle at him. 

Eye-whites widened dramatically, Peter ducked away from a swing and frantically webbed her back against the car. She growled and hissed like a rabid animal as Peter watched, horrified. He didn’t have time for this. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he cried, leaping back into the air and swinging away. He had to help these people. Who knew how many were infected already? Actually, Peter didn’t want to know. 

Bruce knew he needed to get back to the Batcave. The thing was, another signal had popped up on his radar ten minutes ago, and he was already in the area. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to track it down and possibly catch Plaguemaster in the act. The man had used and abused far too many innocent people, including his own son. If Bruce could find him, he could end his reign and free everyone under the effects of the toxin. 

Besides, there was something addictive about patrolling alone late at night. The adrenaline rush was unlike any other. 

The Batmobile zoomed down an open road, Bruce’s eyes narrowing into white slits beneath his cowl when he caught sight of a crashed car up ahead. And was that… Spider-man swinging through the air next to it?

He parked swiftly next to the scene, opening the hatch above him and climbing out of his own vehicle, his long black cape swooshing dramatically behind him. 

Peter heard another car whirring down the road. He had only made it past one building when he heard it–and it piqued his interest quickly. He turned to glance over his shoulder, curious if it were another infected civilian or not. 

He was surprised to see a somewhat familiar vehicle. The damaged street light from the car crash failed to properly illuminate the car, and the next light down was too dim to be of any help, either. He watched as it skidded to a halt in front of the infected person and her car. Now fully invested, Peter released his web and whipped around mid-air, shooting his next web at the building now in front of him. Training his narrowed gaze on the vehicle, his head perked up when he spotted Batman emerge from the vehicle. 

At least, he thought that was Batman. The ominously dark and brooding silhouette seemed to hint that it was. Peter noticed the small pointed ears atop his cowl. Yep–had to be him. 

“Mr. Wayne!” he shouted from far overhead, slowly lowering his altitude as he swung down to the scene. 

“It’s Batman,” Bruce corrected as soon as the spider kid got close enough to be within hearing range. “In uniform, we use code names,” he told him sternly. Either he’d never been taught that, or he was an idiot. Both were plausible options. 

Peter landed on the sidewalk in front of Batman half a second later, his feet hitting the cement with a gracefully soft thud. “Oh—sorry sir,” he stuttered out apologetically. Duh. He knew that. 

“Everyone’s been wondering where you were,” he said, eyeing Batman carefully. He was entirely covered in his dark and bulky suit, but Peter didn’t notice any glowing from him. He had to be safe. “We found Damian a while ago, he’s back at your bat cave place.”

“Robin,” Bruce reminded him impatiently. He checked the messages on his watch, reviewing the similar recollections from Dick and Alfred he’d read earlier. According to them, Damian was safely locked in a cell at the moment. 

Peter thought he had been talking quietly enough, and he threw a brief glance over his shoulder to verify the infected woman was surely out of earshot, but he supposed he was still being stupid. “Right. Sorry, sir,” he apologized again. 

Bruce didn’t acknowledge the apology. He merely stared at the kid, his arms folded. He didn’t dislike him, but it was clear he wasn’t cut out for night patrol. Bruce would have to teach him some of his techniques. 

“I’m tracking the nearest signal,” he said gruffly. “It might benefit you to join me.”

He offered Spider-man the front seat in the Batmobile— a spot normally reserved for his Robins. 

“Oh, cool, me too,” Peter replied, eagerly pointing at his own watch on his wrist, positioned further up his arm due to his web shooters. 

The eye-whites of his mask then widened as Batman gestured to the Batmobile. “No way,” he said, excitedly hopping into the passenger seat with a bounce on the cushion. 

“Don’t get excited, kid,” Bruce told him bluntly. “And mind the vehicle. I’ve already had one damaged today.”

Tim had completely totaled the red Batmobile, which was as concerning as it was aggravating. He would’ve expected that from a younger Dick or Jason, but Tim was usually calculated, not known for making reckless mistakes. That was another reason Bruce was putting off returning to the Batcave. He wasn’t looking forward to talking to him about it, though it was a conversation that needed to be had. 

“Yes, sir.” Memories from the car crash earlier flickered through Peter’s mind. He pursed his lips under his mask. 

“I think we’re just a few blocks away from the radio tower,” he said, peering down at his watch. 

As Bruce sped to the radio tower, he figured it would be a good idea to catch up on what had happened to Spider-man, Tim, and Damian while they’d been away. The more information he had, the more well-equipped he was to face Plaguemaster. 

“I need you to tell me everything that happened after you left the Batcave this afternoon. Make it fast. But don’t skip on the details.”

“Uhhhh. Okay.” Peter stared out the windshield in a few seconds of thought. 

He’d started slowly, but had gradually begun talking much faster as he got further into the story. “So me and Tim were driving to our coordinates when a super infected guy walked out in front of our car, and—and that’s why we crashed. Then Tim got a really bad concussion and was throwing up, and I told him to just stay back, but he wouldn’t listen, so he came—so he came anyways, and then we finally made it to the cell tower, and—”

Peter’s excitable storytelling continued until they had reached the building with the radio tower atop it. He had stuttered over several words, and included much too many details, but he thought he did a good job. He did, however, leave out the entire part where Tim confessed his love for him. Batman didn’t need to know that. 

“And that’s about it,” he finished, finally lowering his hands after they had been used to illustrate all of his explanations.

“Hn.” Bruce’s jaw clenched. That hadn’t given him any new information about Plaguemaster at all. 

Although, it was news to him that Damian had come back to his senses, and that Tim was concussed. When he’d asked Tim for a report after he’d crashed the Batmobile, he’d said there were no injuries. It was troubling that he’d lied. Normally, that meant he was in bad shape. 

“Yeah, I know, it’s insane.” Peter looked up at the commercial building looming over them. “Oh, good, we’re here.” 

The building was completely dark—the only one lacking any lit windows on any of the blocks surrounding them. Peter rubbed the back of his neck, barely spotting the top of the radio tower against the murky sky. Rain must be coming soon. 

Bruce parked, opened the Batmobile’s top, and got out, walking swiftly toward the building and trusting Peter would follow without guidance.

The atmosphere around them was dark and ominous. Just how he liked it.

Quickly falling into a hushed silence, Peter hurried after Bruce, continuing to study the building with widened eyes. Once he had fallen in step with Bruce–which he had to walk almost twice as fast as he usually did in order to do so—he wrung his hands out a few times, glancing over his shoulder once. 

Thunder rumbled overhead as a bright flash of lightning lit up the sky, properly illuminating the radio tower on top of the building. Peter peered at it for the brief second it had been illuminated–it was tall, reaching up high into the sky like it yearned to touch the clouds. 

He spotted no figures around the tower. And yet, the brunette couldn’t shake the creeping feeling that had gripped his spine. Plaguemaster was here–he had to be.

Peter watched as Bruce grabbed the handle to the front door and swung it open, stepping into the building and beelining for the grandiose elevator doors with a swoosh of his cape. He followed after him nonetheless, casting a look around the lobby. Not a soul was in sight.

“Taking the elevator?” he asked, finally breaking the silence as Bruce pressed the shiny silver button beside the elevator doors.

Bruce didn’t say a word as the elevator started to ascend. He simply stood there, towering over the spider kid with his broad shoulders and rigid posture. 

He was deep in thought, analyzing the building’s details, looking for clues that would lead them to Plaguemaster. 

Peter had entered after him without a second question, although his mind wandered to past experiences he’d had with elevators. If it were just him, he would’ve simply climbed the building from the outside. It probably would’ve been less expected.

He did suppose Bruce wouldn’t have been able to follow him up that way. The teenager’s gaze slid to his right to look at him. Actually, maybe he could have. Peter didn’t know what Batman had up his sleeve.

Literally—he could have an insanely equipped grappling hook up his sleeve.

Peter blinked. The elevator dinged quietly as they passed each floor. “So, like, have you ever fought an evil doctor before?” he asked, hoping to break Bruce’s silence with his friendly small talk. 

“Of course I have,” Bruce replied calmly. Peter had obviously never been to Gotham City before. It was crawling with them. 

He glanced at the buttons in the elevator, impatient with how slow it was going. 

Peter nodded thoughtfully. “Who was the craziest one you had to fight?” was his next question, complimented by a curious look at Bruce that was uninterpretable from under his Spider-man mask. 

The elevator dinged again. Floor eighteen. How tall was this building?

Bruce thought for a moment. “Professor Pyg,” he said. He didn’t elaborate. The kid didn’t need his innocence ruined more than it already was. 

He glanced at the elevator buttons again and sighed silently. He could’ve grappled his way up the building faster.  

“He sounds insane,” Peter replied. He pressed his hands together with an awkward, drawn out sigh. Okay. Bruce wasn’t a conversationalist. 

Before he could ask his next question, the elevator jerked to a halt. The doors slid open, revealing the hallway to the top floor of the building. Peter stepped out of the elevator, casting his glance around the corner at the next hallway. “We gotta find roof access, or a window, or something,” he said, starting down the dark hall.

Heavy rain hitting the roof above them sounded suddenly, a clap of thunder following it. Lightning had illuminated a window at the end of the hallway. Bruce briskly started toward it without a word. 

Peter sensed Bruce’s heavy, determined footsteps behind him, and turned to look at the caped crusader. Another harsh flash of lightning from down the hall illuminated his grim expression, no kind of emotion visible from under his mask. Peter quickly resumed walking to the window as Bruce passed him. 

The brunette shook out his hands and bounced a little on his feet as he walked, excitement creeping up his throat. They approached the window as another violent rumble of thunder sounded. 

Bruce unlatched the window. The rain was pouring hard outside— hard enough to soak half his suit and the floor below him before he finished getting it open. 

“Can you get to the roof from here?” he asked Spider-man. He didn’t know much about his capabilities, but he’d read about wall-crawling somewhere. It would be incredibly convenient in this situation. 

Peter seemed to perk up in excitement when Bruce finally spoke to him. “Oh yeah,” he replied, moving closer to the window. Rain pelted his suit and he was pleasantly surprised to realize its new fabric was water-repelling. 

The teenager ducked past Bruce’s bulky figure, hopping up onto the windowsill. He braced a hand against the windowframe over his head before climbing out and around to the outside wall. He turned slightly to peek his head back in the window, crouching close against the building. 

“Can you get out here?” he asked, having to shout to hear himself over the sound of rain hammering his suit. 

Bruce shot his grappling hook to the top of the roof and pulled himself up in one swift motion, his cape swooshing behind him as he landed, rather theatrically, beside Spider-man. 

The rain was pouring harder now. So much so that it was becoming hard to even see. 

“Okay, great, wow,” Peter muttered to himself after Bruce’s failure to respond, squinting through the rain as he was followed up to the rooftop. “I don’t miss Dick at all.”

He took a few steps towards the radio tower in front of them. Was no one here? Had they missed Plaguemaster? Despite his doubting thoughts he kept his senses alert, wary of walking into another ambush. 

A crash of simultaneous thunder and lightning revealed a figure on the far side of the rooftop, facing away from the two vigilantes. 

“Plaguemaster,” Bruce said in his low, gravelly Batman voice. 

The figure in front of them was tall and thin, wearing a lab coat, and Bruce didn’t need to see his face to see that he was insane. It was evident in his body language. The crooked way he stood, the twitchiness in his head. It was unsettling. 

Peter approached Plaguemaster alongside Batman, stopping when they were both standing under the radio tower. He watched warily as Plaguemaster turned around, slowly, dangerously. 

He was a psychotic mess—a landmine waiting to be stepped on. Peter’s stomach nearly flipped inside out when he felt Dr. Veyl’s piercing stare on him. He felt the all too familiar sensation run up his spine, setting off warnings in his brain. Something bad was about to happen. 

“What an unfortunate surprise,” Dr. Veyl said coolly. His voice was emotionless and almost robotic. A flash of lightning overhead lit up his face, revealing a pair of ice-blue eyes hiding behind thick, round glasses. 

Peter tensed, subconsciously bending his knees to get closer to the ground. Waiting in a paranoid half crouch, he shouted, “Why are you doing all of this?”

The scientist cackled harshly, although his laugh sounded robotic, too. “The world needs order. It needs instruction,” he cried over the pouring rain. He was soaked, but that didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. “You can’t stop me.”

“It’s two against one, Veyl,” Bruce pointed out. “Your soldiers aren’t here.” 

He didn’t doubt Plaguemaster could easily call upon infected civilians to come help, but he was confident they wouldn’t arrive in time. Bruce could beat him up within minutes, especially with Spider-man’s help. 

“I’ve already warned you,” Plaguemaster sneered, his stare never wavering. “You can’t stop me,” he repeated, taking two steps backwards so he was now directly against the ledge that separated the rooftop from the city below. 

Peter felt his Spider-sense only panicking further as the maintenance access hatch on the floor in front of them swung open. Clambering up the ladder and out of the hole came several shadowed figures, eerily silent as they moved to stand between the vigilantes and Dr. Veyl. 

Bruce stiffened. They’d been hiding under the floor. He should’ve known.

He watched as they came forward one by one, slow and zombie-like, with their veins and eyes glowing ultra bright in the darkness. 

Immediately, he thought of Damian. He’d be back in his trance by now, trying to escape the holding cell Alfred had put him in. For both their sakes, he hoped he didn’t succeed.

Alarms went off in Peter’s brain as the first of the infected suddenly lunged toward him, followed by several others. The teenager shot a web at the radio tower overhead and swung at the civilian, kicking her backwards into the row of attackers and knocking several down. In the brief gap between them, Peter realized Plaguemaster had vanished from his spot at the edge of the roof. 

With a frustrated groan he whirled towards the nearest attacker and lunged at them, shouting to Batman, “He’s gone!”

Bruce cursed himself internally for missing Plaguemaster’s exit. His usually sharp senses had been dulled by worries about his son, distracting him. 

His mind went through the possibilities of where Plaguemaster could’ve gone. There was the hatch below them, where the zombie civilians had come from, or there was the roof. If he’d had a parachute of some sort, he could’ve jumped off, and considering they hadn’t seen or heard him exit, that was the more likely option. 

Following his hunch, Bruce jumped off the building in the same direction, using his grappling hook and his own parachute— his winged cape— to avoid falling to his death. 

Peter’s attention flickered to Bruce as he leaped off the building. In the brief moment that he had lost focus, an infected attacker charged at him, a pocket knife held tightly in their grip. The teenager sensed the attack and whirled around, ducking below her swing and moving around to her backside at unbeatable speeds. He hurriedly webbed her up so she toppled over to the ground, growling and squirming.

Although the toxin seemed to increase a person’s normal abilities, they still seemed to lack any sort of increased speed. They moved slow and sluggishly, like zombies.

“You guys don’t stop, do you?” Peter yelled, firing webs at the hole on the ground that people kept climbing out of while dodging swings from his attackers. He needed to find Batman. 

———

Dr. Veyl had leaped off the ledge with his parachute fastened. He pulled the rope and his parachute released, billowing in the violent wind and rain. 

He glared down at the city below, tugging on the ropes to adjust his direction. The caped crusader and the web slinger would have a very pleasant time fighting his underlings—he had sent out a continuous signal this time around. He was done toying with the heroes. They wouldn’t be able to save themselves against a never-ending swarm of bodies. The villain cackled, indistinguishable in the heavy rain and thunder.

Jason had been on Plaguemaster’s tail since the sick bastard had first come into Gotham, and he hadn’t planned on telling Bruce about it. He didn’t have reason to. They didn’t work together anymore. Hadn’t in years. Jason figured if he so much as made contact, he’d get ordered away, especially if he mentioned this case. 

The problem was, he hadn’t expected to come this close to Bruce this soon. He’d been hiding in the building when he’d seen the Batmobile pull up, and he’d audibly groaned. He’d had a plan. Get close to that freak and shoot his brains out the first chance he could. He’d seen what he’d done to the city. It was disgusting. 

After all of Plaguemaster’s zombies had gotten to the roof— which had taken forever because there had to have been at least fifty— Jason followed them up the hatch. 

He’d expected to see Bruce up there fighting them. Instead, there was some kid in red and blue tights. “…Hold on,” he said, unable to contain his confusion. He cocked his head. “Who the hell are you?”

Peter had been breathing heavily by now, inwardly groaning at Bruce for leaving him. He was handling the people-zombies just fine, but he wanted to be fighting Plaguemaster. The main guy. The actual bad guy. 

He flipped away from the crowd of zombies, shooting a few webs in their direction to web them together. A few of them stumbled and fell, while the rest clambered slowly towards Peter again. The swarm had stopped, and most of them were now either unconscious or webbed-up to the ground or the radio tower.

The brunette glanced over the edge of the building. Neither Bruce nor Plaguemaster were in sight. He let out a frustrated groan, rain still battering his suit and drowning out any snarling from the people-zombies behind him.

“Gee, thanks a lot, Bruce, leaving me with the boring stuff,” he grumbled, turning around and throwing a punch at the zombie nearest to him. They fell to the ground, unconscious, and Peter perked up in surprise when he saw a stranger standing in front of the hatch that all his attackers had been climbing out of. Was he a bad guy, too? His suit looked similar to Nightwing’s, but less friendly.

When he spoke, he didn’t sound hostile. Peter, too, cocked his head in curiosity. “Wait—wait, who are you?” he asked instead of answering.

Jason laughed roughly. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

He slammed the back of his pistol into an approaching zombie’s head, knocking them out instantly. These were innocent civilians, so he couldn’t actually shoot them. It was a pretty big inconvenience.  

He took a better look at the kid once he was in the clear. He wasn’t wearing any sort of bat-decor. Actually, there was something completely different on his front— a spider. What was with people choosing creepy creatures as their logos?

The kid’s suit looked as impractical as Dick’s. Completely skin tight, no utility belt or weapons. Though, at least his mask covered his entire face. 

Honestly, Jason wasn’t sure what to make of him. 

“Uhhh, no,” Peter answered, his hands lowering as he relaxed slightly. There were so many new heroes he’d met today. “I’m from Queens,” he continued, shouting over the thunder that suddenly rumbled overhead. 

Queens, New York?? What the hell was this kid doing in Gotham?

“That’s great, buddy,” Jason told him dryly, distracted by another zombie. He punched this one, knocking them into another one and sending them both sprawling to the ground. 

“You haven’t seen a guy in a bat costume up here, have you? Tall, brooding, total drama queen?” he asked. If Bruce had beaten him to Plaguemaster, he was going to be pissed. 

Peter made a face, scrunching his brows together under his mask. The whites of the eyes on his mask mimicked the expression, narrowing at him. “Yeah, I think he went after Plaguemaster. I was about to go follow him,” he replied, slinging a web at a zombie approaching him. The web stuck to the person’s chest and he yanked it sharply to the side, sending them flying into another zombie and knocking them both against the foot of the radio tower. 

Jason’s eyes widened. What was that webbing?? That looked advanced. He’d never seen anything like it before.

He shook his head, snapping out of how impressed he was when he realized what the kid had actually said. Bruce had gone after Plaguemaster. That asshole.

“Wait a minute. …Please don't tell me you’re working with him,” he groaned.

Peter turned his attention back to the new hero. “I mean, yeah, kind of,” he responded lightly, shrugging his shoulders. It seemed a lot more like Peter was trying to work with Bruce, while Bruce just ignored him and did his own thing, but Peter didn’t want to explain all that. “I’m Spider-man, by the way,” he added after realizing they had skipped over introductions. 

“Red Hood,” Jason replied, not bothering to hide his disgust. Though, at this point, it wasn’t his business what Bruce did with his life. They were barely on speaking terms. Maybe this spider kid was another replacement orphan he’d taken in. 

“Nice to meet you,” Peter said, his shoulders rising and falling with an awkward sigh. The rainfall had lightened only slightly. 

He cast his glance around the rooftop around them. Every zombie-person was now incapacitated in one way or another. “I’m gonna go find Batman,” he said suddenly, starting towards the far end of the roof where he had last seen Plaguemaster standing. Who knew how far they had gone?

“I’m gonna go find Plaguemaster,” Jason said, coming up behind Spider-man and swinging his legs over the edge of the building to grapple down. 

Peter stood on the ledge, watching as Red Hood grappled off the building. “Well—wait, that’s what I meant,” he stammered. The brunette leaped off the edge after Red Hood, free falling for a moment before raising his arm and firing a web at the building in front of him to slow his fall. He instinctively squinted his eyes against the pouring rain, hitting his mask and blurring the vision through his goggles. 

Jason watched the kid, his eyes narrowing. He was just like Dick. Leaping off buildings for fun in the middle of a mission. It was ridiculous.

…Admittedly, Jason was a little jealous. He hadn’t brought the equipment for that, which meant he’d have to climb down by hand. Which meant he’d be behind. Just what he’d wanted. 

Mid-air and upside down in the middle of a backflip, Peter spotted Bruce. Disappearing into an alley was his long black cape, catching the streetlight and casting dramatic shadows when illuminated by a lightning flash. His eyes narrowed again—Plaguemaster had to be down the alley, too.

He completed the flip, releasing his web and shooting another one at the street light Bruce had just ran under. “They’re down here!” Peter shouted, yanking himself towards it and sticking a perfect landing atop it. Crouching down close to the light, he looked up and realized Red Hood was only halfway down the building. 

Oh. He couldn’t wait for that. He leaped off the light and ran to the alleyway. 

Bruce was mid-fight with Plaguemaster, frustrated he hadn’t taken him down yet. He hadn’t expected him to be so fast— let alone trained in combat. 

Plaguemaster cackled, though it was nearly inaudible as a crash of lightning and thunder sounded overhead. He ducked under a swing from Batman, moving at inhuman speeds. He was a toxicology genius, so of course he dabbled in enhancing his own capabilities. 

When Peter had made it halfway down the alley he stopped abruptly, watching Bruce and Plaguemaster grapple at the end of the alleyway, cornered against a wall. “Bruce, I’m here!” he yelled. He swung up to the wall of one of the buildings, running along it and flipping off so he was now positioned closest to the wall. He swung a web at Plaguemaster from behind, forcefully yanking the scientist towards him. Stepping out of the way, the momentum of the web violently flung Plaguemaster against the wall, eliciting a grunt from him and leaving him stunned.

“Wow, I thought this guy was going to put up more of a fight than that,” Peter quipped, turning to look at Bruce. 

In the brief moment that Peter had paused, Plaguemaster lunged forward, a pre-loaded syringe of poison gripped tightly in his hand. The teenager sensed the movement and whirled around, hurriedly ducking to the side. “Dude, do you keep syringes on you at all times–?” he yelped, slipping on the wet concrete below his feet as he tried to dodge his attacker.

Peter’s falter gave Plaguemaster the perfect millisecond of time to plunge the syringe into his arm, injecting the toxin into the teenager.

“Spider-man!” Bruce shouted, gritting his teeth. He couldn't say he hadn't expected the kid to let himself get compromised, but actually seeing it happen was worse than he’d imagined. Spider-man wasn’t just another vigilante. He was a teenager. Like the Robins. His sons.

He rushed to get Plaguemaster away from him, landing a punch while the psychopath was caught off guard and knocking the now-empty syringe out of his hand.

Peter stumbled backwards, the eyes of his mask widening dramatically. “Holy shit,” he gasped, almost able to feel the toxin entering his blood stream.

“Oh my gosh! Am I gonna turn into a zombie? Am I being mind-controlled right now?” he exclaimed to no one in particular, clutching his head and clearly beginning to spiral into a panic. His vision swam and he braced himself against the wall behind him, struggling to keep his breathing level.

“You can’t stop what’s coming,” came Plaguemaster’s ominous voice after he recovered from Batman’s blow. He leered at Spider-man around Batman’s shoulder, his glasses now broken and crooked on his face.

“You’re right. He can’t. But I sure as hell can,” announced a loud, disturbingly familiar voice from behind Plaguemaster.

Before Bruce could even process that it was Jason Todd he was hearing, a gunshot rang out, and he watched a bullet go straight through Plaguemaster’s head, blood shooting out and blossoming gruesomely between his temples.

He went completely stiff, his face going white, and instantly fell to the ground, dead.

Jason’s figure was revealed, standing with his gun still held out, now pointed at Bruce, probably smirking under the mask.

Peter stiffened as he watched the gruesome killing, his stare following Plaguemaster’s body as it fell to the ground, splashing in the pooling rainwater. 

He gulped down nausea, which he wasn’t sure if it were from the murder or from the poison, or maybe just from his horror of being poisoned. He didn’t feel any different. Not yet. 

“Oh shit,” the teenager managed to whisper, still leaning against the cold brick wall behind him. Rain streamed down his mask as his traumatized stare lingered on Plaguemaster’s body, dark red blood clouding the puddle he laid in. 

“What the hell are you doing here, Jason?” Bruce growled, breaking his own codename rule for the sake of theatrics.

Jason spread out his arms and tilted his head, his voice dripping with disrespect when he replied. “Really? That’s how you greet me? No ‘I missed you, son. How’ve you been for the past three months’? Not even a ‘hi’? Anything to keep up your tough bat-persona, huh?”

“You just murdered a man!” Bruce retorted.

“Yeah, and now hundreds of innocent civilians are no longer under mind control. You’re welcome.”

Peter finally managed to tear his gaze from Plaguemaster’s corpse, looking instead at Bruce and Jason. “So…I’m gonna be fine?” he asked hoarsely. “Thank you, by the way,” he added, mostly addressing Bruce. 

He looked down at where the syringe had stabbed him in his lower arm, leaving a tear in his suit fabric. He gulped again. What were they supposed to do now? His mind was reeling. 

Jason didn't know why the kid was thanking Bruce when he was the one who’d saved him, but whatever. He wasn't in this for glory. He just wanted Gotham free of psychos who made it their pastime to hurt innocent people.

He shoved his gun into its holster and backed away from the scene. “I’ll let you two get back to your bonding,” he told Bruce sassily.

Peter tore his mask off his head, desperately wanting fresh air. He looked at Jason as he backed away, deciding he didn’t care if another vigilante knew what he looked like. Raking a hand through his hair that was already half-soaked from the rain, he moved his gaze to the ground, taking shallow breaths. 

“He shouldn’t have killed him,” Peter told Bruce, tightly gripping his mask in one hand. He lifted his worried stare to look at the caped crusader as thunder rumbled violently overhead. 

“No. He shouldn’t have,” Bruce muttered, loud enough for Jason to hear. He was still standing nearby, practically daring Bruce to react more harshly. 

He wanted to. There were a billion things he could scold Jason for right now, but now wasn’t the time. The kid was clearly itching for a fight between them, and Bruce wouldn’t give into that.

Instead, he bent to Spider-man’s height, looking him over. “You okay?” He certainly seemed shell-shocked, but Bruce couldn't see any lasting damage.

Mild surprise glinted in the brunette’s gaze. Peter hadn’t expected concern from Bruce, in any amount. It felt…nice. “I think so,” Peter responded, trying to comfort himself more than anything.

Taking deeper breaths without his mask on made him feel a little bit better, but he still couldn’t calm down his panicked thoughts.

Bruce glanced over Spider-man’s shoulder and nearly groaned aloud. Jason hadn’t disappeared. 

“If you keep standing there much longer, you’re going to get arrested,” Bruce told him after he’d gotten close enough to be back within earshot. 

“That bastard deserved to die, and you know it,” Jason gritted.

“Don’t start this, Jason.” Bruce wasn’t going to have the no-kill argument again right now. It would only make things more tense between them than they already were.

“Fine. But I need you to tell me something before I leave,” Jason continued. His mask concealed his expression, but his tone and the way his arms were folded still conveyed his bitterness. 

“What?”

“What happened to my brothers?”

Bruce scoffed. He should’ve known he’d ask about the other Robins. It wasn’t them he despised. “They’re back at the Batcave. Safe.”

Jason didn’t miss a beat. “Hundreds of innocent lives at risk, and not a single one of them wanted to come help you? Bullshit.”

“They wanted to. I benched them,” Bruce stated clinically. “Damian stabbed Dick, under the influence of the toxin, and Tim’s got a concussion so bad he can barely stand. None of them were in any condition to help me.”

“So you replaced them with Spider-boy,” Jason concluded snarkily. 

“I didn’t replace anyone,” Bruce retorted. Jason would never stop it with that, would he? Reminding him he’d died and been replaced as Robin.

Jason didn’t respond to that, but Bruce could practically feel him rolling his eyes under the mask. 

“I want to see them,” he finally said.

Bruce folded his arms. “Then come see them. Nothing’s stopping you.” Jason had left on his own accord. He’d always be welcome back with open arms, whether he liked it or not.

“Um. It’s Spider-man, actually,” Peter corrected Jason with an offended look at him. The rain had now soaked the teenager’s hair, leaving it curly and dripping down over his face. A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him and he had to fight to stay alert. “And—and wait, I’m sorry, you have another son?” he abruptly asked Bruce, turning his head back to Batman once Jason’s initial question registered in his brain. 

Bruce sighed. “Yes.”

“If you haven’t noticed, he likes to pick up stray kids,” Jason said dryly, shoving past Spider-man to get to the other alleyway where he’d parked his motorcycle. 

—

Bruce leaned down and picked up the syringe Plaguemaster had used on Peter and shoved it into his utility belt. Then he led the kid back to the Batmobile, and as soon as he was strapped in, he took off. 

Peter followed in silence to the Batmobile, keeping his gaze on the ground. Plaguemaster might have been dead, but he worried this was far from over. There was a nervous feeling creeping up his spine that he couldn’t shake.

“Jason really shouldn’t have killed him,” he finally said as they drove. He kept his stare forward. “We literally have no idea how many people still have the poison in them. Or—or how to get it out of their systems—I mean, it couldn’t have been that easy, right?” he stressed, his fingers clawed upwards dramatically as he spoke. 

“Jason doesn’t think before he acts,” Bruce said coldly, keeping his eyes on the road. In truth, the interaction had rattled him as well. He didn’t see the guy for three months, and the first thing he did when they reunited was murder the one person that could’ve gotten them an antidote to the toxin. 

While it was likely true that Plaguemaster could no longer control civilians, it didn’t necessarily mean they were in the clear. The poison could’ve had numerous lasting effects on their bodies. Tim had been keeping track of that, but now that he was down for the count, they would likely be behind on their data. Bruce and the others would have to play catch up. 

Peter only nodded. He wanted to come up with a reply but he couldn’t find words over the chaotic mess that his mind had become. He’d never struggled to think like this before.

He ran both his hands through his hair, clutching his head and screwing his eyes shut. His head hurt. Really bad.