answers to reviewers questions or statements:
Mr No Bo Dy: She's aware, but her goal isn't to beat Batman so much as to keep him from interfering with her war with Cain and Nyssa for as long as possible. At least long enough for her to replace Cain's hold in Gotham with her's.
guest44: Peter just doesn't like lawyers since half the people he's killed in the past had avoided prison or answering for their crimes' because of lawyers. The irony of him working with one will not be lost on him.
DarkDevilKnight: Peter's love for Alice in Wonderland will be ruined before he leaves Gotham.
Omni-Creator Kami of Anime: If you mean is there a Miles Morales or Julia Carpenter running around in this, than yes. Talia's war with Nyssa and Cain won't be something that can be ignored by the rest of the superhero community with how much it'll escalate and the League and several others teams will try to take actions against them.
adam3565: Which one?
Nomad98: I have a face off brewing that'll trump both Talia vs Laura and Peter vs Red Hood, at least I hope it will.
Leandro: I haven't really followed him in the comics so I'm not really sure.
Spider999: Rose might given I think she's in her early to mid twenties though Cass might be a bit of a longshot. I don't think she's even old enough to drink yet but it's not entirely off the table either.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or DC characters seen, mentioned or used.
"Why so glum Peter?"
Peter blinked as he stared up at the ceiling before his head turned to look at Talia as she laid beside him. Something... something wasn't right about that, there was something off.
"Talia?" Peter said with surprise as he tried to move but found his body still "W-What uh, what are you doing here? Also... when did you start using the word glum?"
Talia stared at Peter for a moment, something about that smile seemed wrong, before she slowly sat up and the bed sheet that was covering her fell to reveal her body was marred in scars. Her left breast had been ripped off, leaving a gaping hole with torn flesh and blood leaking from it like a damaged pipe. Her stomach was cut open, allowing part of her actual stomach to lean out slightly and fill Peer's nostrils with that unbearable stench of stomach acids, blood and god knows whatever was that woman ate or drank before.
"T-Talia!" Peter said with horror as he tried to move before he suddenly found himself standing at the foot of his bed.
Talia was lying in the center, her body torn and mutilated and a large red soaking wet stain lying under her. Her face was contorted into one of horror and pain as she stared up at the ceiling with only a single eye, the other having been torn out. Peter took a step forward before his feet touching something wet and he slowly looked down with a shaking head to see the floor was covered in blood and severed limbs.
All around him were mutilated bodies, one he recognized as Psylocke's given her head was still attached to whatever was left of her torso. The rest were unrecognizable and Peter doubted anyone would be able to tell who was who or what belonged to what.
"What... what the-" Peter began before the sound of gunfire and shouts in the hall outside caused his head to snap up just in time to see something standing in the middle of the doorway... a shadow.
Peter stared at the figure with wide eyes, his entire body frozen.
The figure stared back, two small green eyes staring into Peter's brown, green tinted ones. Neither said anything, neither moved as the gunshots and crying outside increased in volume.
"Pretty red... pretty red..." the figure muttered before it stepped away from the door and disappeared into the hall.
Peter found his feet moving after the figure, his head throbbing as he did his best to ignore the ringing in his ears from the gunshots, the screams of people dying, the smell of blood, gore and smoke as he stepped into the hall.
The floor was covered in spent casings and shells and blood, the floors were littered with numerous bullet sized holes and signs of something or someone being slammed into it, very, very hard. Peter licked his lips as he took several steps forward before he felt a few drops land on his head, one of them on his nose. He stopped and blinked in surprise before he slowly looked up and felt his eyes widen.
There was bodies, dozens of them, all bent and forced into painful shapes hanging from the ceilings, like depraved chandeliers. One of the bodies, the one that was dripping on Peter, had red hair though the face had been ripped off, leaving part of the person's brain exposed while the eye and upper jaw portion of the skull hung by a few strands of muscle tissue.
"Pretty red... pretty red..."
Peter's head snapped towards the end of the hall where the shadowed figure stood, at this feet on their knees was-
"Laura..." Peter said with horror as he stared at the woman, her arms having been torn off while her face was covered in claw marks.
The shadowed figure crouched next to her and ran a hand through what was left of Laura' hair, causing her to let out a sob. Peter gritted his teeth as he forced his legs to move and tried to sprint towards the two, but it felt like he was moving in place, no matter how hard or how fast he ran, Laura and the figure stayed the same distance away.
"Pretty red..." the figure muttered before it stood and placed a hand on Laura's head before lifting it, and Laura's head up clean off her shoulders.
"LAURA!" Peter yelled as he finally reached the two only to find himself standing in a cell, the floor littered with muddied, blood stained sand.
On three sides was cold, damp stones that were painted with years old dried blood while a wall of bars and a small cell door sat in front of Peter, leading to a massive haphazardly shaped square room with dozens if not hundreds of similar cells. Peter felt his breath hitched as he recognized this cell, the room outside...
It was the Pit.
Ever after all these years he could still recognize the stale taste of the arid air, the smell of blood, decay, and the general odor of men and few women that've been down here for years, decades even. A part of Peter, a small part he knew was always there, in the very back of his mind, begged him to stay in his cell, to stay away from the bars and hide in the shadows. Peter wanted to resist it, he wanted to leave this cell, to climb down the stairs towards the bottom of the well like structure that led up to the world and climb out of this hell.
But instead of taking a step towards the cell door, Peter took a step back and slowly turned before he found his face being cupped, so gently it felt like the hand was made of air while a dark shadowed reflection of Peter's face stared back at him, the right side covered in blood.
"PRETTY BLOODY RED!"
Peter jumped and suddenly found himself standing in the middle of the hall he saw all those dismembered bodies in earlier. He looked around slowly with wide eyes, the walls weren't covered in blood or bullet holes anymore, and there was no bodies hanging from the ceiling, there was no screaming from the rooms or gunshots...
It was just... quiet.
Peter shook his head and reached up to rub his eyes before he realized that he was dressed fully in his suit, mask, web shooters and all.
'Weird... don't remember putting this on...' Peter thought with confusion before he he sighed as he turned on his heel and headed back to his room, intending to sleep wat little of the night remained away.
Peter didn't know what time it was, he knew it was still dark out considering the lights were off and he couldn't hear anyone moving around. He was somewhat relieved by this, he didn't want to talk to anyone on why he was apparently wandering the halls in the middle of the night fully dressed in his suit. He didn't want to speak to people that he saw as mutilated corpses only minutes ago. He didn't want to stand in halls that looked like-
Peter came to a sudden stop and shook his head, slapping the side of it as he fought down the memories that were threatening to take shape in his mind. He was just nearing his room, the door he saw was left opened, when he heard the sudden sound of splashing.
'The heck?' Peter thought as he came to a stop and turned his head slightly in the direction of the sound and waited to see if it'd continue.
He heard the splashing again and against his better judgement, followed the source. It sounded like it was coming from the pool and now that Peter was getting close to it, he could just faintly smell the chemicals of the water, someone had left the door to it open just enough for it and the sounds of splashing water to leak out.
"Who the hell swims in the middle of the night?" Peter said to himself in a quiet voice as he stepped out of the hall and approached thee door that led to Talia's indoor pool.
The pool light was on, and the room felt like Peter stepped into the Amazon with how hot and humid it was. The pool chemicals hit him full force as he pushed the door open to see a woman swimming underwater from one side of the pool to the other. Even though the semi-clear blue waters he could see a mop of red hair on the woman's head. For a moment Peter thought Natalia was swimming naked with how much off her skin was exposed through the ripples of the pool before he noticed faint black lines along the woman's back and hips.
'Wow, that is one revealing bikini... and I've seen a lot of bikinis' Peter thought as he stopped at the doorway and watched as Natalia flipped underwater and kicked off the wall and began to swim back across the pool without coming up for air-
"SHE'S NOT BREATHING DAMMI,T SHE'S NOT BREATHING-"
"-SOMEONE HET A DAMN MASK ON HER-"
"BREATH-!"
"-BREATH!"
"-BREATH-!"
"You gonna stand out here all night or come in and join me?"
Peter blinked and saw that he was standing outside on the deck next to the pool and Natalia was standing in front of him, her hair damp and water still dripping down her body. She was looking at him with a look that looked like she was less than impressed with him and for some reason that seemed to annoy Peter.
"I'm.. I'm just going to get some air" Peter said with a frown as he adverted his gaze from the woman and stared out across the city.
He was surprised with how quiet it was this high up, though he supposed the sound of his heart beating a mile a second was overshadowing the noise below.
"Forgive me if I call bullshit on that" Natalia said as she nodded towards Peter's suit "Now are you going to tell me why you've spent the last ten minutes out here looking off into the distance after I caught you watching me for almost half an hour?"
"I was just... just looking around is all. Couldn't sleep" Peter said in a slightly defensive tone while internally he was wondering how in the hell forty minutes had passed.
"Is that right?" Natalia asked as she placed a hand on her hip and raised a brow at the man as she displayed her swimwear.
Try as he might, Peter couldn't stop his eyes from drifting down the red head's body, settling on her barely concealed breasts before they fell to the small fabric that just barely covered the woman's slit. Thankfully his suit's mask kept Natalia from seeing where Peter's eyes wandered though he had no doubt she was aware his eyes were traveling.
"Did you enjoy what you were looking at?" Natalia asked with a smirk on her face as she cocked her hip to the side.
"Shut up" Peter muttered as he turned away from the near naked red head and headed for the ledge "I'll be back in a few minutes, I'm not going far and yes before you ask I'll do my best to avoid getting in trouble... we're gonna be getting into plenty soon enough anyway"
"See that you do..." Natalia's voice faded away as Peter stepped over the ledge and allowed gravity to drag him towards the streets below for a few dozen feet before he shot a web line off and used it to swing off into the city.
It was sort of relaxing, web swinging through the towering skyscrapers that some joked made Gotham seem like a poor man's Manhattan or nightmare-ish Metropolis. Peter wasn't sure what it was, but the rising and falling, the almost flying like feeling through the air had a way of calming Peter's mind in ways that no drug, meditation, calming breathing techniques or alcoholic drink ever could. He tired to do it in Alaska after he and Laura got settled, but the evergreen trees that made up the surrounding forests weren't very good for swinging through in a web line like in the jungles of Asia, Africa or South Am-
'No, stop! Don't go there Pete!' Peter thought with a violent shake of his head as he swung through what he assumed was the finical district.
Hundreds of feet below him, hundreds of cars and people went about their night as if it were the middle of the day, something that Peter always found aggravating about big cities like this. How there was never a moment of stillness or silence, just constant honking, engines revving and occasional sirens along with hundreds of people's footfalls. It was part of the reason that Peter moved out into the middle of nowhere, away from all the noise...
...
Natalia has served Talia for what seems like a life time, she's followed every order her mistress issued without question and always stood by her side no matter the fallout.
But Natalia was beginning to see that even she had her limits as she watched the mentally unstable man known as Peter Parker swing off into the distance. She knew that there was something wrong with the man the moment she first saw him only days ago, her suspicions were only further confirmed when she and Honor were shown the hidden room in his basement by Jade and Elizabeth and than the pack of wolves that he butchered with his bare hands later that night.
What was worse is that the man seemed to either unable to control himself or wasn't even fully aware of what he was doing.
'And what does Talia do? She brings him to one of the worst cities in the world that thrives on making people like him even worse' Natalia thought as she sat in the kitchen with a glass of half finished vodka in her hands.
She had her phone sitting next to her, and three empty bottles of vodka, monitoring police bands hoping that bodies didn't start piling up and people reporting a man in black with a bright red spider on his chest.
"Dare I ask how your not dead yet?"
Natalia turned her head slightly to see Laura standing in the doorway, her hair in a messy pony tail as she slid into the room dressed in a pair of spandex shorts and a dark blue and yellow braw. It took her a second to realize that Laura was talking about the empty bottles beside her and scoffed as she downed the rest of her glass.
"As much as I hate to contribute to the stereotypes of Russians drinking excessive amounts of Vodka since they were a child and never dying... it's true in my case" Natalia said after she finished her glass and slammed it on the countertop a little harder than necessary.
"You should meet my dad, you two would get alone great" Laura said with a tired sigh as she looked around the kitchen.
"Looking for something?" Natalia asked before her eyes narrowed slightly "Or perhaps, someone?"
Laura paused for a moment before she closed her eyes and deeply inhaled and exhaled through her nose before she turned towards Natalia "Where is he?"
"He went for a... walk" Natalia revealed with a simple shrug before she grabbed her phone and held it up with a little shake "GCPD hasn't received any calls about mass murders or sightings of a man in black and crawling on walls yet"
Laura sighed as she reached up and pinched the ridge of her nose "Did he say how long he'll be out?"
"He said a few minutes which I doubt" Natalia answered with a frown "He doesn't seem good at keeping track of time"
"No, he isn't" Laura said with a groan as she turned to leave "This is just great! Not even here a full fucking day and already I'm having to chase after him and make sure e doesn't draw any more attention than he probably already has"
"He's a Shadow, albeit a former one, I doubt he'll attract any" Natalia said.
"Clearly you've yet to be introduced to Parker Luck" Laura said with a scoff as she made to leave the kitchen before she stopped and slowly turned towards Natalia "Did he... did he take his web shooters?"
"If you mean the things to let him swing around, than yes" Natalia answered with a frown "Why?"
"Well so much for trying to track him down" Laura said with a growl as she wandered towards the island and snatched the last remaining glass of Vodka and sliced it's top off before taking a long swing from it "If he left on foot I can track that, but trying to follow his scent when it's several dozen to several hundred feet in the air? In a polluted city like this? I'll have a better chance following him through a wetland"
"Has he always been like this?" Natalia asked with a hint of curiosity.
"What do you mean?" Laura asked with her eyes narrowing slightly.
"Unhinged-"
"He's not unhinged!" Laura snapped with a glare that caused Natalia's eyes to darken "He's just... he just has a lot of things on his mind that he's trying to get through"
"How long has he been... dealing, with this?" Natalia asked.
"Why do you care?" Laura questioned.
"If I'm going to be working alongside him, I'd like to know a bit more of him and what better person to ask than you?" Natalia stated as she reached up and swiped Laura's bottle and used it to pour herself another glass.
"Why not ask your boss, she seems to think she still knows him" Laura said with obvious bitterness in her tone.
"I could, but I prefer my intel to be more... recent" Natalia said with a small shrug before taking a sip of her drink before she looked down at the liquid and frowned "I've drinking distilled water with more kick than this"
"You really need to meet my dad" Laura said with a shake of her head as she turned to leave before Natalia reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and look at the red head with surprise.
"What?"
Natalia said nothing, she continued to stare at Laura, her eyes taking in her body before she suddenly reached out with her other hand and hooked her fingers into the younger woman's waistband. Laura let out a surprised squeak as she was pulled by her pants and arm into a hungry kiss while Natalia's fingers slipped past Laura's waistband and down to her slit...
...
Peter landed with a grunt on the edge of a rooftop that over looked the river, on the western side of the city. For the past half hour he's been traveling from one end of the city to the other. He hadn't run into any of vigilantes that seem to populate this city, and there was quite a few of them, but he reasoned that it didn't mean they weren't there. They just as easily could be on the other end of Gotham or maybe at home for the night. He's certain he'd know if he was being tracked by someone, dull as his skills have grown from disuse of the years, he never quite let his ability to know when others are nearby or tailing him to falter.
With a shake of his head Peter looked around to see if he could make out any distinguishing landmarks that might be able to help him find the hotel. By now Natalia's bound to have awoken Talia in regards to his continual absence and he just knows that she'll be in a less than generous mood.
'That girl's always been cranky when you wake her up early' Peter thought with a snort as he felt his mind drifting back to-
He quickly shook his head again, he did not need to be getting lost in his own head in a city like Gotham. While he's confident his spider-sense would be strong enough to break him out of whatever his little 'daydreams' he'd rather not out it to the test.
Peter silently gave the area he was in another once over before he shrugged and shot a web line out and used it to swing towards a nearby tower that looked like something out of a gothic fantasy before Peter found himself falling on to a dune of sand.
"Ow" Peter groaned as he picked himself up and looked around to see that he was no longer in the heart of a city, but rather in the middle of a desert.
He wasn't sure which one it was, he's been to plenty over the years and they all started to blur together with the shared similarities of sand, heat, little to no water and admittedly breath taking views of the sky at night. Peter looked up to see that it was the middle of the day and the sun was bearing down on him without mercy, causing the dark suit he was wearing to feel even more uncomfortable.
"Great... I'm in the middle of a desert in a black full body suit" Peter said in a dry tone as he slowly stood up and brushed some of the dust off his front.
Peter turned to see if he could make out any particular landmarks, at the very least give him an idea of where he was, before his gaze settled on a small hill of sorts only a few dozen meters away. Even from this distance he could make out perfectly what it was...
It was a pile of llamas.
Peter's eyes narrowed as he slowly approached the pile, thankfully the smell was downwind of him. He couldn't tell how many llamas were in the pile, half of the bodies looked to have been partially melted or ripped to literal pieces.
'South America...' Peter thought as he stared at the pile of dead animals before he heard a grunt behind him and turned to see a man in a black and grey suit similar to Laura's standing a few feet away.
"Peter, you really need to get that thing of yours under control" the man said as he lit a match and brought it up to the cigar in his mouth and lit it "Before I do it for you"
Peter frowned at the man as three distinct metal claws emerged from the man's hand and reflected the light of the sun into his eyes-
HONK! HONK!
Peter suddenly found himself back in Gotham, standing in the middle of a busy intersection with a large semi racing towards him, the tires screeching along the road as the driver slammed on the breaks.
"Yikes!" Peter said as he leaped over the truck and landed on it's trailer before he leaped up into the air again and shot a web line out.
He could hear more car horns along with the sound of multiple vehicles colliding with one another followed by more horns blaring and people shouting. Peter didn't bother to look back, he simply made his way towards a towering skyscraper and landed on the side before quickly sprinting up the wall towards the roof.
'So much for an uneventful stroll' Peter thought with a sigh as he made it to the top of the roof and risked a glance back down towards the street.
The pile up wasn't as bad as it seemed though Peter could see a number of drivers getting out of their vehicles and yelling at one another while a few seemed to be looking around for the source of the collisions, namely him. Seeing that no one seemed to have died, which he doubted anyone did given the max speed limit was thirty at the most, Peter slipped away from the edge and made his way to the other side before stopping and taking a look around the area.
It seemed familiar, but he didn't think the hotel was anywhere close by.
'I really should've payed attention more' Peter thought with a frown as he tried to mentally retrace his steps before letting out a frustrated groan as he made his way to the edge of the building again and sat down on the ledge, his legs dangling over the side and stared off into the harbor.
As Peter stared off into the distance, his eyes falling on the shadowed form of Arkham Asylum, just looking at the place gave him a headache, he felt his body begin to slowly tense before forcing himself to relax.
'Only one...' Peter thought as he kept his gaze on the distant asylum, giving the illusion he was distracted 'Hmm, their armored but their steps are a little light, probably Kevlar or something similar. No cape that everyone and their grandma seems to be using-'
CLIK!
Peter's candidates for whoever was sneaking up in him immediately flashed to one in particular as he could just feel the barrel of a custom designed pistol poking at the back of his head.
"Nice night for a walk huh?" Peter said with a snort as he continued to stare straight ahead.
"Little too humid for my tastes" a muffled voice responded, young, probably not even in their twenties just yet, but close "Now, what brings the Black Spi-"
"I'm not Black Spider" Peter said with obvious disdain as he turned his head to glance at the newcomer over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes at the red helmet covering the man's head under a equally red hood "Mister... errr I want to say Crimson Helmet? Scarlet Dome? No, wait, I got it, your the Bloodied Head!"
"It's Red Hood" the vigilante scoffed before he rested the barrel of his pistol against Peter's masked covered forehead, his voice growing notably darker "Now, why is the League of Shadows here? Don't try and deny it, I recognize how you moved. You move like one of Ra's little drones"
"Your gonna have to take that up with the boss there Hoodie" Peter said before his hand suddenly moved and knocked the pistol away from his head as he slowly stood up while Jason backed away and drew another side arm "I'm just the hired help, peer pressured, but than so is just about everyone these days. But I can say that I'm being generously well paid for my services"
Well in reality Peter wasn't getting paid a single cent, but that was beside the point.
The Red Hood growled as he centered both pistols on Peter's form before the man nodded towards something over the vigilante's shoulder.
"Though if you want the full scoop, I guess you can ask the guy dressed like a bat standing right behind you" Peter said as his head seemed to twitch to a spot just behind the Red Hood before re-centering on the armed vigilante.
The man that was once the second Robin tensed for a moment before he slowly turned his head enough to glance over his shoulder to see... nothing. The Red Hood blinked before his head snapped back towards the black clad man with a red spider on his chest only to see that he was gone!
"Ohhhh that's just great!" Jason Todd sighed as he activated his helmet's 'detective vision', a stupid name by the way, and tried to search for the man's whereabouts.
In hindsight, he probably should've used that to detect if Batman really was behind him or not instead of falling for possibly the oldest trick in the book!
...
An hour later and just as the sun was beginning to rise over the distant horizon, Peter finally found the hotel that everyone was staying at and quickly swung himself up to the upper floors before continuing the rest of the way by crawling. He contemplated taking the elevator, spending the better part of an hour trying to find the hotel while making sure he wasn't being followed by the Red Hood or anyone else in the city had left him tired and in need of a long overdue nap.
Unsurprisingly, Talia's guard in the forms of Honor and Elizabeth were already up and going through a morning spar on the helicopter pad, the closet thing that they had to a 'ring' for them to train in.
Peter barely gave either of them a glance as he walked towards the door and slipped inside without a word. He didn't see any signs of Laura, Natalia or Jade, but he could smell freshly brewed coffee coming from the kitchen.
"Where've you been?"
Peter froze and turned to see Talia sitting on one of the living room's many couches with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand and a tablet in another. She was dressed in a similar roe to the one she wore her first morning in Peter's home this one was more conservative in appearance and snow white rather than emerald green. She still looked beyond beautiful and the way her hair was a little messy gave her a sort of early lazy weekend morning vibe.
"Couldn't sleep, so I decided to get a little familiar with the area" Peter said in a tired tone "I'm going to bed. Don't wake me please"
"I may need you later-" Talia began but was cut off by Peter raising a hand.
"Don't care, too tired. Use one of your guards if you really need someone" Peter said as he slipped into the hall and towards his room "It's what their for!"
A flash of rage surged through Talia and she found herself rising from her seat to follow after the man before she caught herself and took a deep breath in attempt to calm herself. After several seconds, Talia sat back down and returned her attention to her tablet though her mood for thee morning was now ruined thanks to Peter's rudeness.
"Asshole..." she muttered as she reviewed an email sent to her from one of her agents in Metropolis.
She made a note to speak with Peter later, after she returned from her meetings, about his attitude.
...
And done.
Next chapter, Jade requests a 'spar' with Peter while Talia entertains an unexpected guest for lunch...