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Chapter Text

|Saturday

|| 7:45 pm

On the night of the Martha Wayne Foundation Gala, Wayne Manor shine a promise everyone knew the city couldn’t keep.

The air was thick with the mixed smell of expensive perfume, old wood, money, and your usual corruption from these elites.

Everyone at the gala smiled. Gotham, as usual did not.

On the other side, Peter looked good in suit.

He also felt like a fraud in one.

Peter Parker stood with the Daily Planet crew and feeling stiff and awkward in his tux. It fit okay-Clark and Lois had helped him pick it back in Metropolis-but it still felt like playing dress-up in an emo Barbie dollhouse. His camera that was hanging from his shoulder was the only thing that felt normal- at least.

He looked good. He knew he looked good, probably to the point that he can make someone’s flabbers go gasted because he’s just that guy. He also knew he’s just lighting the gas by himself at this point.

I’m fine, Peter comfort himself, totally fine. You had been in a prom before which doesn’t go well but that’s an experience and you learn from it.

But also, he’s not fine. The tie is choking him.

"Hold still," Lois Lane said, her fingers quickly fixing his tie.

Peter puffed. "I am holding still."

“Oh hush,” Lois said, smoothing the knot. “You’re fine. You look nice.”

Peter eyes softened, he can vividly remember his Aunt May doing the same back then, fixing his ties, his hair, his sleeves and she always looked proud while doing so, maybe uttering few words on how much he has grown,

And how I will outgrow her from now on.

Peter’s voice in his head immediately butt in, she’s alive. That should stop there already but what is Peter if not unstoppable, she’s alive and probably forgot you.

"Sure you are." Lois snapped him back to reality. She finished and gave his shoulder a pat. "You look fine. Remember, we're here for the circus, not be one with the clowns."

…..hi!…

"Unless the story is a handsome young photographer from our roster catching the eye of a lonely heir," Cat Grant said and winking at him.

“Then I’ll leave and live in a fancy mansions while throwing parties that came from the people’s tax money.” Peter quirked his brows, “What a good Cinderella I will be, Ma’am Cat.”

Cat with her blue dress, straightened his sleeve, “And I will write nasty stuff bout you, and you’ll get me killed. The classic.”

Lois smirking, “Clark will give you lectures of “how to be a responsible teenager when it comes to intimate companionship,” if you ever pull a chic or hen, or a rooster, whatever you preferred.”

All I’m pulling are troubles and hopefully the tail of OSCORP.

…Hi!…

Before Peter could answer, Steve Lombard reached over and messed up his hair. "“Atta boy, rookie,” Steve grinned. “Gotham girls’ll eat you alive.”

"Steve!" Lois and Cat snapped at the same time.

Cat fixed Peter's hair, shooting Steve a look. "He's working and his hair was perfect until your flimsy hands ruined it."

"It's okay," Peter said, trying to smooth it back down.

“The messy hair adds personality, I know the best about the types of people nowadays, trust me, rookie.” Steve shot him a knowing glance.

Why does everyone think this party will end with me having some hook ups? They think of me that so highly? Peter would really love if they teach him how to think of himself in that manner.

Nearby, Jimmy Olsen was already eating from a plate piled high with appetizers. He gave Peter a thumbs-up. "The little meatballs are amazing!"

Lois sighed. "Clark's running late. 'Traffic,' he says." She made air quotes, rolling her eyes. "He'll show up eventually, probably with a stain on his shirt and a story about helping someone change a tire."

Peter smiled. The thought of Clark here, being here, would be so entertaining. Gotham’s gloom vs. Clark’s optimism as he maneuver his way on the elites is something Peter would pay for.

Also, his kindness was a comforting idea in this cold and fancy room. Clark Kent radiated the kind of gentle solidity Peter hadn’t realized he missed until he was standing next to it. That Clark made me feel somehow found, in a universe that had thoroughly lost me.

….hi! hello…? again…

Just then, the feeling in the room changed.

Everyone looked towards the big doors.

Money arrived.

Gotham's first family was here.

Bruce Wayne walked in first with a smile that screams money, with a walk that whispered money, and probably a laugh that screeches like money. Duh,billionaires. Of course all they got is money. Behind him came his family. Dick Grayson looks very different, he’s still all smiles but he looks like he hate being here, but then Dick look in their way and wave at him, Peter being polite, waved back. Timothy Drake looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here. Damian Wayne, in a tiny suit, looked like he smelled something bad. Stephanie Brown, in a bright purple dress, was smiling and winking at people. Cassandra Cain in a simple black dress, Peter was sure he’s imagining things when her eyes met his for just a second before she looked way. Duke Thomas looks a very respectable gentleman while chatting with Timothy and Stephanie.

"Places, everyone," Lois said softly, all business. "We do what we do best.”

“Eat tiny expensive foods?” Jimmy jokes, jokingly.

“Ask dangerous questions, though implicitly.” she corrected.

“Same thing.” Cat added. “Let’s go make rich people sweat.”

The team moved apart. Peter lifted his camera, and the world became a series of moments in his viewfinder.

Click.

Brucie Wayne's shining smile.

Click.

Commissioner Gordon's tired and firm handshake. Also, he saw Barbara! She’s amazing as always.

Click. Click. Click.

Peter captured all of them, the angles, faces, masks, smiles with teeth behind them and probably the reasons why the poor gets poorer and while they get more richer, rich with greed and had committed all the seven deadly sins once in a day, or thrice.

He moved through the crowd like a ghost he is. He saw the real stuff hiding under the polis, the tight grip on a wine glass, the fake smile between business rivals, the way people looked at the Waynes with hunger.

He got the shots Lois wanted, and more. He saw Cat talking to a nervous businessman, her voice smooth and taunting. He saw Steve trying to talk to a group of models and failing. He saw Jimmy trying to take a picture while balancing a plate of food.

Finally, he needed a break. He grabbed a small plate of colorful macaroons from a waiter and headed for a quieter corner near a terrace door.

…Hi! curious….?

He was about to take a bite when a smooth, cool voice stopped him.

"The Daily Planet sends its interns to do the big jobs now.”

Peter looked up.

Vicki Vale stood there.

She was all red hair and a sharp smile that didn't warm her eyes, and a smile that could have been either welcome or warning depending on how close you stood. She looked at his press pass, then to his face.

"Peter Parker," she read. "Photographer."

“Well,” she continued, “Hello there.”

Peter remembered to move his mouth.

“Likewise, ma’am,” he said politely as possible, "It's an honor. Your report on the city renewal project was thorough." He remembered Lois saying that report had almost gotten people hurt.

"Thank you, dear," Vicki said, sipping her champagne. “So Metropolis sent children to do their society coverage now?”

Peter’s mind supplied six increasingly stupid comebacks. His mouth settled for smiling lamely.

“I’m an intern.”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Silly, Of course you are.”

"Gotham has a strong character," Peter said carefully. "It's interesting to photograph."

"Is it?" Her eyes gleamed. "I've seen some of the photos going around. The ones of our night-time vigilantes and it’s interesting, indeed. It reminds me of children’s fairy tale- about boy who never grew up. I’m a tad bit getting older, remind me dear of what fairy tale is that?”

Peter's heart skipped a beat. She knows or she guesses. The photos I posted- she's connected them to me but holy shit- how? Lois ain’t kiddin on how dangerous she is.

"Peter Pan," he said, finally as if admitting defeat.

Vicki laughed, a low and knowing sound. "We should talk. The Gotham Gazette likes real talent and people who take initiative."

He swallowed. I’m not so employed for this.

“I- uh- don’t know what-”

She offered her hand.

Peter looked at her hand. It felt like a trap.

He was about to take it.

…Coming!…

A second hand got there first.

“Vicki,” Lois said brightly.

It was not a greeting so much as an elegant pistol placed on a table.

“Lois,” Vicki returned and it’s just as pleasant.

They smiled, he’s quite sure the room temperature dropped five degrees.

“Recruiting already?” Lois asked lightly, not looking at Peter, still shaking Vicki’s hand. “That’s fast, even for you.”

“Oh, please,” Vicki laughed. “Just making friends. Also, he’s only an intern and not a full asset. The Planet is so good at finding eager young people.”

Peter had never seen two people exchange so many knives disguised as syllables in his life. He’s learning a lot from watching this.

Lois’s grip tightened slightly.

"We are still training him," Lois said, her voice sweet but firm. "We don't really resort to throwing him to the wolves to see if they survive."

Fuck off, Peter thought that it’s the translation of that.

"Some learn to survive quickly. Some are born for it." Vicki's eyes flicked back to Peter. "He has good instincts. You should let him off the leash more. Gotham is a great teacher."

No, you fuck off. Peter commended himself for being a good translator.

"Gotham is a great user," Lois shot back, stepping slightly in front of Peter. "It eats good instincts and spits out cynics. We like our reporters to keep their hearts, thanks. It makes for better stories."

You fuck the fucking off, it meant that, probably.

The two women stared at each other and there’s a silent war in the air.

Finally, Vicki laughed, a light, fake sound. "Always a pleasure, Lois. " She looked at Peter again and he translate it into I’m not fucking with you anymore. "Goodbye, Peter. I'm sure we'll meet again. Gotham's a small town for people who look into the shadows." which probably translates into but I’m sure this is not the end, we’ll meet again soon.

She walked away, leaving a cold spot behind her.

Lois let go of a breath she hadn’t admitted she was holding.

She turned to Peter and rested a firm hand on his shoulder.

“That,” she said, “is why I didn’t want you here.”

“Lois-”

"That's Vicki Vale. If she's looking at you, it's because she thinks you know something she wants." Lois put a hand on his arm. "Stay away from her, Peter. She doesn't want to help you. She wants to use what you know, and she won't care who gets hurt."

Peter nodded, Oh please, I already dealt with Mr. Jameson, I got few tricks, yknow.

Jimmy Olsen appeared, hi eyes wide. "Whoa. It’s always intense with the two of you. “ then he turned to him, “You alright, rookie?"

"I'm peachy," Peter said, forcing a smile.

"Good," Lois said, seeing Commissioner Gordon wave at her. "Stay with Jimmy. I have to go talk to the one good cop here. And remember- wolves."

She walked away.

Jimmy whistled. "She's not wrong, you know. Vale's stories come from dark places. I've heard things." He took a macaroon from Peter's forgotten plate. "So, seen Steve? He got rejected earlier by a model and he said he’s going to expose her family for doing money laundering."

“Is he not scared for his life?” Peter laughed, the tension easing.

“He said Superman will save him.”

They talked for a few minutes while watching the room. Cat was talking to a politician, smiling while her phone recorded on the table. Steve was now talking to an older woman while gesturing wildly.

Then Jimmy's phone buzzed. He looked at it and his face lit up. "It's my girlfriend. I gotta take this-" He ducked away.

And just like that, Peter was alone again.

Click.

He leaned against the cold wall. The sounds of the party-the music, the laughter, the clinking glasses-felt like they were happening far away. He was in a room full of the most important people in Gotham, and he had never felt more like he didn't belong. He’s just a ghost with a camera, taking pictures of a world he couldn't be part of, while his own world felt further away than ever.

He brought the macaroons to his lips, as a form of comfort and not go into deep spiral again especially in a very public place where there’s tons of eyes around. He don’t have public kink, for godsake.

…..HI! HELLO! APPROACHING! HAPPY!….

He never got the chance to eat his macaroons. giving his macaroons a mournful look. Soon, my friends.

“Peter!”

The voice rang in cheerful and familiar, cutting through the classical music.

Peter’s shoulders slumped in despair. He lowered the uneaten macaroon with a sigh of profound resignation and turned. My macaroons

Dick Grayson, looking unfairly natural in a perfectly tailored black tuxedo, Dick Grayson who cut through the crowd like it parted for him - because of course it did, literally. People give way for him, as if this happened normally since ages. “There you are!”

Peter raised his free hand and waved, a smile already tugging at his lips. “Hey! Dick! Uh-Mr. Grayson? Sir? What’s the protocol here?”

Dick laughed, full and easy. “Dick is fine. If you call me ‘sir’ I’ll develop wrinkles out of spite.” he stopped and raised a question, “How are you faring in Gotham?”

“"Actually, it’s been great.” Peter admitted with a wry smile. “Interesting week, but great. Speaking of interesting-I was promised a giant animatronic dinosaur? Or did I dream that part of the invite?"

Dick’s grin went feral. “Patience. After the boring speeches, I swear. It’s waiting in the cav-” he stopped, amended smoothly, “-cave-like room, it’s the aesthetic, being in a cave.”

Peter squinted at him, “You have a room that’s designed like a cave?”

“To give a very pre-historical experience,” Dick’s smile got wider, “Billionaires, man. Bruce is just weird on his own.”

Peter decided to let it go, I don’t give a fuck, I shan’t stick my nose to the rich- unless it’s OSCORP.

…watching….approching…hi!

“Grayson.”

The voice was flat and cool even, and came from about elbow-height. Damian Wayne stood there. His gaze swept over Peter, then back to Dick. His expression was one of bland recognition, as if spotting a mildly interesting shrub.

“Damian! You two already knew each other since Damian mentioned about meeting you!” Dick said, smoothly drawing him into the circle.

“Parker,” Damian stated.

“You talked about me to them?” Peter’s flabbers were gasted.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Damian Wayne, after that encounter with him on the Academy, Peter make sure to research about him immediately once he got home. Who could have thought that the son- not even adoptive son- a biological son is being bullied even in school with the reason being racism? Although, his behavior were mainly the cause- but the racism were very implied and one of the main factor of it.

He liked the kid, people who love animals are on the top of his list, or just people who cares not just for themselves in general. And well, the kid’s very adorable.

Peter’s face broke into a genuine smile. “You look really regal right now!” Peter shot a picture of him, the kid didn’t even bother to pose properly, well, he certainly didn’t need to because he carried himself so princely naturally. “How’s the cats?”

Damian’s nose wrinkled slightly. “It is a suit. It covers the body. Its regality is irrelevant.” he continued, “Odysseus and Penelope were expecting an offspring soon, Scipio wanted to be the Godfather.”

“There’s more pets in our home, we got turkeys, a cow, dog, and you name it! You should come and see it if you have time, Peter!” Dick flaunted with amusement dripping from his voice. He watched Peter and was impressed. Most people either fawned over or were terrified by Damian. But, Peter, surprising as ever, did not and even managed to held a very human conversation with Damian, outside of his cape. That deserves a round of applause.

This is another kidnapping attempt.

“I think zoos existed for that.”

“The confinement of wildlife for public display fundamentally compromises their biological autonomy and mental well-being. Zoos shouldn’t exist-”

“I agree- I agree-” Peter nodded his head, “But I think coming to a very very rich mansion just to see their pets is very superficial. Why would I even found myself in a million dollar mansion?”

…coming!…

A snort came from behind them.

Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Cain approached as a unit, with Duke Thomas trailing slightly behind, looking comfortable but observant. They were a mosaic of Wayne-associated teens.

They all stopped in front of him.

Peter looked around.

Then pointed helplessly at his own chest. “You-are you all looking at me?”

Stephanie grinned. “You’re famous, Peter!”

“We know who you are,” Tim said, his tired eyes curious but friendly as he extended a hand to Peter.

That sounds like a threat? Why I am being ambushed by the Waynes!?

“Tim Drake. We’ve heard things.”

Peter shook his hand, a little bewildered. “You- have? From who?”

“Babs and Dick talk about you,” Duke added, offering a little wave. “Hi, again!”

And of course, these were all Barbara's associates. A librarian, having a police father, and being connected to Dick Grayson and the entire Waynes, and who could have thought that the person he helped making concepts of the tech of his OC in his novel is ALSO a Wayne? What a fucking close world, it’s almost to the point I think I will have claustrophobia from this.

Peter would even go to the far to say he’ll eat peppermints if that the Jason in the library is also associated with the Waynes as well.

Peter’s ears went warm. “Oh, In a good way, I hope?”

“Good way,” Dick said, clapping his shoulder.

“Babs talks about you all the time. ” Steph chimed in.

Peter’s head was spinning. These weren’t just random rich kids. This was the core of the family he’d been tangentially orbiting and they knew him. They’d been talking about him. It was overwhelming and strangely warm. “Wow. I- okay. Hi. Yeah, Peter. You all- you’re-”

“A lot?” TIm supplied.

“I was going to say ‘very well-dressed,’ but ‘a lot’ also works,” Peter laughed, feeling his nerves ease. He glanced at Cass, who gave him a small, silent nod. “Hi.”

“Hello!” Now this is a step by step conversation, next I’ll hear I a variation of how are you.

“You good?” Cassandra Cain asked.

“I’m great.”

He likes Cass, very conversation friendly. 10/10. Would chat again.

They fell into an easy and chaotic huddle. Tim asked him a surprisingly technical question about the Daily Planet’s archive digitization process. Steph demanded to know the most ridiculous assignment he’d ever been given (“Interviewing a man who claimed his pigeon was the reincarnation of a Roman emperor,” Peter answered immediately). Asking Duke asked if he’d made any progress on his ‘OC’s vehicle.’ Damian mostly listened, interjecting only to make a scathing remark about the canapes.

Peter held his own with his enthusiasm shining through. He made Tim huffed with a story about a printer malfunction at the Planet. He listened intently as Cass when she speak, whispered word from Steph, described her favorite spot in the gardens. He was in the center of a whirlwind, and for a moment, he forgot to feel like an outsider. He just felt very included.

And of course,you can’t have just good thing.

People were starting to stare.

“Who’s that kid-?”

“Another Wayne missing bird?”

“New kid?”

“Haven’t seen him once before-”

A young, unknown journalist surrounded by the Waynes was a social anomaly. But the siblings seemed utterly unbothered, and he was stressed.

Is it because they knew Lois? What is so special to me?

…HELLO!…

The soft chime of a spoon against crystal quieted the room.

All eyes turned to the grand staircase where Bruce Wayne had appeared.

“Thank you, thank you,” Bruce Wayne said, his voice a warm..He gave a self-deprecating smile, the kind that made the society pages swoon.

Click. Click. Click.

“Now, I know what you’re all thinking. ‘Bruce, another gala? Can’t the city’s problems wait until after the martinis?’” A wave of polite, knowing laughter rippled through the crowd. He waited for it to subside, his smile softening into something more genuine. “But the truth is, they can’t. The work of the Martha Wayne Foundation-the clinics, the shelters, the scholarships-it isn’t about writing a check to feel better about ourselves on a Tuesday night but treat it as if writing a future for someone who can’t see past next Tuesday. It’s the most important investment any of us will ever make. Not in bricks and mortar, but in hope. And hope, in Gotham, is the most precious currency of all.”

Listening, Peter felt a familiar, complicated pang. The billionaire philanthropist speech was a tune he knew, but Bruce Wayne sang it in a different key.

Tony Stark would have been up there with a smirk and a hologram, making salvation look like a flashy stuff.

He missed Tony’s blazing and genius like a phantom limb. But watching Bruce Wayne, he felt a pang of something else-a recognition. It was unsettling. And, despite everything, a little bit inspiring.

But also, Peter remembered that this guy funds Batman like there's no tomorrow and was technically a sugar daddy of his own.

I thought it will be the other way round, but Clark and Superman- and Superman being the one who birthed is more shocking. Nothing can top that.

Bruce’s speech wrapped up to polite applause. As the crowd began to murmur and mingle again, Dick sighed, the mantle of social duty settling back on his shoulders. “Alright, we’ve hogged you long enough. Duty calls. We have to go be ‘approachable’ and ‘inspire future donors.’”

“Which means letting old ladies pinch our cheeks while talking about their privileged youth like I can relate to it,” Steph groaned.

“I will maim the first one who tries,” Damian said, utterly serious.

“Those rich folks are easy to please as long you raised their ego enough.” Tim shared, as if he’s not rich to riches.

“Good luck to me,” Duke despaired.

“Bye.” Cassandra waved at him.

As they dispersed, only Dick remained.

Dick squeezed Peter’s arm. “I’ll find you later. Dinosaur tour-pinky promise.”

“Don’t toy with my heart like this,” Peter called after him.

Then he looked down.

His plate.

His macaroons that were till untouched.

Then, realization settled in him and make him almost drop the plate, Holy shit, I bagged all the Waynes?

zZz

The night was too beautiful for the way his chest hurt.

That was Peter’s first bitter thought.

The garden behind the manor glowed in rays of light, the warm bulbs draped over bushes of hedges and glass sculptures as if stars someone had forced closer to earth. Music seeped through the walls, and was lost in the garden maze.

Peter stood alone among roses he didn’t care about.

He had come outside because the room had felt like it was shrinking. Also, to eat his macaroons that’s been calling for him since the beginning but the world loves bothering him, as always.

He came here to breathe.

He was ready to finally take a bite.

…DANGER! ANGRY! DANGER! DANGER!…

Then, in the corner of his vision, something shifted.

Someone.

Then he saw him.

Norman Osborn.

That name is like poison in the back of his throat.

Across a lawn, near a secluded hedge maze entrance where the light from the main terrace didn’t quite reach. A man in an impeccably tailored tuxedo, silver just beginning to thread through his temples, a glass of amber liquor in hand. He was younger than the Norman Osborn Peter had known with a posture too straight for a man who had lived the life Peter remembered him living.

All the air left Peter’s lungs.

….KEEEP CALM! FOCUS! BREATHE!….

The plate in his hand creaked, the numbness shattered and incinerated by a white hot wave of pure unadulterated rage. It flooded his veins, and it’s metallic and familiar, a poison he’d tried so hard to purge.

For a single, blinding second, Peter didn’t exist in Gotham. He wasn’t at a gala. He wasn’t holding dessert. His mind simply emptied-replaced by a tidal wave of memory that crashed so hard he almost staggered.

That smile.

OSCORP.

Weeks of digging and following cold trails, of looking for a shadow-and here the shadow was, breathing the same air, smiling that same thin, contemptuous smile.

Every rumor and cases he had traced, every pattern he’d started to see-all of it snapped into focus around the man in front of him. Impossible and inevitable, both at once.

Every nerve lit up cold. The chill went down his arms and then into his fingers, down his thighs into his shoes, until he felt like his bones were made of winter. His mind blanked for a second - not forgetting, but too much remembering at once - tragedy-blood on iron, laughter, falling, falling, falling-

He had not been supposed to approach him yet. He had no plan and almost no evidence and just his stupid theories and he had no web-shooters under this stupid suit jacket.

He had plans. Whiteboards, maps that were stitched together by his photos. He promised himself the distance, information, and patience as his virtue because it’s the most logical plan- but logic evaporates when emotions condensed.

He promised he would not make his decisions with grief wearing anger as a mask.

He had prepared for the idea of Norman being alive.

But preparation did nothing against proximity.

Norman turned slightly, as though he had always known Peter was there and had grown bored of pretending otherwise.

He smiled.

And then he said, warmly, almost kindly,

“Hey there, boy.”

…CALM! STAY! SANE! SANE! CALM!…

One. Two. Three, Peter breathes.

It was ridiculous how much power those three words had.

They dragged Peter’s gaze up whether he wanted it or not and left him suspended between instinct and thought. Every single reason not to approach evaporated into white noise.

He turned.

He didn’t want to, but he did, slowly, because if he moved too fast he might break something he couldn’t unbreak and how as if the fucking Isaac Newton gravitational law had him by the jaw.

Up close, the wrongness of Norman was clearer.

…SAME! SAME! SIMILAR! HIM!…

His senses wasn’t just tingling now, it was a sustained shrieking alarm, a klaxon directed into his brainstem.

That’s all the confirmation he needed that this man is the same man he had killed, the same man he had murdered. (Uncle Ben- forgive me- forgive me-)

His eyes weren’t young, just his face was. The eyes knew too much and it held history and cruelty and endless, patient amusement. He looked like a man who had been gifted a rewind button on his life.

Norman studied him.

“Are you lost?”

It was innocuous. That was the point.

Lost. You took everything. You took my home. You took her.

The rage boiled and it’s threatening to spill over. Peter clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. “No,” he said, his voice shockingly flat and was devoid of the tremor he felt inside. “I’m not lost.”

Green Goblin.

The name was a scream in his head with the rustle of a purple hood, the sound of glider engines. A pumpkin bomb rolling across a polished floor. Then Aunt May’s face painted with paleness and visibly scared, then still. So still. The memory was a physical blow to his solar plexus. He saw the glider’s blade. He heard her last, rattling breath. He felt the universe tear in two.

Norman clicked his tongue as though mildly disappointed.

“You look like you are.”

There it was.

The fucking implication, the double meaning hung in the fragrant air like poison gas and he can hear this fucking son of a bitch voice crisp ranging to his head, you look lost in this world. You look lost without her. You look lost, little spider.

Peter’s muscles made the decision before he did.

THUD.

He closed the distance in one movement.

His hand fisted in Norman’s collar and slammed him back into the stone arch behind him and the impact vibrating through the pillar that it can be compared to a church’s bells falling to the ground as the leaves trembled around them.

Rose petals broke and fell.

Secluded corner. No CCTV. Hedge maze entrance-sound would be muffled. No visible bodyguards. He’s alone. I’m faster. I’m stronger. I could smash his head against that marble bench before he could blink. I could make him pay, again. Right now.

The fantasy was so vivid and so sweet, it was a taste on his tongue. The satisfying crunch of bone. The end of that smirk, again.

…STOP! SANE! STAY! NO KILL!…

Norman didn’t struggle and he didn’t shout. He simply raised his free hand in a placating gesture as his expression one of mild offended amusement. The glass in his other hand didn’t even spill. “My, my. Such ill manners. Is this how they teach you to greet people in wherever you’re from?”

“You know who I am,” Peter growled, the words scraping from his throat. “What I truly am.”

Norman’s smile widened, “Maybe. Maybe not.” his eyes glinted with malice, “Identities are superficial things, don’t you find? One man’s orphan is another man’s tool. One world’s hero is another world’s guest.”

The confirmation.

It was all Peter needed.

The last thread of doubt severed.

“You,” Peter tightened his grip until he felt tendons creak in his wrist. He was one movement away from hurling Norman across the garden. He wanted, with a bright, vicious clarity, to hurt him, especially that the Spider-Man suit is not tackling him back and shouting to him with no killing. The desire rose like heatstroke and it terrified him how good it felt.

“Are you the reason,” Peter forced out, “that I’m here?”

Norman laughed.

Norman’s eyes, cold and reptilian, held his. He laughed then, a soft and mad chuckle that was horribly familiar. “Who knows?”

Rage slammed into Peter’s chest like a tsunami.

“Stop,” Peter whispered. “Stop playing.”

Norman leaned forward the slightest bit, within the space of Peterson’s anger like it was a seat he owned.

“You seem angry,” he observed gently.

Peter almost laughed.

“Wonder why,” he said.

He wanted to hit him. He wanted to beat that smug face into pulp, to erase that smile with his fists, to feel the bones give way. He saw flashes-the Goblin’s mask, May’s lifeless eyes, the rubble of his old world. His free hand balled into a fist at his side turning his knuckles white.

“Enjoying yourself here, though?” Norman continued, as if discussing the weather. “Gotham has its charms. The drama. The family you’ve seemed to find.” He patted Peter’s clenched fist on his collar with his free hand, a patronizing and terrifying gesture. “The Super’s roster and Bat’s little birds are so welcoming to strays.”

The mention of the Superman, of the innocent vigilantes around that doesn’t fight this battle of them,-using them as a barb had nearly broke Peter’s control.

He stared at Norman like staring alone could burn him down. Norman’s smile deepened, like he had hit the exact nerve he had been trying to find.

“I missed that gaze,” Norman said, voice lower. “The one that pretends it’s judging me when really it’s judging itself.”

“Take me back,” Peter demanded, his voice low, “Send me home. Now.”

Norman tutted. “Na-ah.”

Peter lifted his fist again.

“That’s not how this works. You don’t get to ask nicely and get a ride home, boy. You have to earn it. You have to figure it out.” He leaned in, his breath ghosting Peter’s ear.

“I’m not asking,” Peter said.

Norman’s grin widened.

“There he is.”

“I will destroy you,” Peter promised, the vow leaving his lips as if an etched sacrament of hate. “I will tear OSCORP apart, brick by brick.”

Norman’s smirk turned radiant. “I would love to see you try. Truly. In fact, I’m counting on it. All that cleverness, all that power directed so productively. It benefits us both, you see.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter snarled, shaking him slightly.

“Why, your progress, dear boy!” He stopped for a moment before cackling out loud, “Haven’t you benefited? Dead loved ones, alive again. Second chances placed like fruit in your hands. A shame you had to leave that party so early. They’re all there, you know, Alive.”

The world tilted, No. No, no, no.

May. Tony. Natasha. People he had mourned. People who shouldn’t breathe and yet there they were-here he was-

Peter’s hand loosened.

“What did you do?” Peter’s voice was a whisper, “What did you do to them?”

“Brought them back,” he said simply. “Call it generosity. Call it science. Call it blasphemy. It doesn’t matter, does it? They’re back.”

He paused.

“Now it’s your turn.”

Peter blinked.

“Make it sense, ded people can’t be just brought back-”

“They can,” Norman said and his tone suddenly bored, as if the most interesting part of the conversation was over. “You’ll have to destroy OSCORP. Unmake what I’ve built here. It’s the only way to find the key. The key to your cage, and to theirs. I have so many wonderful things prepared for you.” His eyes flickered with madness. “Just like old times.”

The promise of more pain, more games, more loss, was very nausea-inducing. Peter’s grip was the only thing holding him upright. His anger was a dying star, collapsing in on itself under the weight of too much horror.

…DANGER! DANGER!…

Then-

BOOM.

The explosion wasn’t from them. It came from the heart of the Wayne Manor. A fireball of lurid purple and green bloomed against the stonework, followed by the unmistakable, hysterical sound of laughter.

Joker.

Peter’s head snapped toward the mansion, his stomach filled with dread,the people inside- no- no- Lois and the others- I need to be there- save them-

But the root of his problems was here.

He looked back at Norman, who was now looking at the flames with an expression of amused curiosity,

“Oh,” he said lightly, “that doesn’t include him in the preparation I spoke of, by the way.”

The choice was paralyzing.

Stay. Make Norman talk. Beat the answers out of him. End it now. Or go and save people. Be Spider-Man. The war inside him was total, devastating. I don’t have a fucking web shooters and even a mask-

His inner inner self whispered back You got camera though.

The Joker’s laugh echoed again and punctuated by a scream.

Uncle Ben flashed before his eyes, “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.”

A sob of pure frustration and agony ripped from Peter’s throat.

He made his choice.

He released Norman’s collar with a shove that sent the man stumbling back a step and still impeccably composed.

“Do what you need to do,” Norman said, “Spider-Man.”

Peter wanted to laugh, the first time he heard that name here came from his fucking enemy, on all of people.

“I’ll send you back to your grave,” Peter promised, every word dripping with a hatred so deep it felt infinite. “Soon.”

Norman’s smile didn’t waver.

“Try.”

Peter released him.

Then he turned, and he ran.

He ran with a speed that tore the air, his tuxedo flying off, . He ran toward his responsibility, leaving his vengeance smoking in the dark garden.

Norman Osborn straightened his tie, watching the young hero disappear into the madness. He took a final sip of his whiskey, the ice clinking softly.

“I’ll be awaiting it,” he said to the empty night, a smile playing on his lips.

The game, after all, was just getting interesting.

“Keep monitoring.” he whispered to no one.

A feather fell to his hands.

zZz

The orchestra began not with a bang, but with a wrong note.

The Wayne Charity Gala was a symphony of composition of wealth and influence. The air should hummed with the low strings of murmured conversation and with the bright, flitting woodwinds of laughter with the steady percussion of plates and glasses clicking.

Then a new conductor didn’t just arrived with no rehearsal- they deconstructed in a shower of splinters and smoke. And the conductor of this new, terrible orchestra strode in.

The Joker.

He didn’t enter alone. His ensemble poured in behind him-armed thugs in garish colors. The elegant symphony shattered into a scream. Gotham’s elite dissolving into raw instinct, the same raw instinct that they mocked on the people below them.

“Now this is rude!”

That voice.

That laugh.

That awful, rattling sound that already indicated that the owner of it doesn’t go to therapy and.

He stood on a toppled banquet table like a conductor, his arms wide, and his coat flaring while his makeup cracked at the smile lines from how hard he was grinning. Confetti stuck to the blood on his knuckles. He held a microphone that wasn’t connected to anything and didn’t need to be.

“Where,” he announced, drawing the word out, “was my invitation? I love galas. I adore galas. I cherish galas. And yet-no embossed card? No little golden envelope? No kiss of wax? Brucey, sweetheart, I’m hurt.”

He clutched his chest theatrically. People ran beneath him and were stumbling, shoving past fallen decor and splintered tables.

Peter wanted to punch him.

Hit him in the face, right there, in front of everyone. The urge was so sharp and uncomplicated it startled him.

The room became a frantic scherzo of panic. The melody of high society became a dissonant fugue of shrieks and scrambling. Tuxedoed men and gowned women who were moments ago portraits of calm and elegance were now a crashing cymbal of fleeing bodies.

“Peter!”

The call was a slender reed fighting a hurricane. He turned, saw Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen being carried backwards by the tidal wave of bodies, Lois’s face etched with fury and fear. Jimmy was trying to shield her with his own body.

“Get out!” Peter yelled, his voice cutting through the din. “I’ll be fine, go!”

Lois tried to push toward him again - then the crowd swallowed both of them as the security cutting through and funneling people toward exits. He wanted to go with them- he wanted to grab them and pull and protect-

…GO! PEOPLE! HERE!…

Peter didn’t flee. He moved against the current. The photographer vanished and his calculation of trajectories and force took over. A supporting column, stressed by an exploding decorative, groaned and began to buckle, raining plaster and stone onto a group of trapped elderly guests huddled behind an overturned table.

Peter was a blur.

He didn’t have his webs, but he had physics.

He shoved the massive oak table on its side, creating a slanting shield. “Here, under here!” His voice wasn’t just request, it was a command born of too many collapsing buildings. They listened as they go scrambling. He grabbed the arm of a trembling man in a wheelchair, lifting him and the chair with a strength that made the man gasp, and deposited him behind the barrier. As the last of the group scrambled to relative safety, Peter’s hands, acting on their own old habit, raised his camera.

Click.

The image are terrified faces peering from behind dark wood, dust motes like snow in the air, the blurred chaos of beyond.

…HERE! SCARED!…

Dropping to his knees beside a man trapped beneath a decorative pillar. “Hey - hey, don’t move, okay? I’ve got you.”

The man sobbed, nodding.

Peter slid his shoulder under the weight, braced his heels, and lifted. The marble groaned and the man crawled free, wife pulling him up with shaking hands.

“Go left!” Peter said. “Emergency staircase - keep your head down!”

They ran.

He moved to the next. And the next. And the next.

He repeated the act, as if he’s a soloist performing a rescue counterpoint to Joker’s symphony of chaos. He guided people to blocked service exits, then shifted a fallen marble statue just enough to create a crawl space. He used a length of velvet curtain rope to pull a chandelier’s wreckage off a pinned waiter. Each time, before moving on,

Click.

Through the lens, he saw the main event.

Bruce Wayne, facing the Joker. The billionaire’s voice was a low and akin to a steady bass note trying to anchor the madness. “This doesn’t have to escalate. We can settle this peacefully, get these people to safety.”

Joker giggled, a sound like breaking glass. ““How about a no! A big, fat, squeaky, exploding no!”

He kicked over a table, then whispered that only closer could hear, “Consider this a favor! I’ll give you three seconds!”

Before throwing a mist bomb that spread mist, duh blocking their vision.

Then, between one blink and the next, Bruce Wayne was gone.

Joker didn’t seem surprised.

He spun back to the crowd with his arms wide.

“Oh, tragic,” he sing-songed. “We lost the host. Everyone look under your seats.”

Then louder, delighted, “Also! There are bombs around the room! Party game! Little scavenger hunt! Find them before they go BOOM! No prizes except your limbs!”

People shrieked and ran faster.

Panic, which had been a roaring crescendo, sharpened into a keening precise note of pure terror. Bombs.

…HI! COMING IN!…

That was the moment the windows exploded inwards.

Vigilantes arrived with brutal change in key signature, and with notably presence of their conductor, Batman.

Batman was the opening chord that silenced all others-a deep resonant boom of black that landed amidst Joker’s henchmen, scattering them like discarded sheet music. Nightwing was the following arpeggio, a smooth note that flowed over and around obstacles, his escrima sticks a staccato percussion of impact on bone.

Black Bat was the silent and piercing grace note-here, then there, a rest in the visual field followed by the sudden and definitive snap of a joint or the soft thud of a body falling. Red Robin hit the ground already in a swift, precise melodic line heading for the nearest hallway with a scanner in his hand.

“Red Robin, find the devices,” Batman growled, his voice the grit in the machine, the conductor of this dark counter opera. He caught a lunging thug by the face and redirected him into the path of Nightwing’s spinning kick.

“On it,” Red Robin replied, already sprinting. “Six signals so far. Might be decoys.”

“Signal and Spoiler are on perimeter and evacuation,” Nightwing reported, his voice a lighter and faster rhythm as he disarmed two men with a single hit. “Civilians are being funneled to the east lawn.”

“Robin’s status?” Batman demanded, backhanding a charging clown hard enough to change his trajectory.

Red Robin’s voice was tinny through the comms, already distant. “The kid went off-script. Said he’d ‘handle a complication.’ Last seen heading upstairs.”

Nightwing let out a breath that was almost a laugh as he flipped over a swinging pipe. “Hood’s gonna be pissed you didn’t call him in for this.”

“The last thing we need right now is a distraction primed for blood,” Batman retracted, his words clipped as he dodged a wild knife swing.

A new voice, fizzy with exasperation, crackled in their ears-Spoiler. “The medics had arrived, we are doing damage control as of the moment and doing head counts, though I don’t know if I should count men’s head as two.”

Batman scoffed, “Spoiler.”

“Probably jut one, one can be empty or the other a lost case, some people there got both condition, good luck girl!” Nightwing had shouted.

“On your left, Double Red.” A voice- that sounds so serious? Probably their guy in a chair, or their BatAI. Peter loves to think that it’s a modified AI like Jarvis.

“Got it!”

Peter saw and captured it all while crouched behind the remnants of a massive ice sculpture (a swan, now headless). The choreography of violence was terrifyingly beautiful. Batman, the grim basso profundo, leading the fight and creating a baritone when he exchanged blows with Joker. Nightwing, the improvisational jazz solo. Black Bat, the atonal punctuation. He saw the way they moved around each other and Peter can concluded that there’s a lifetime of understanding in every ducked shoulder and every covered angle. It was a brutal ballet, and his shutter clicked in time with its beats.

….Hi…watching…

He was so focused on the symphony of battle below the grand staircase that he didn’t hear the approach from behind. The voice was quiet and impossibly close.

“What are you doing here?”

Peter’s heart attempted to leap out of his ribcage. He whirled, almost dropping his camera.

Damian Wayne stood there. He looked utterly unruffled, his green eyes assessing Peter with the analytical coolness of a composer reviewing a flawed score.

“You!” Peter hissed, yanking the kid down beside him. “You’re not supposed to be here! You should be with the evacuees!”

“That admonition applies to you equally,” Damian shot back.

“Wow,” Peter said. “I feel so appreciated.”

He grabbed Damian’s wrist.

“Come on. We’re leaving.”

“You do not-” Damian tugged- “drag me.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Watch me.”

“Unhand me, I am perfectly capable-”

“Now isn’t the time, your life is in danger!” Peter’s tone brooked no argument. He snatched up a heavy, polished stainless serving container that had held caviar, now discarded on the floor.

Damian eyed it. “What is that for?”

“Self-defense.”

Damian actually scoffed. “A container?”

“It’s heavy and can knock someone out if strong enough, don’t worry.”

They darted through a shattered doorway into a dim service hall. The sounds of battle became muffled, replaced by the pounding of their own footsteps and the distant, and frantic wail of sirens. Peter’s plan to use a back staff entrance died when they rounded a corner and saw it-a crude, blinking device wired to the doorframe, its digital countdown a mocking, red heartbeat: 04:32… 04:31…

“Bomb,” Peter stated, the word cold in his mouth.

“Obviously,” Damian said, but his small body was tense. “The roof. There will be access for maintenance. And fewer explosives.”

“Hopefully.”

“Your optimism is staggering.”

They found a narrow servants’ staircase and ascended. The sounds of the gala faded further, replaced by the hollow echo of their steps on metal. In the confined, trembling silence, Damian spoke again.

“Why are you doing this? You are a civilian. A photographer. Your logical course was to flee and leave me behind who will only be a baggage.”

“I’m a journalist, and journalist always go straight to document everything, no matter the danger.” Peter kept climbing, one hand on the railing, the other still clutching the ridiculous stainless container. “I’m not that asshole for leaving you, a child behind, y’know?”

“I am matured.”

“Still a kid.”

Damian’s glare could have cut steel. “And you are a stranger with a soup pot. Your qualifications are no more impressive.”

“My qualification is that I’m here, and I’m not leaving you.” Peter resumed climbing, his voice softer. “That’s all that should matter right now.”

They burst out onto the roof. The cold Gotham night air was a shock, smelling of rain and distant smoke. The chaotic symphony from below was now a distorted, bass-heavy thrumming through the structure. The city lights stretched around them like they’re the audience.

Damian walked to the edge, peering down at the swirling lights of emergency vehicles. “The evacuation appears organized. Spoiler and Signal have the perimeter.”

“Great,” Peter said, joining him. “So how do we get down? Yell?”

Damian looked at him with utter contempt. “You propose to attract attention? To yell for help?”

“When you’re stuck on a roof with a billionaire’s kid and a bunch of bombs, yeah, pride’s kind of low on the priority list.”

“Pride is never a low priority. It is the foundation of discipline.”

“Foundation of getting blown up, more like,” Peter muttered.

Below, the battle’s tempo was shifting. Through the broken skylights, they could see flashes of movement. Red Robin’s voice crackled on a frequency Peter’s enhanced hearing just caught, “...all devices disarmed. I repeat, all explosive devices are neutralized. Joker was bluffing on the countdown and they were set for remote detonation only.”

Batman’s voice that’s a grate of stone, “He’s not fighting to win, no fear gas on sight which meant that Joker is just here to create a mess. He’ll be escaping through the roofs moment from now.”

Through the roofs? Just use the doors damn it.

Nightwing, flipping over a go, “For what?”

A new, chilling laugh echoed up from the ballroom, amplified and twisted. “For the encore, why of course! This is merely the teaser!”

And then, every light in Wayne Manor-inside and out-winked out.

The darkness was absolute, for a split second, even the city’s ambient glow seemed to vanish.

Joker’s voice, echoed. “Toodles, Batsy and birdies! Catch you at the encore!”

…APPROACHING! DANGER!….

For godsake, give me a break!

Damian’s hand tightens slowly into a fist. “He’s coming up here.”

Peter swallows. “Yeah.”

“What will we do?”

“Try not to-”

….DANGER! COMING!…

The roof access door bangs open.

“Die.”

A figure in a torn, purple suit hauled itself out, coughing and giggling hysterically. The Joker.

He saw them immediately. His smile, in the stark nd angular shadows of the emergency lights, was a gash of pure malevolence.

“Well, well, well,” he crooned, brushing dust off his lapels. “The balcony seats! And what do we have here?” His eyes, glittering with insane recognition, locked on Damian. “A little Wayne. The baby bird. Left all alone on the roof.” His gaze slid to Peter. “And his babysitter With a container. Did you bring me a snack, kid? How thoughtful!”

Peter stands in front of Damian without thinking.

Damian steps up beside him immediately.

“Stay back,” Peter said, his voice colder than he’d ever heard it.

“Or what?” Joker giggled, taking a step closer. “You’ll serve me bisque? I prefer my soup with a little kick!” He lunged, not at Peter, but past him, his hand snaking out to grab Damian by the front of his tiny tuxedo jacket.

Peter moved to intercept, but Joker was unpredictably fast. He yanked Damian forward, pulling him off balance, and wrapped an arm around his neck.

“Ah-ah-ah! No touching!”

“Release him,” Peter said, every muscle coiled.

“He’s a talker!” Joker said delightedly, squeezing until Damian’s face began to darken. The boy didn’t struggle, his hands came up, fingers seeking pressure points on the arm around his throat. “You know, I had a whole speech planned for Batsy. About legacy. About how the mighty Wayne tree is just rotted through. But you’ll do! You can be my messenger pigeon! Well, a dead messenger pigeon, but the metaphor gets a bit mixed-”

Peter knew that Joker is bluffing, that he’s expecting something.

Peter saw red. Not a figure of speech-a literal haze of fury clouding his vision. He took a step forward, but Joker swung Damian around like a shield, then planted a boot squarely in Peter’s chest.

It wasn’t a powerful kick by Peter’s standards. But he let it connect, let it throw him backwards with a convincingly pained grunt. He hit the roof and skidded, going limp, playing the winded, defeated civilian.

Joker was expecting something, and Peter is going to do that something.

“See? All noise,” Joker sneered, turning his attention back to Damian, who was now glaring with ferocious, silent promise. “Now, where was I? Oh yes! The end of a bloodline! It’s poetic, really-”

Quietly, Peter stood from behind with grin.

He lifted the metal container.

And swung.

THWUNNNGGGGG

The sound was profoundly satisfying. A deep gong-like note that echoed across the rooftop. The container didn’t just hit the Joker’s head but it wrapped around it slightly, the polished steel deforming to the shape of his skull with a terrible plasticity.

Joker’s monologue cut off mid-syllable. His eyes crossed. His grip on Damian went slack. He stumbled sideways, a hand rising to feel the massive, pot-shaped dent now adorning his head. “Owwww,” he whined, the sound genuinely confused. “That- that hurt. That wasn’t in the script-”

Damian dropped and rolled clean then coming up in a crouch, staring at Peter with wide eyes.

Joker blinked, shaking his head, which seemed like a bad idea. He focused on Peter, who stood holding the now-misshapen container like a baseball bat. The clown’s face morphed from confusion to a rage so pure it was almost beautiful in its ugliness. “You-you- little-”

…Approaching!….

And then the roof was full of Bats.

Holy that’s Batman! He’s so fucking emo!

Peter, acting on pure overwhelmed instinct, lowered his makeshift weapon and gave a little wave. “Wow. It’s, uh, finally nice to meet you, Batman!” he said, his voice audibly shaky with post-adrenaline nerves. “I actually have a question about-”

“Kid, what the hell are you still doing here?!” Nightwing interrupted, his voice a mix of relief and sheer exasperation.

“-about something,” Peter pressed on, determined now to ask the inane question that had popped into his head, a desperate anchor to normality. He needed to say something, anything, that wasn’t about steel pots and crushing clown skulls.

“And it’s about-”

Joker, clutching his dented head, staggered to his feet, his rage finding a new target. “They ruined it! That brat! They added farce to my masterpiece! I won’t have it! The comedy is mine to-”

“Oh, for the love of-shut up!”

POK.

Peter Parker, fed up, scared and emotionally wrung-out, bent down, picked up a loose piece of the roof stone and the size of a gold ball.

And threw it.

It hit the Joker square in the center of his forehead with a sound like a walnut cracking.

Batman paused. Nightwing’s jaw dropped. Black Bat tilted her head. Red Robin looks like he’s having aneurysm.

Joker’s eyes rolled back into his head. He stood perfectly upright for a moment, then his knees buckled and he collapsed backwards in a boneless heap, silent at last.

The silence on the roof was now absolute, broken only by the distant sirens.

Peter took a deep, trembling breath, smoothed his ruined suit jacket, and turned back to Batman, a painfully wide, innocent smile plastered on his face.

“As I was saying,” he chirped, his voice brittle. “I’ve always wondered why did you decide that having a bat as your, you know, furrysona… was a good idea? What’s the inspiration?”

For five full seconds, no one moved.

Nightwing made a choked sound, then clapped a hand over his mouth as his shoulders began to shake with hysterical laughter. Black Bat’s lips, visible below her mask, parted in what might have been the first step toward a smile. Batman- Batman just stared. The white lenses of his cowl were wide. The grim line of his mouth didn’t change, but an almost imperceptible twitch seemed to run through his jaw.

He opened his mouth to reply.

And then the Joker, because of course he always did, groaned.

He stirred, one hand feebly rising to his forehead, which now bore a perfect, red circle. He blinked, dazed, trying to focus. “Wha- who threw a rock-?” he slurred. He tried to sit up, limbs flailing weakly, and managed to roll directly toward the roof’s edge, where a gargoyle had been shattered earlier.

He was going to roll right off.

Batman moved, but he was ten feet away. Nightwing was closer, but off-balance from laughing.

…HI!!!!!!!!…..

A streak of blue and red entered the entered the play to marked the end.

One moment, empty space above the roof’s edge. The next, Superman, hovering, the iconic ‘S’ bright against the night. He didn’t catch the Joker so much as he intercepted him, plucking him from the air with one hand just as he tipped over the precipice. With his other hand, he gave the clown’s temple a precise, gentle tap. (It was a punch of agony, Peter could swear he heard the skulls breaking) Joker’s eyes closed, and he went truly, finally, unconscious.

Superman floated down, landing softly on the roof. He handed the limp form to Batman, who took it with a grunt, securing it with practiced ease.

“Hello, everyone,” Superman said, his voice warm, calm, and profoundly out of place. He nodded to Batman, to Nightwing, to Black Bat, to Red Robin who gave him a small, respectful nod in return. Then his eyes, blue and endlessly kind, found Peter.

And the Man of Steel’s composure fractured. Just for a second. Relief, raw and unguarded, flooded his features.

He crossed the roof in two strides, ignoring the world’s greatest detectives and their shell-shocked prisoner. He placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders, his grip firm, without ceremony, pulled him into a tight, crushing hug.

“Thanks Rao,” Superman whispered into Peter’s hair, his voice thick. “You’re alright, Peter.”

And Peter Parker, who had held himself together through alien invasions, through loss, through dimensional isekai bullshit, and facing the murderer of his Aunt May again and the reason for that isekai bullshit and not even a minute, he encountered one of the infamous rogue which is Joker (if he put it in that way, he really has been through a lot, he’s not even counting the tragedies that befall to him as Spider-Man) finally broke. He buried his face in the blue and red fabric that smelled of clean air and distant sun, his own hands coming up to clutch at the cape. The warmth was absolute. It was safety. It was home, or the closest thing he had to it in this strange, dark, beautiful, terrifying world.

Over Superman’s shoulder, he saw Damian watching, his earlier calculation replaced by something quieter and more thoughtful. He saw Nightwing, smiling softly now, no longer laughing. He saw Batman, holding the Joker, his gaze fixed on the hug, the white lenses unreadable.

The symphony of the night was over. The final note had been not a grim resolution, but a single, sustained chord of warmth, holding back the dark.

zZz

The aftermath of a symphony of chaos was a messy and dissonant coda. Police lights painted the scarred facade of Wayne Manor in frantic pulses of red and blue.

Commissioner Gordon, his face etched with a weariness as deep as Gotham’s foundations while personally clamped the cuffs on the Joker’s wrists. The clown prince was groggy and a massive lump rising on his head where the stainless container had connected, and a perfect, circular bruise flowering on his forehead from the rock he had thrown.

If Peter got nepo baby money right now, he would go to the extent of commissioning some artist with renaissance art style to paint it for him and he will hang it to his house.

As Gordon muscled him toward the armored transport, the Joker’s head lolled. He blinked, his gaze swimming across the scene and saw the stoic Batman, the hovering Superman, the assembled Bats, the medics tending to the last of the shocked partygoers.

Gordon closed the back of the transport with a heavy slam. “You’re going back to Arkham,” he said flatly.

Joker leaned forward and a grin smeared like cracked paint. “Oh, I figured that part out, Jimbo.” His voice is playful.“I just didn’t think tonight’s pièce de résistance would end in embarrassment.” His mouth twitched, rage barely hidden under humor. His eyes flicked-venomous first to Superman, then to Batman standing in the shadows, then upward to the watching bats and finally, lingering too long on Peter.

The clown leaned toward the bars as the truck rattled. “I remember you,” he whispered, low and delighted as if it’s a secret promise meant to rot. Then he was gone, red and blue lights painting the street as the transport vanished.

I’m so honored.

Silence didn’t follow.

The manor grounds became a ground of shock and relief. Minor injuries were treated-sprained ankles from running, cuts from flying debris, one case of hysterical blindness that was already subsiding. Miraculously, no one had been killed. It was a statistic that felt hollow to Peter, who could still feel the phantom weight of the steel container in his hand.

No body bags. Peter’s chest loosened when he realized it-No one dead. Bruised, bleeding, wrapped in blankets- but alive. He swallowed hard. His own ribs throbbed where Joker’s boot had caught him earlier, but he ignored it because adrenaline is stubborn and denial is easy.

The Joker’s grin kept morphing in his mind’s eye, into the smug, calculating smirk of Norman Osborn. The helpless rage he’d felt on the roof-the need to protect Damian, the kid-to smash the source of the madness-was the same fury that had coursed through him when Osborn had threatened May. I’ve already lost one figure to a grinning madman. I won’t lose a kid to another.

As order was restored, the other inevitable force arrived. The press. They swarmed like pilot fish around a shark microphones and cameras thrust forward and not at Batman, who had vanished into the shadows, but at the unexpected beacon of hope hovering a few feet off the ground.

“Superman! What brings you to Gotham?”

“Is it true Bruce Wayne is in your superharem!?””

“Are you and Batman working more closely now?”

“Superman! What do you think of Joker?”

Superman, ever the diplomat, offered a warm smile that didn’t quite reach the concern still lingering in his eyes. “I was nearby and saw the disturbance. And,” he added, his voice softening into something more genuine, “there were friends from Metropolis here tonight. I wanted to ensure their safety.” His gaze found Lois in the crowd, and he gave her a small, private nod. After giving briefings, avoiding the press and doing his superhero thing. He looked back at Peter, still wrapped in his blanket.

Then, in a blur, he was beside Peter.

He pulled him into one more brief and crushing hug. “You did good, Peter,” he murmured, a secret just for them.

Before he can reply- he was a streak of blue and red piercing the clouds, leaving Gotham.

Peter felt the loss of that warmth immediately. The blanket was just a blanket again.

The GCPD took his statement. He gave them the edited and very pitiful version and how he’s separated, hid, found the kid, tried to escape, got trapped, panicked, hit the bad guy with the first heavy thing he saw. He mentioned the kick to the ribs. The officer, overwhelmed, wrote it down without a second glance.

“Quite the night, kid.”

“Yeah,” Peter echoed hollowly. “Quite.”

…Watching…Approaching…

God, give me a break.

As the officer walked away, a new presence materialized beside him. Bruce Wayne, looking miraculously put-together for a man who had vanished from a terrorist attack, offered a concerned smile. “Peter, isn’t it? Lois’s photographer. I can’t thank you enough. My son- Damian told me what you did. That was incredibly brave.”

Peter shrugged, the motion tugging at his bruised ribs. “Just did what seemed right.”

Most people’s ‘right’ involves running in the opposite direction,” Bruce said, “You ran toward the danger and you stayed with him, even when he was resistant to the idea of rescue.” He paused, a flicker of something sharp in his blue eyes. “Why?”

I’m older and I can take it. I’m supposed to take it. That’s what being responsible means, right? You get hurt so someone else doesn’t, and isn’t that enough reason already?

Peter met his gaze, his own eyes tired but clear. “He’s a child. I was the adult there. My only job was to get him to safety. That comes first. Before curiosity, before anything else.” The words were simple, born of a bitter lesson learned on a Queens rooftop a lifetime ago.

Bruce Wayne went very still. For a moment, the billionaire facade vanished entirely, and Peter saw something raw flash in the man’s eyes.

He’s looking at Peter a if he’s seeing the past.

A memory of a different determined child in pixie boots, and a vow made in the crushing dark. He blinked, and the moment passed, “A wise priority,” he said, his voice oddly thick. “As a father, I’m in your debt. Name anything. If you’re in Gotham for a reason beyond the story, perhaps Wayne Enterprises can assist. Lois mentioned you were in Gotham for a reason beyond the gala?”

Act helpless. They eat it up.

Peter saw his opening. He let his shoulders slump and injecting a tremor of helpless desperation into his voice. “I’m looking for someone. My guardians. They’re missing, my Aunt and foster father. But the last place my foster father was connected to was OSCORP.” He whispered the name while watching Bruce’s face carefully.

Bruce’s expression didn’t change, but a new intensity focused behind his eyes. “OSCORP,” he repeated, the word neutral. “That’s a serious matter. I have resources, investigators who are very discreet. I’d like to help. As a favor for Damian.”

…Hi! Coming! Worried!…

He was about to continue, to probe further, when a figure emerged.

Lois Lane broke through the cordon and her dress torn, her face smudged, her eyes blazing with a fear. She grabbed him, hugging him so tightly his ribs protested. “You absolute moron, you wonderful, brave moron,” she choked into his shoulder. “Are you hurt? Let me see.”

“I’m fine, Lois, really,” he insisted, but he winced as her probing fingers found the tender spot.

“He’s not,” Bruce interjected smoothly, playing the concerned host. “Took a blow to the ribs protecting my son.”

Lois’s eyes flashed with concerned, “That’s it. You’re getting that looked at. Now.” Her grip was unbreakable. It was love, in its most terrifying, smothering form. Peter wanted to pull away, to run, to breathe. Stop looking at me like I’m about to break.

…Hi! Watching…

Damian approached then, giving Lois a stiff nod. “Lane.” he coughed, “I’m sorry for involving Parker.”

“It’s fine!” He insisted.

“Damian, sweetheart, the one who should apologize is the Joker, you’re a victim, too. Are you alright?” Lois’s voice melted into genuine warmth. “Jon’s been asking everyday when you’re coming to visit the farm.”

Bruce’s hand settled on his son’s shoulder. “We’ll arrange it soon.”

…COMING! FAST! WORRIED…

The moment was shattered by a new arrival.

Clark Kent looked like a tornado had torn through a tailor’s shop and a library. His glasses were askew, his hair a mess, and his face pale with panic.

“Peter! Oh, thank God!” Clark’s voice was high and strained. He didn’t hug Peter but more like inspected him, hands fluttering over his arms, his face. “Are you hurt? What were you thinking staying in there? Lois said you ran back toward the fight! You could have been killed! It’s not worth it, do you understand? Your life is not worth a story!”

Each sentence was a needle under Peter’s skin. Not worth it. The phrase echoed. Tony’s life, sacrificed. Was he worth it? May’s peace, destroyed. Was he worth it? The chaos he brought everywhere-to the Kents, to the Bats, to this city. A curse. I’m a walking curse.

The words, a geyser of pure, terrified love, crashed over Peter’s last nerve. The adrenaline was gone and leaving only the raw exposed wiring of his soul. The Joker’s laugh, Osborn’s smirk, the numb ache of being here, the ghost of Tony’s last sacrifice, the crushing weight of knowing he brought chaos wherever he went-it all detonated at once.

You matter. You scared me. Don’t do that to me.

And that hurt worse than the kick.

Because Peter’s brain didn’t translate you matter correctly. It turned every sentence into something else,

You’re fragile. You cause problems. If you get hurt, it’ll be my fault too. You’re another responsibility. Another possible loss.

He stiffened, pulling away as if burned. “The camera’s fine,” he said, his voice flat and dead.

“That’s not what I-” Clark fumbled, his own fear making him clumsy.

“Stop it,” Peter snapped, the word a crack. He took a step back, putting distance between them. “Just- just stop acting like you’re my dad.”

The silence was instantaneous and absolute.

Clark recoiled physically, as if the words were kryptonite to Superman. His face crumpled, all the color draining away. Lois closed her eyes. Bruce watched with a grim understanding dawning.

But Peter couldn’t stop. The dam had burst. He’s worried because you’re a problem. A charity case. A lost puppy that keeps wandering into traffic. Everyone who cares gets hurt or leaves or dies. Tony died for you. May died because of you. Don’t let him get close. Don’t let him care. It’s a trap. For him. For you.

“I can do whatever I want!” The shout was raw, teenage, and full of a pain that had nothing to do with the present moment. “Help, almost die, it’s the same thing, it’s always the same thing! I don’t need you to- to treat me like some charity case! I’m not your responsibility!”

“Peter, that’s not-” Clark’s voice was a shattered whisper as his hands falling limply.

“I’m just your intern,” Peter exhaled, the fight draining out of him and leaving only a hollow weary shell. The self-loathing was a familiar taste in his mouth. “I’m going to go get patched up. Alone. Don’t- don’t look for me for a bit.”

When Clark fell silent, the guilt hit like a wave. But the anger was still there too. Buzzing under his skin like hell, built from Norman’s face, Joker’s laugh, OsCorp’s shadow waiting for him, responsibility, responsibility, responsibility-

I’m so tired.

He’s not your dad. He shouldn’t care this much. He’s going to regret caring. They always do.

Don’t hurt him. You’re doing it again. You ruin everything you touch.

You’re allowed to be mad. You almost died. He doesn’t get to decide for you.

He wasn’t deciding. He was worried. You idiot.

He bent, snatched his camera bag from the ground, and turned then walking away without a backward glance.

Lois let out a long, shaky breath. “Let him go, Clark. He needs to breathe. It’s been too much.” She called after him, “You come back, sweetheart?”

Stop.

A half-hearted wave was his only reply.

Bruce stared after the retreating figure, then at Clark, who looked more devastated than if he’d been thrown through a mountain.

“Well,” chirped a new voice. Stephanie Brown popped up, flanked by Tim, Cassandra, Dick and Duke. “The vibes over here are tragic.”

Dick winced. “Worst possible timing, Steph.”

Clark turned his heartbroken gaze to Bruce. “I just- I was so scared for him, Bruce. He’s a human, and so- so young.”

Bruce Wayne, the man who had built a family from broken birds, placed a heavy, steadying hand on his friend’s shoulder. The grunt he emitted was surprisingly gentle. “I know.”

“How do you do it?” Clark asked, the question immense, vulnerable, Kryptonian yet so human. “How do you- take them in and not not shatter every time they charge headlong into the dark knowing they are vulnerable?”

Bruce looked from Clark’s shattered expression, to the spot where Peter had vanished, to the faces of his own children-his brilliant resilient flock.

His jaw worked. For a long moment, the Batman- the strategist, the billionaire, had no answer. Then, in a voice stripped bare of all pretense, heavy with the weight of a battle he was still fighting every day, he gave the only honest one he had.

“I haven’t figured it out yet.”

zZz

Peter_panpan: Joker crashing out the Wayne Gala and absolutely fumbling it??? WHAT A JOKE YOU ARE, INDEED.

Flash12345: FIRSTTTTTT!!!

lumineCei1: How do you survive Joker?????

STRAWRENNY: HOW ARE YOU IN THE WAYNE GALA?

panathea: bro thank you for your service BUT PLEASE KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE????

JustAnOrdinaryDemon: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY AND THANK YOU FOR THE CAKE NIGHTWINGGG!

Cooler_Chomper: I am a medic, I THINK PETER PAN IS ONE OF THE JOURNALIST THERE???

>AnAcuteAngle: Spilll twin

SAPPIE: WHY IS MY VRO RED HOOD NOT THERE BRUH

>borbsbirbs: rumors has it that they are exes

>Matches_Malone: I’m banning you

Red_Hood: AND THIS IS HOW I FOUND IT OUT????? FUCK YOU BATMAN FUCK YOU I HOPE ROBIN II STAYS DEAD

<all verified registered rogues of Gotham liked this post.>

zZz

The world was green.

Last time Tony Stark knew that the sky is blue and not green.

Last time, he’s also dead.

Now he’s not quite sure.

Everything is green.

Not the green of leaves or money or the Hulk’s skin. This was a sick, pulsating, and subaqueous green. It pressed against Tony Stark’s eyelids, filled his mouth, his lungs, and his skull. It was the green of poison, of decay, of something that had been buried too long and forgotten how to breathe clean air.

He was drowning in it.

Consciousness returned not with a gasp. He convulsed, cold liquid sloshing over the sides of the stone basin he was lying in. He wasn’t drowning. He was soaking. In a viscous, faintly glowing green broth that smelled of ozone, wet earth, and something metallic like blood and electricity.

When Tony Stark’s eyes snapped open, the world was a churning vat of it.

He shoved himself upright, hands slipping on the smooth, and slime coated stone. The liquid-thick, warm, wrong-sluiced off him. He was naked. He was in a cave. Or a catacomb. Last time he remembered he’s not some descendants of a pharaoh or alike. Did he travel back?Become a mummy?

This isn’t right.

He had died.

He should be gone.

Rough walls and the torches casting long dancing shadows. The primary light came from the pool itself, the source of the all-consuming green.

What had they done to him?

Where was he?

Why?

His mind was a shattered cathedral. Thoughts were fragments of stained glass, sharp and beautiful and impossible to piece together. He knew one thing, a foundational truth written in the ashes of his soul,

I died.

The certainty was absolute, a fundamental truth etched into the ash of his soul. He had felt the systems shut down.

The silence. The nothing.

And now this.

A bathtub. A disgusting, green, cave bathtub.

“No.” The word was a rusty grate of sound from a disused throat. “No, no, no, no-” It became a chant of a denial against the impossible.

I should be dead.

I earned it.

I bought that peace with everything I had.

THIS ISN’T FAIR.

“No,” he croaked. His voice was a stranger’s-rasping. “No, no, no…”

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the pearly gates or hellfire or peaceful oblivion. This was a bathtub.

The thought was a sledgehammer. It hit him again and again.

Dead.

Dead.

DEAD.

With it came a tsunami of other shards. Pepper’s face, fierce with love and grief. Happy’s loyal, heartbroken eyes. Rhodey’s hand on his shoulder. And Peter-

Peter.

The boy’s name was a hook in his chest, yanking him forward. He remembered the dust on Titan, the desperate hug on the battlefield, the final, agonizing apology. I lost the kid. And then he’d gotten him back. Only to leave him again. Forever.

Should be dead.

Should be dead.

Should be DEAD.

A rage, vast and irrational, boiled up from the green residue in his veins. It was a chemical fire, burning away confusion and leaving only fury. At who? At what? At the universe? At himself? At the unfair, monstrous joke of being dragged back? He slammed a fist against the stone basin.

He did it again.

And again.

Until his knuckles were split and bleeding, the blood mixing with the green fluid, creating a swirling, murky violet.

Good. Feel that. That’s real. That means you’re here. WHY ARE YOU HERE?

The anger was a lifeline t the same time it was direction. He couldn’t stay here, in this green tomb.

He hauled himself out of the pool, his limbs trembling with a weakness that was both physical and metaphysical. He was a newborn creature, all raw nerve endings and unstable core. There were rags on a nearby rock-coarse, brown, and simple. He pulled them on, the fabric scratching his sensitive skin. He didn’t care. He had to move.

The cave had a tunnel. It led upward. There was no other choice. He walked, one foot in front of the other. He felt like he’s a zombie in those movies. The tunnel was long, dark, cold. The torches ended, and he walked in near-total blackness, guided by a instinct he couldn’t name. The rage churned which is a constant companion. Images flashed behind his eyes, the Chitauri, Thanos’s smirking face, the cold vacuum of space, Peter crumbling to dust. Each one fed the fire.

Family. Kids. Team.

But then, cutting through the fury, came other images. Pepper, smiling over a blueprint. Happy, rolling his eyes at a bad joke. Rhodey, suiting up beside him. Morgan. His daughter. Her small, serious face.

I love you 3000.

And Peter. Not dust. Not dying. Peter, talking a mile a minute in his lab. Peter, his eyes wide with awe behind those ridiculous goggles. Peter, calling him “Mr. Stark” with a mix of respect and insolence that never failed to both annoy and delight him.

Family. Kids. Team.

I love you 3000.

The words were a mantra.

He repeated them with every step.

Family. Kids. Team.

I love you 3000.

The all-consuming green in his mind’s eye receded, the red of Pepper’s hair, the blue of Peter’s first, poorly designed suit.

Find them.

He didn’t know how long he walked. An hour? Two? Time was as nonexistent as the green sludge he’d climbed out of. He was aware of hunger, a deep, gnawing hollowness. Of thirst. Of a profound exhaustion that went to the bone.

The tunnel ended at a rusted metal door. He pushed. It screamed open, and the sensory overload of the outside world hit him like a physical blow.

Noise. Smells-exhaust, fried food, wet road, city. Light. It was night, but the light-polluted sky of New York. It looked right. It smelled right. But it felt tilted, the signals too bright, too loud, scraping against the raw nerves of his resurrected brain.

But the tower. His tower. Stark Tower. Home.

He moved toward it, a derelict satellite pulled by a dead star. His walk was a weave and a shamble. People on the sidewalk gave him a wide berth-this wild eyed, barefoot specter in filthy rags, muttering binary curses and fragments of names.

He didn’t see them.

He saw the door.

The sleek private entrance to the penthouse.

He raised a trembling, bruised hand. He just had to knock. FRIDAY would see him. Pepper. Happy. Home.

His knuckles were an inch from the glass when a voice, sharp with authority and familiar in a way that made his heart clench, barked from behind him.

“Hey! You! This is private property! You can’t be here!”

Tony Stark froze. He knew that voice. The gruff concern. He turned, slowly, the world tilting on its axis again.

Happy Hogan stood five feet away, phone in one hand, the other hovering near the discreet holster under his suit jacket. Then his eyes, scanning the disheveled trespasser, landed on the face beneath the grime, the wild beard, the shock of grey-streaked hair.

The scowl dissolved and confusion flooded in, then a dawning impossible recognition. Happy’s jaw went slack. His phone slipped from his fingers, clattering on the road. The color drained from his face.

“Tony?” The name was a whisper, ripped from a place of pure stunned disbelief.

A smile, fragile and cracked touched Tony’s lips. It felt strange on his face. “Happy,” he rasped.

The world grayed out at the edges. Tony’s knees buckled. He pitched forward.

Happy Hogan, with a cry that was a sob and a shout, lunged and caught him before he hit the ground. He gathered the impossibly light, frighteningly cold form of his best friend, his boss, the man he’d watched die.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, Tony. Pepper! Pepper!”

zZz

What is he?

He’s Tony Stark.

Billionaire, philanthropist and retired playboy.

Yeah.

and

Dead.

and

Alive?

Consciousness was a flickering unreliable thing. It was snippets of sensation, sound, and overwhelming emotion.

The softness of a bed.

The smell of disinfectant and Pepper’s perfume.

A voice choked with tears. “His vitals are all over the place. Bruce, what is this?”

Pepper is too peppery.

“His pupils- they’re dilated. And the scans-the energy signature is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Happy is so not happy right now.

“I don’t know, Happy. The neural activity is chaotic. It’s like he’s experiencing a hundred intense emotional states at once. And the cellular regeneration- it’s off the charts, but it’s also wrong and unstable.”

Bruce, shut up.

Darkness.

Then, a hand on his forehead.

Warm.

He knew that hand. He’d held it as he’d taken his last breath.

His eyes flew open. The light was blinding. He squinted, and a face swam into focus. Red hair. Green eyes, wide with fear and a hope so painful it was agony.

My life.

“Pepper,” he breathed. It wasn’t a question.

Her composure shattered. A sob escaped her. “Tony? Is it-is it really you?” Her hands framed his face, trembling. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

The sight of her, whole, real, here, broke something loose inside him. The careful, crumbling dam holding back the madness and his own resurrected terror gave way. He grabbed her, pulling her into a crushing embrace, burying his face in her neck. He was shaking violently.

“No,” he mumbled into her skin. “No, no, should be dead but no. Pepper. You’re here. Happy too. Whole.” The words were disjointed and childlike. The logical part of his brain was offline. Only the raw, wounded animal remained. He pulled back, his hands clutching her arms. His eyes,an unnatural shade of green in the bright light, darted around the room-a medbay, his medbay in the Tower-searching. “Kid. I got a kid. Morgan. Where- Peter- Peter- where’s Peter?”

Lost the kid once.

No.

Where.

Happy stepped into his line of sight, his own eyes red-rimmed. “Tony, buddy, just take it easy. You need to rest. You’re not well.”

“Where’s Peter!?” Tony roared, the force of it startling even himself. It wasn’t just his voice. It felt like the green rage in his cells vibrated with the shout as the monitors beeped frantically.

“I’ll call him!” Happy said quickly, fumbling for his phone, trying to placate the storm in the bed. “I’ll call him right now, see where he is.”

Tony watched, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps as Happy put the phone to his ear. He could see the moment the call went to voicemail. Happy’s face fell. He tried again. Same result.

“He’s not answering, Tony. It’s okay, he’s probably busy, or his phone’s off, or-”

“No!” Tony’s mind was a whirlwind of worst-case scenarios. The last time he’d lost track of the kid-

Titan.

Dust.

Death.

“He was there. I saw him. Alive. But I died. What if… what if it took him too? What if he’s- No, no, no…” The green tint in his vision intensified. He could feel it, a pressure behind his eyes, in his temples, a molten rage and fear looking for an outlet. Peter’s body, crumbling in his hands on Titan, superimposed over the present. He was losing his grip. The room seemed to pulse with green.

“Tony, look at me,” Pepper said, her voice firm despite the tears, grabbing his face again. “Breathe. We’ll find him. We will.”

But he was past reason. The green, the sheer tidal wave of terror-it was too much. A guttural sound rose in his throat.

He was going to explode.

He was going to tear the room apart.

“Peter!”

Literally, he saw green.

Hulk.

“TONY! DOWN!”

It was the Hulk’s voice, but laced with Bruce’s concern. A giant green fist, pulled at the last second, connected not with crushing force, but stunning impact against Tony’s jaw.

There was no pain.

But he went dark.

“-sorry- had to sedate him-heart rate spiking-”

Fuck you, Bruce.

zZz

Voices.

They came from far away.

“-beta wave patterns are still aberrant. The gamma signature is faint but present, intertwined with an unknown energy matrix. It’s keeping him alive, but it’s also agitating his limbic system. Rage, fear, paranoia-they’re dialed up to eleven.”

Tony’s still remember Hulk knocking him out, he's gonna get his revenge someday, and that would be his doomsday.

“Is it really him, Bruce? Not a Skrull? Not some illusion trick?”

Cap. Steve. He’s still the same annoying prick.

“We ran every test, Steve. DNA, retinal scan, synaptic fingerprint. It’s Tony. Every atom. Even JARVIS approved it. But those atoms have been through something profound.”

Tell em, Bruce.

“By Odin’s beard the mortal returned. A miracle wrought by which magic?”

Thor. Shut up and go watch Bridgerton.

“We don’t know, Thor. We’re still figuring it out.”

“Can we return to the fact that his eyes is green now?”

Rhodey, my best bud.

“We’re still figuring that out too, Rhodey.”

“The kid- he kept asking for the kid.”

Kid.

Yes.

He got a kid.

Then a new voice, dry and laced with wizardy. Dr. Strange. “The ‘kid,’ as you call him, remains a concerning absence. The traces around his disappearance are opaque. The search yields nothing.”

Peter.

The name was a key, turning in the lock of his consciousness. Tony’s eyes snapped open.

He was in a different room. A conference room. He was on a med-cot, but propped up. And they were all there. Ringing the table, staring at him with a mixture of shock, joy, and deep, profound worry.

Steve Rogers his face etched with the weight of the years and the grief Tony’s death had left.

Thor, his majesty dimmed by loss but burning with curiosity.

Bruce Banner, in a lab coat, looking at a tablet then to him.

Rhodey, in his braces, leaning forward, his love and fear warring on his face.

Pepper, at the head of the table, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.

Happy, hovering just behind her, looking like he hadn’t slept in years.

And Strange, cloaked the Eye of Agamotto closed on his chest with his expression inscrutable.

All the Avengers. His family. Alive. Whole.

But one was missing.

Tony tried to sit up, a jolt of panic overriding the deep ache in his body. He was alarmingly thin, and muscles atrophied as his skin pale and stretched. He looked like a ghost of himself.

“Whoa, whoa, Tony, stay still,” Steve said, and raising a placating hand.

“Where’s Peter?” Tony demanded, his voice still raw but clearer. The green fog was there at the edges, but the sight of them, the sound of Strange’s words, had crystallized his priority into a single point.

Pepper moved to his side instantly. “He’s fine, Tony. We just- we can’t reach him right now. You need to focus on getting better. He can’t see you like this.”

Lies.

“Like what?” Tony shot back, a flare of that irrational anger sparking. “Like his father who came back from the dead looking like a extra from a zombie movie? I don’t care! I need to see him! I need to know he’s-!”

He was spiraling again.

He don’t want to go spiral again.

He don’t want to snap at Pepper.

He could feel the heat behind his eyes, the tremors starting in his hands. The concern on their faces deepened into alarm.

“Tony, please,” Rhodey said, his voice soft. “We’ve got you. We’ll find him. Just let us help you first.”

But the word ‘find’ was a trigger.

“Find him? He’s missing?” The green surged. “Strange said ‘disappearance.’ He’s missing? For how long? What happened!?”

He was shouting now, trying to throw off the light restraint Pepper was attempting. The room was dissolving into a chorus of overlapping voices trying to calm him.

“Tony, breathe!”

“We’re looking everywhere!”

“His friends haven’t seen him!”

BAANG

Then, a sound that silenced them all.

The window glass shattered.

It exploded inward in a cascade of deadly shards and reflecting the city lights like a million falling stars.

A figure somersaulted through the lethal hail, landing in a crouch in the center of the table and sending holographic displays flickering and dying.

Every Avenger was on their feet in a defensive stance. Cap’s shield was not on his arm but his body was coiled. Thor’s hand crackled with lightning. Hawkeye, who had been silent in the corner, had an arrow nocked and drawn in instant.

The figure straightened.

It was a woman.

Natasha Romanoff.

Dressed in black tactical gear that’s torn and stained. Red hair, matted with dirt and blood.

She lifted her head.

Green eyes.

But it wasn’t the Natasha they had buried after Vormir. This Natasha’s skin was pale and almost ashen and her eyes- they burned with the same familiar, sick, pulsating green that Tony had woken up in. The green that now thrummed in his own veins, screaming in recognition.

“Nat- how-”

“You’re alive too!”

“Dear Father, how is this possible!?”

Her gaze swept the stunned room, bypassing the ready weapons, the shocked faces, and locking directly onto Tony’s.

Her voice when it came was hoarse, strained, and carried the weight of utter desperation.

“The Spider boy=” she gasped, each word a struggle, “is in danger-”

Clint Barton’s bow clattered to the floor. “Nat?” he whispered, the sound ripped from his soul.

Natasha’s body swayed. The immense effort of getting here, of delivering her warning, had emptied her last reserves. The fierce green light in her eyes flickered and died, leaving only emptiness.

Her knees buckled.

Clint lunged, catching her before she hit the table and gathering her into his arms with a heartbroken cry.

And Tony Stark, seeing his dead friend returned with the same vicious green and hearing her speak the name that was his reason for being, felt the last tether to stability snap.

“-Tony!”

The last thing he heard was a chorus of his name that was shouted in horror and disbelief and everything fading into the silence.

Am I dead this time? Please say yes.

zZz

Somewhere, a man with a bowl on his head cursed.

Then, it smiled as his gaze go to the woman in the corner whom he held as a hostage.

May Parker saw green.

zZz

The Gotham wind had a bite to it.

Peter Parker sat on the ledge of some rooftops, as always.

…Hi! curious! coming!…

“Okay, but theoretically,” he said to the empty air, then glanced over as a darker shadow detached itself from the shadow

Red Robin landed beside him with a soft thud.

“How does a guy, my friend,” Peter continued, “hypothetically, gain legal emancipation or independent living status- without Child Protective Services descending like a bunch of freaks?”

Red Robin didn’t even blink. He yawned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Easiest way? You don’t. The system’s designed to keep you in it. Unless you have a convincing adult to act as your guardian. A relative, even a fake one.”

Peter’s head snapped toward him. “A fake one.”

“Yeah. have a friend who did that and got away from the CPS for a year.” Tim shrugged, quite proud of it. “Wait- why?”

Red Robin just realized that it’s not really advisable and-

Goddamit.

He mess up.

A brilliant, terrifying grin spread across Peter’s face.

“Hire an actor-” he murmured, his eyes lighting up like the Bat-Signal across.

“I’m only kidding-”

“Bye Red Robin! You’re my favorite! You’re a lifesaver!”

“Wait-”

Before Tim could ask another question, Peter ran and had his phone out and scrolling to a recently added contact.

It rang twice.

“What?” Jason’s voice was a gravelly snarl of irritation.

“Hey, sup, dude!” Peter chirped and his voice dripping with false cheer. “Quick question. You still have the second part of Ancillary Justice?”

A pause. “Yes?”

“Awesome. Can we meet up and I’ll get that because I just recently finished the first part? Yes? Cool. Thanks. Second question,” Peter barreled on as his grin widening.

“Want to be my uncle?”