Chapter Text
“It’s nice to see you again, Peter.”
Peter tried to speak, but his throat wouldn’t open. He was in the exact same position as he was last week, inside this nightmare. Tied up with invisible restraints, struggling to breathe, his ribs cracking.
“I wonder what you get up to during your day-to-day. Have you been well since we last spoke?”
Peter still can’t speak.
The entity answers anyway. “Yes?” There’s a grin in its voice. “That’s good.”
It was basically talking to itself. This thing was obviously insane, and that scared Peter all the more.
He still made an effort to struggle. It did absolutely nothing. The thing laughs, a chuckle like he was just a stupid kid.
The restraints are even tighter than last time, even more painful. He feels like he’s going to pass out, but he can’t; he’s already in a dream. Peter just has to endure until he wakes up.
He wonders if this thing has the ability to make his time in the dream last longer.
“Your body is quite durable. That bite did wonders, did it not?”
How the fuck does this, whatever it is, know about that?
It sighs. “Seems we’ve run out of time once again.” It slithers around. “Don’t fret. I’ll see you again soon.”
A sensation Peter certainly doesn’t like runs down his neck.
“Goodbye, my little light. Stay safe for me.”
Peter wakes with a gasp.
But this time, he feels like he handled it better than the last round. He wasn’t coughing up his lungs, and he wasn’t as nauseous. But the phantom pain was definitely still there, and his breathing wasn’t the best. But then again, he’ll take wins where he can get them.
Peter throws the covers off himself and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He just sits there for a moment, hunched over, breathing still irregular. He looks at the clock on his nightstand.
4:31 a.m.
Luckily, it was a Saturday, which meant he didn’t have to get up for work.
He looks back at the sweat-soaked sheets.
Yeah, Peter was not going back to sleep.
He’ll just get his day started early.
Laundry first. Peter gathers the sheets, putting them in the washer with way too much detergent. He gives a little pat to the machine as always. She works hard to clean his stuff.
Now, he finds himself in the kitchen, brewing a cup of coffee. And yes, he knows what it does to his body, and he is very okay with it. He would imagine caffeine to him would be what drugs would feel like to others. His body gets all buzzy, and his thoughts are sort of everywhere but in one place at the same time.
It helps him work. So he drinks a cup or two (or three) of coffee in the comfort of his own home.
He’s making a light breakfast to go with it: ten eggs, seven pieces of toast, two packs of bacon, and a couple of pieces of raw angus steak as a side.
Peter loves having money.
He puts the bacon in the oven and does some thinking while whisking the eggs. There’s been too much going on lately. He hasn’t forgotten that Dick is his dad, and how could he? And that the entire Wayne family was vigilantes, and he was ninety-nine percent sure that they knew he was a ‘meta’, with one percent optimism.
And as well as the ‘what the fuck’ entity that’s been invading his dreams and traumatizing the hell out of him. He can tell the difference between fiction and reality, and that thing is definitely real.
He drops the whisked eggs into a pan that was heating up, not an already heated pan. Everyone should know that’s how you make sure the eggs don’t leave residue at the bottom.
Peter sighs to himself. What a shit show.
And he wasn’t even a quarter way through his breakfast when he heard a repetitive tap on his balcony door. Peter stops his fork halfway to his mouth and drops it, clearly annoyed. It was still freaking dark outside, and he was most likely being bothered by some bullshit.
Peter is not proven wrong in the slightest as he jerks the dark curtains away and is met with the sight of Red Hood standing casually on his balcony, full gear. The man gives a nonchalant wave and points down to the locked door handle.
Freak. Hood wants to come in.
Peter drops the curtain and looks back at the mess of his place, more like a lab than a living space. Tools, parts, and parts of parts are scattered in every corner. Less furniture and more metal tables, the ones in real labs. He didn’t see the need for couches and armchairs when all he did was work and build all day.
He hears another knock on the door, more insistent this time. Peter would think so, with how cold it would be this early in the morning.
He keeps his hand on the door, his thoughts darting.
Should he open the door? Block the inside with his body while trying to talk to him? But Hood would be cold; he’s expecting to come inside. Should Peter just go out there? Or should he just ignore it until Hood leaves?
Peter realizes the last one is not an option. Hood’s already seen him.
But the first two options would be suspicious. He won’t let Hood into his place even though his last apartment was basically free rein? That was just telling on himself.
And he's quite sure Hood is reporting something back to Bruce. How does he know that? Knowing his address without asking was proof enough. If Hood had good intentions, he would have just consulted Peter like a normal person.
Hood, having nothing but suspicious behavior to report, would probably increase Peter’s surveillance.
Damnit. Peter’s hand tightens on the handle. He needed to make a decision.
There was another knock, even more impatient than the last.
Fuck it.
Peter opens the door, forcing his body to relax as the cold chill rushes past him.
Hood was now leaning against the door frame, arms crossed. “You sure took your sweet time. It’s cold as shit out here.”
Peter shrugs, stepping aside to let the vigilante in. “My bad.”
Hood takes a few confident steps inside, enough for Peter to close the door, savoring the heat. His steps falter at the state of the loft. He lets out a low whistle.
Peter gives a lame apology. “Don’t mind the mess.”
Hood goes farther into the loft, stepping over a few things. “Definitely minding.”
Peter scratches the back of his neck. “Why are you here this early, Hood?”
He ignores his question as he looks around. “I thought you would get something a bit more modest.” He eyes the spiral staircase leading up to Peter’s bedroom.
Truthfully, Peter would have liked to get a smaller place, something a bit more homey. But he needed more than enough space for his ‘little’ project. So, Upper Gotham was really his only option.
“Needed a little more room,” is all Peter said.
“I see that.”
Peter tries again. “What are you doing here?”
Hood invites himself into his kitchen, grabbing a piece of bacon off the stove. “Just visiting.”
“At five thirty in the morning?”
He lifts the helmet with a click to shove the bacon into his mouth. “Patrol is about to end.”
Peter rocks on his toes unconsciously. “Well… you visited. Good to see you.”
Hood tilts his head. “You kickin’ me out, kid?”
Peter gestures to the mess around them. “I got some work to do today. Hate to see you leave, though.”
Hood nods his head to the pseudo-lab. “And what is this ‘work’ you got going on? Looks neat.”
Peter was not falling for the bait; Hood wants him to ramble. “You know… a side project. A personal one to keep myself busy.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m asking what it is, Pete.”
“Nothing important.”
“Seems pretty important if it’s taking up this much space.”
“Not that important.”
“I disagree.”
“Yeah, well, I live here, and you don’t. It’s nothing.”
Hood is intent on ignoring Peter as he walks around. He picks up a piece of equipment and inspects it, a very essential piece, mind you, specifically for the arc reactor. “What’s this?”
Peter scrambles, snatches it from his hand, and cradles it to his chest. “Don’t touch that, you idiot!”
Hood is wholly unconcerned. “Was that something important?”
Peter watches as Hood picks up another piece from the table, and he sees a spark light for only a second, but it was enough for Peter; he wanted to throw up.
“Would you stop touching shit!”
Hood at least has the decency to set it back down gently. “Felt a little heat from that one. You sure this is all safe?”
Peter sets down the equipment with precision. “Safe for me. Not you.”
Hood doesn’t deign that with a response and looks at his imaginary watch. “I think it’s time for me to head out, kid.”
Peter’s face twitches. “Get out.”
“I just said I was leaving.”
“No, you’re not leaving. I’m kicking you out.”
Hood snorts. “Whatever floats your boat.” He strides to the balcony door, still mindful of the machinery. His hand had already clicked the lock when he heard it.
“Wait.” Peter makes sure to stop him with a strong hand on his shoulder.
“Thought I was getting booted?”
Peter ignores him and holds out a hand instead. “Give me the helmet.” He can feel Hood’s confusion through the metal.
“You’re not getting my helmet, Pete.”
“Wasn’t a question. Give me the helmet, or we can both blow up from me trying to force it off.” Straight to escalation, Peter’s specialty.
Hood hesitates. Peter thinks Hood would know him well enough to deduce that he wasn’t bluffing. But Peter has to count to three in his head anyway.
And right on the internal three, Peter lunges for the helmet.
Hood barely dodges. “Okay, okay! Would you relax!”
Peter keeps his body tense and ready. “I’m not asking again.”
Hood grumbles to himself as the fingerprint-padded lock on the bottom of the helmet is clicked out of place. “Why are you so scary for a fifteen-year-old?” He holds it out.
Peter snatches it up, still cautious of the explosives. He turns it in his hands slowly, searching. He runs his fingers over the lenses. His face scrunches, and he does it again.
Bingo.
“What the hell are you looking—”
Peter doesn’t wait as he takes the nearest flathead screwdriver and starts to pry it under one of the lenses.
It was Hood’s turn to lunge for him, but Peter easily moved out of the way, still trying to add a bit of leverage to the tool. The lenses were in there good, expected since Peter assumes that the majority of Hood’s tech came from Bruce.
But Peter still had super strength.
So, with a bit more force, the lens popped right out. He does the same to the other one, quickly.
He throws the helmet back to the still struggling Red Hood. He catches it with an open mouth and an incredulous look from behind the mask. “What is wrong with you?”
Peter snorts. “You’re one to talk.” He clenches his fist, crushing the lenses without issue. “Cameras, really?”
Hood doesn’t even try to deny it. “They’ve always been there, Pete! I didn’t just install cameras to come spy on you!”
Peter can admit that’s reasonable. He doesn’t really care, though. “Whatever, you just won’t have this footage. Not from this morning.”
Hood shakes his head in disbelief. “This is not helping your case, kid.”
His case? “What I do in my apartment is not anyone else’s business.”
Hood throws his hands up. “No one else was even going to see that footage!”
Peter points an accusing finger. “Liar. We both know why you’re here.”
His mouth opens, then closes. “... I’m gonna go.”
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
“Do you always have to have the last word?”
“Yes.”
“... Try to be less suspicious. It’s not a good look.”
“Yeah, well, you look ugly.”
Peter was still a teen after all.
“You both look ugly as hell right now.”
Bruce and Tim stood in the Batcave, hideous grimaces on their faces as Dick spun around in an office chair without a care in the world.
Tim gives Bruce a harsh nudge, one that the man could barely feel. Bruce has been scared before, as much as he hates to admit it. But this was a different type of fear.
Nervousness. Something he didn’t feel often.
So, he swallows, clears his throat, “Dick.”
Dick only slows his spinning to show that he heard Bruce.
Bruce takes a steady breath. “Dick, if you could stop spinning in the chair for a moment?”
He slows a little more, not stopping entirely.
Tim slumps with a roll of his eyes. “It’s about Peter.”
That got Dick’s attention. He puts a foot down, his shoe squeaking a bit with the friction. He raises a brow.
Bruce doesn’t bother with a ‘thank you’, knows Dick won’t acknowledge it anyway. “Now, what I’m about to tell you, you have to promise not to be too upset.”
Dick’s eyes sharpen, and he sits up in the chair. “Spit it out.”
“… Tim, tell your brother what we found.”
Tim chokes on air, glaring heatedly at Bruce. “You said you were going to tell him!”
“I don’t recall saying that.”
Dick levels a stare at Tim. “I love you, Timbo, but whatever you’re going to say needs to happen in the next five seconds. I’m counting, too.”
Tim’s eyes dart back and forth between Dick and Bruce. His heart was beating out of his chest, and he could feel his hands getting clammy all of a sudden. He was almost out of time.
Dicks stands from the chair abruptly. “Time’s up.”
“You’re Peter’s biological father!”
The air in the cave suddenly becomes insufferable, and Tim watches in real time as Dick’s pupils dilate.
Yeah. Tim felt like he was going to die. Killed, to be more specific. He takes a few subtle steps back.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Bruce puts out a placating hand. “Now, Dick, we ran some… tests—”
“I thought I specifically told you two to abstain from the bullshit with Peter.”
Tim jumps in. “We did! We really did! But it was a noticeable concern after some time. You know, just in case it was like a problem—or like maybe Peter was in danger or something, and we thought you deserved to know—”
Dick could feel the absolute headache coming in. “Peter is not my fucking kid! Are you out of your fucking minds!”
Tim winces but doubles down. “We have proof! Like Bruce said, we ran tests.” His voice tapers off weakly.
Dick’s jaw clenches, shifting. “... Give it to me.”
Bruce takes that as his cue and slides the thin file off the nearby table, handing it to him.
He snatches it up, practically ripping the file to get to the paper. The silence feels like a death sentence with the way Dick’s eyes run over the page, over and over again.
Dick is reading the same line again and again.
Probability of paternity: 99.9999%.
One-hundred percent in his mind.
Bruce clenches and unclenches a hand behind his back, waiting.
Dick is still staring at the paper as he rubs a rough hand over his mouth. “... This isn’t possible.”
Bruce is careful with his words. “Regarding the timeline, yes. Peter is fifteen, which means you would have been too young for this to occur naturally.”
The incriminating paper is waved in the air. “Then what the hell is this?”
Tim bites his lip. “... We were leaning into a clone theory, but it made no sense after getting the results back.”
Dick squints. “You’re saying he has a mother?”
“... Yeah.”
He breathes in a slow, shuddering breath. “I want an explanation. A theory. Fucking something, to make this make sense. Right now.”
Dick found himself back in the office chair, rubbing a tired hand over his neck as he listened to the PowerPoint presentation. Unsurprisingly, it was something Tim had prepared for this very moment.
Displayed on the supercomputer, Tim was explaining the current slide, with a picture of a random woman.
“Mary Parker. Peter’s mother.”
Not so random.
“We ran Peter’s DNA against the state and federal databases tied to New York—”
“His accent?”
“Bingo.”
Dick put a hand up before Tim could continue. “How did you get more of his DNA?”
Bruce blinks. “I had a backup hair follicle.”
“We’re going to talk about that later.” He gestures to Tim. “Go on.”
“After running the DNA, it was a maternal match to Mary Parker, maiden name Fitzpatrick.” He flips to the next slide. “She had a pretty normal childhood, nothing out of the blue. But as soon as she turns eighteen, she’s in college as a bio major and the military at the same time.”
“That’s possible?”
Tim shrugs. “She was on active duty while enrolled. She stayed on base most of the time, but took online classes.”
Seems Peter took after his mother with the science stuff.
“She only stayed four years in the military, just enough to get the benefits.” Next slide. “She graduates with a degree in molecular biology and leaves the army. After that, she decides to join the CIA as an intelligence analyst, the most common position for past veterans. Six years.” Next slide. “In her last year as an analyst, she wants to go back to school. Gets into Grad and leaves with a master's and Ph.D in molecular genetics.”
Dick thinks he can see where this is going.
“During this time, she’s approached by a no-name private research center, Arden Research Group.”
The current slide shows their logo, a generic atom with the orbits. Nothing special. Nothing memorable.
Another slide. A picture of a man. Again, nothing special.
“John Parker. She met at the research center. Married him two and a half years later.”
Dick covers his eyes and leans back in the chair. “Don’t tell me…”
Tim rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah… we’re pretty sure the company got a hold of your DNA during your Robin days and mixed it with Mary’s.”
“And where is she now?”
“Dead. She and her husband died in a plane crash seven years ago.”
Dick curses under his breath. “You think she was a part of the process willingly?”
Bruce is the one to answer this time. “Considering that she died years after Peter’s supposed birth, it’s the most plausible. Especially with her background in molecular biology.”
Tim finishes. “If she wasn’t part of it, or like, refused to do it, we’re pretty sure she would have been killed off way earlier.”
Dick still had so many questions. “And Peter’s powers? You guys think it was the lab, too?”
“Almost one-hundred percent. They most likely activated his meta-gene through simulated events.”
“And where is the company now?”
Tim moves to the next slide, a picture of another generic face with glasses. “Paul Williams. The CEO and an active scientist in the company had been arrested three years ago and charged with embezzlement and unethical practices. He was sentenced to twenty-two years, and the company shut down permanently a year ago.”
“You think Peter escaped within that time frame? Been on the run or something?”
Tim shrugs. “It’s possible. He decides to settle in Gotham because it’s somewhere no one wants to go. Would also explain why he had no records to begin with.”
Also makes sense. “But why? I get experimentation and stuff, but what was the end goal with creating Peter?”
Tim and Bruce exchange a look. Not a good sign. “What?”
Bruce takes the lead on this one. “We believe they were essentially trying to make Peter a weapon. For what? That we don’t know.”
Dick’s mouth is open. Peter? A weapon? The most unbelievable shit he’s ever heard. “Ok—ay. They didn’t succeed, obviously.”
Tim agrees. “Obviously.”
“Why my DNA, though?”
Tim furrows his brows. “Dude, you were Robin at the time. Like, already legendary. What psychopath wouldn’t want your DNA to create a super-powered child?”
Fair enough.