answers to reviewers questions or statements:
War Sage: He's one of my favorites too.
Omni-Creator Kami of Anime: She wasn't included so much as she happened to be there, she didn't really do anything. A major character in Gotham will die in this arc, that's about all I'm gonna say on the matter.
Harbinger of Kaos: Amusing you think that Laura will take Peter's side in this considering she's made it know she does not want him out in the field as he is now. True Talia isn't exactly innocent in this but she also knows that Peter knows he shouldn't have been out there in the first place for something that would be considered simple.
Dopeenight: Let's just say that not every mission will pan out like Talia and Peter hoped. And it won't be just during missions when things start to go south. One day he might walk into a room on a off day and suddenly kill like ten people cause he thought they were trying to kill him.
Fox Boss: What is it?
DCMarvelfan2k20: He might not.
Adtr509: We shall see.
Spidey's1437: It'll be a while until Nyssa appears. Peter and Talia's relationship is very complicated, with a multitude of sexual tension and romantic undertones. She still cares about Bruce, he is the father of her child after all, but at this point in time she's in a sense moved on from him. She isn't exactly actively looking for a new partner, but she isn't exactly gonna turn one down if they meet her criteria, like Peter has for the most part. Considering the lifestyle they live, their less than stellar childhood upbringings and some of them having taken a dip in a Lazarus Pit at one point, they aren't gonna be the epitome of perfect mental health.
Nomad98: Let's just say that when Peter really, and I mean really loses it, it's gonna be a fucking blood bath. He's gonna be like Jason Voorhees with superpowers almost. Or the guy from Hatchet. Talia is aware that Peter's mentality will make him a bit of a wildcard, but she hoped that it wouldn't happen this soon. I've been thinking of a Skyrim crossover but that's a bit of a ways off.
Darkspyder: I wouldn't be against it.
gersan: Unbelievably toxic, I don't think I can do this anymore :(
Marvel-Man: I update whatever strikes my fancy at the time. Try not to be too inconvenient to others but hey, creative muses and all that.
DoctorWhoXX: I've never seen Bleach so I don't know, maybe one day.
DeimosVulcan12: Logan will show up a few more times but he won't be a major player in the Shadow War that's about to commence. Peter will cross paths with Deathstroke. The Teen Titans and Young Justice will have their own appearances too but not for a while. Most of Peter's rogues don't exist... yet.
Starlord Master: Complicated with a bit of toxicity and manipulation.
StonerMcWeedPot: If your gonna throw the word simp out to describe this story's Peter, at least try and pretend you might know what the insult is supposed to mean in the context you think your using it in. And aside from the sex he had with Talia several chapters ago, something she clearly did as another manipulative trick on her part to ensure his cooperation to a degree, when has Peter done, said or even thought of doing anything in the hopes of another round with her? Believe it or not, I know it's a little crazy, but men will do things to help women even if it means no sex.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or DC characters seen, mentioned or used.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Peter actually liked police officers.
An odd fact given that in the past they usually stood between him and his target and would attempt to hunt him down afterwards but they were just men and women doing their jobs, not all that different from him. In fact, it's because of various police officers in the past that Peter's even lasted this long, be it showing up at the last minute to unintentionally save him when he found himself out numbered by a bunch of drug cartel's gun men or providing as a convenient distraction for him to escape.
So when Peter noticed the arrival of the GCPD, his mind was already racing through possible ways he could use their presence to his advantage... all of which was thrown out the window when the officers suddenly opened fire on Peter and the Red Hood.
'Guess we got the corrupt ones tonight' Peter thought dryly as he ducked under several shots fired at him.
"MOTHER FUCKERS!" The Red Hood shouted as he raced for cover as Gotham's less than finest took pot shots at him while Peter had already made his way back up to the second floor of the Iceberg Lounge.
"Didn't even tell me to put my hands in the air... jerks" Peter said with a shake of his head as he glanced back down to see several officers converging on the Red Hood's last known location while a few ran for the stairs to chase after himself.
Peter wasn't too worried, his abilities would make dealing with them so painfully easy that he was tempted to just leave them be because of that. Well that and killing them, even if they seem to be corrupt, would cause the city's resident vigilante the Batman to hunt him down. Granted he may already know where Talia has set up her operations, an by proxy where Peter was staying, but he'd rather not give the man any more reason to pay them a visit.
'Maaaaybe I'll just break their legs... maybe' Peter thought as he looked around for signs of Jade, he still hadn't seen her since everything went to hell.
He doubted she was dead, she struck him as too stubborn, if anything she likely slipped away in the commotion and was either outside or already back at Leviathan's base.
'If she is, that was a dick move' Peter thought before he felt his spider-sense go off and turned to see several cops had reached his floor and were already aiming at him.
Without another word, Peter grabbed one of the overturned tables and threw it towards the law enforcement while he ran towards a hallway that led to another part of the Lounge. He ducked and side stepped a few shots fired at him as he turned into the hall and looked around for a possible way out, be it a window or even a air vent at this point. He could hear multiple gun shots coming from behind him, likely from both the Red Hood and the police.
"Long as they don't focus on me, they can shoot each other all night long" Peter said to himself as he wandered down the hall before he spotted a window, left open, with multiple guards from the Iceberg Lounge lying on the floor.
Peter cautiously approached the bodies and saw that they each possessed a deep but small cut on their necks, likely made from a knife or some other sharp object. Seeing as he hadn't been here, far as he knew, and he distinctly remembered that Jade may have had a few knives on her, this was likely her handiwork. With a shake of his head, Peter turned towards the window and quickly jumped through and out into the cool Gotham night air.
As Peter made his escape from the Iceberg Lounge before even more cops could show up, or even worse, another of the city's resident vigilantes, the Red Hood found himself rushing for cover as bullets shot past him, one of them glancing off the top of his helmet.
'Well this is some bullshit!' Jason thought as he took cover behind the Iceberg Lounge's bar and quickly reloaded his custom built side arms.
He was not armed for a full on shootout like this, hell he wasn't even planning to do anything tonight except head home after a rather slow night of patrol, but just as he passed the Iceberg Lounge he noticed a mob of people rushing out of the establishment while his helmet's built in scanner picked up multiple nine, one, one calls describing a scene straight out of some kind of horror movie, what little sense of justice that Batman instilled in him was left compelled him to investigate.
'Should've just left this to the police... all good they could've done' Jason thought as he flinched when a stray bullet tore through the bar countertop above him and sent a few pieces flying into his helmet "Once again, helmet for the win. Suck it domino masks"
"Oh Jason, Jason, Jason. Can't go one night without causing issues, hmm?""
The former Robin smirked as he heard a familiar voice filter through his helmet's speakers just as a small window popped up on his HUD warning him that his helmet had been hacked.
"What can I say Babs, I'm a baaaad man" Jason teased as he slapped a fresh magazine into one of his guns "Too bad I'm, not the bad man causing issues tonight"
"I know" Barbara Gordon aka the first Batgirl aka Oracle said in a slightly more serious tone "Hacked Cobblepot's cameras earlier and saw what happened. Have to say, you got some balls getting as close as you did to that guy. He was ripping people apart and sending them flying like they were made of wet tissue paper with his bare hands. Even Bane needs to be amped up on some serious Venom to pull that off"
"Yeah... I noticed" Jason said with a frown as he remembered the state of some of the bodies lying on the floor were in, some were still alive despite the fact their torsos were ripped in two or even three pieces!
Even Killer Croc wasn't that cruel to his victims, when he killed people he tended to make it fast and efficient, not all that different from the animal he molded himself after.
"I got a good look at his face from one of Cobblepot's cameras, I'm gonna run a scan and see what I come up with" the former Batgirl stated.
"Thanks" Jason said as he raised one of his pistols over the countertop and fired off a few rounds, forcing the cops shooting at him to take cover.
"And could you maybe try not to kill any cops?" Barbara asked in a exasperated tone "Even the ones that are clearly on the Penguin's payroll"
"They shot me first" Jason argued as he looked around for signs of the man that caused all of this in the first place "You have eyes on our mystery guest?"
Barbara was silent for a moment as she went through the Lounge's various cameras on it's many floors and rooms before replying "I have an open window on the floor above you down the south hall. Several of Cobblepots' men are on the ground, might be him"
"So he's already outside" Jason said with a frustrated sigh as he risked a brief glance over the counter before ducking as several rounds raced by his head "Is there anyone nearby that can get to him? Gotham's less than finest are holding me up"
"No, your the only one close enough" Barbara said in an annoyed tone.
"What about Batman and Robin?" Jason said with a frown "I doubt Bruce is gonna let this slip by"
"He and Robin are dealing with a arms deal between Black Mask and Tombstone gone very, very wrong out in the Bowery" Barbara answered "And before you ask, Red Robin's in New York helping Nightwing and the Titans with something. And Huntress and Canary are out on a mission in Metropolis"
"What about Batgirl two point oh? The one that can put just about aby of us on our asses if she wanted?" Jason asked with an incredulous expression under his helmet at the knowledge that he was for all intents and purposes, on his own.
Under most circumstances he wouldn't mind, the less he had to deal with Bruce's condescending attitude and he little Demon Brat, the better, but even he knew that this wasn't exactly a situation he could risk going it alone. That and the police, corrupt or honest, were less likely to shoot at him with one of the 'Family' there to act as a sort of deterrent.
"She's benched" Barbara said with a growl of annoyance "Bruce's fault, not mine. I'd send her out if I could but he went as far as to lock her suit up in the Batcave and I'm not willing to risk Cass taking on this guy without it. Even if you are there to help"
"So it's just you and me?" Jason asked with a sigh.
"'Fraid so buddy" Barbara responded in a equally resigned tone "I let Bruce and Damian know what's going on but it'll be a while until they can get to you. Black Mask's men aren't going down with a fight"
Times like this Jason wished he could stomp out that last bit of self righteous sense of justice and duty that Bruce instilled in him from his days as Robin... It'd mean less of getting dragged into these kinds of situations that was for sure.
...
Having enhanced senses like smell, sight and hearing absolutely sucked when your in a big city like Gotham.
The car horns and engines, exhaust, the sounds of hundreds of footsteps from talking, yelling, coughing people, the buzzing from street lights, the bright neon signs and billboards made running through a city for Peter seem like a really bad acid trip of some sort. It was part of the reason why he moved to the countryside, less noise, much less noise. Now since Peter had been bestowed his powers thanks to Cain's crack team of geneticist and god knows who else, he's learned to more or less 'tune out' all the noise, lights and smells his senses were picking up. The down side was that the sheer amount of information his mind would take in from all of this made tuning it out a conscious effort on his part which in turn affected his performance as an assassin and as a person in general.
He didn't wear a full face mask just for the hell of it, it helped dial his senses down enough that he didn't have to focus on ignoring all the added extra sensory data he was getting and focus on what his task is at the time.
'Next time I go out, bring a mask with me' Peter thought as he sprinted towards a crosswalk and saw that two lines of cars were driving in the opposite direction while a small crowd of pedestrians stood on either side of the road.
He was close to four blocks away from the Iceberg Lounge and had already passed the one block perimeter that the GCPD had set up but Peter was unwilling to slow down until he was near twice that distance and somewhere high and quiet so he could properly concentrate on the situation at hand. With a grunt, Peter picked up speed until he seemed like a blur until he was only feet away from the crowd of unsuspecting Gothamites before he crouched low and than leaped a good thirty feet into the air and soared over the busy street before coming back down on the far side of the street, just behind the startled group of people that saw him leap into the air.
"Holy hell-"
"Did you see that-"
"-why I moved away from Metropolis dammit-"
Peter ignored the comments as he sprung up and continued his fast pace down the somewhat crowded sidewalk before he slid to a stop as he saw several police cruisers approaching with their sirens blaring. He very much doubted the police knew what he looked like yet or that he was even there in the first place but Peter wasn't willing to take that chance and instead slipped quietly into the alley that was next to him and watched from the shadows as the police cars raced by. Once it sounded like they were a goof block away, Peter relaxed and turned his attention to the alley that he was in.
Far as large cities like Gotham were, it was pretty generic in his opinion. Some trash scattered here and there because of a few knocked over and damaged trash cans, graffiti on each wall of the alley and the smells of decades worth of bad upkeep.
'Surprised there isn't a body rotting away in here given this city's reputation' Peter thought with a grim snort as he made his way down the darken alley before coming to a stop next to a fire escape and looked up.
Seeing no one occupying it on any levels, and no one else in the alley far as he can see, Peter quickly leaped up several stories before grabbing on to the side, his body barely causing a groan from the rusted metal, before he leaped up again until he reached the roof.
"Took you long enough"
Peter froze as he turned his head slightly to see the Red Hood standing on the very same ledge he was on only a meter away to his right, one of his guns aimed at the wall crawler's head. For a second Peter wondered why his spider-sense didn't go off given how close the Red Hood was before he realized just how out of breath the man was and that as Peter turned, he saw his arm coming up.
'Must've gotten here at the same time... like down to the second' Peter thought as he slowly stood and turned towards the man with his hands raised "Sorry I'm late, got held up by some foot traffic a few blocks back. Ha to go over it"
"Yeah, I bet" the Red Hood growled as he adjusted his feet's placement slightly so he could move in an instant.
"So, is there a reason why your mugging me Crimson Cap?" Peter asked with a raised brow.
"I'm not mugging you!" the vigilante snapped as he took a threatening step forward "You killed seven people back at the Lounge"
Peter winced at this "Yeaaah... it's not been my best night"
Close to a decade since he last killed anyone during one of his... moments. Granted some of those people could've been killed by Jade but since she was who knows where and will likely deny it, of course he'd be saddled with every death back there.
"Well your night's about to get a whole lot worse asshole" the Red Hood hissed as he drew his second pistol and aimed it towards Peter's chest "Now lie down on the ground nice and easy and I won't put one in your kneecaps on top of-"
Peter didn't bother to wait for the man to finish his sentence and leaped high into the air and sailed across the roof before landing on the build's generator, his spider-sense tingled seconds before the man squeezed the triggers and fired off two shots that would've been crippling to Peter anyway. Without a backwards glance, Peter jumped off the generator, the metal groaning and buckling slightly under the force of which Peter launched himself off of it. The Red Hood let out a enraged curse as he sprinted after Peter, sliding his pistols into his suit's holsters.
It was clear to the Red Hood within the first few seconds of this little chase of theirs that he was not going to be able to catch up to Peter in the long run. In just the span of a heartbeat Peter had already sprinted towards the other end of the rooftop and in the next jumped clear across to the adjacent roof and landed in a roll before he sprung up and resumed his pace.
"What I wouldn't give to be a speedster now!" Jason groaned as he struggled to keep up with the man, thankfully his knowledge of the city's layout was next to none which in turn allowed Jason to at the very least keep the man within his sights, if albeit barely.
However the confidence boost was quickly knocked back down, along with Jason himself, when he rounded a corner and ran right into Peter's fist. The force of the impact caused the material that made up the Red Hood's helmet to crack and the HUD to briefly flicker while Jason's body hit the ground, hard.
"Jeez, what's that thing made from, re-enforced carbon fiber?" Peter asked as he brushed a few bits of the Red Hood's helmet off his knuckles.
Though if it was made of carbon fiber, it was some high quality materials since the helmet didn't completely shatter under Peter's hit. Granted he wasn't hitting it with everything he had, but his punch should've done a little more damage, any harder and Peter would've sent the man's head clean off.
The Red Hood's response was a groan as he laid there in a sort of daze before he slowly rolled over and tried to push himself back up.
Peter cracked his knuckles as he approached the vigilante "Look Scarlet Helm, much as I'd love to have some weird epic throw down on the middle of a roof in the middle of the city, in the middle of the night, wow lot of middles there; I got places to be, people to yell at me, and a bed to crawl into and cry myself to sleep. So can we do this like tomorrow or something?"
The Red Hood's response was to quickly draw one of his pistols and fire off several rounds at Peter, each of which he dodged by moving before the firing pin in the vigilante's pistol even struck the round inside it. The former Robin did his best to try and track and anticipate Peter's movements, but it seemed the man was aware of the Hood's actions and countered by going a different route. Seeing as he'll be wasting ammunition at this point, the Red Hood paused in his shooting and contacted Oracle.
"Okay Babs... what... what do you got for me on this guy?" Jason asked as he struggled to keep track of Peter's movements and resist the urge to blackout from his punch earlier.
"His name's Peter Parker" the tech savvy woman answered as the sound of typing could just barely be heard through the commlink "No know date or place of birth but it's believed that he was born overseas close to thirty eight, maybe thirty nine years ago back when his parents were traveling abroad through Europe. Earliest reports I have of him are when he was already an adult and operating in India as a free lance assassin after he was excommunicated from the League of Shadows and he vanished for the better part of like five years only to crop back up in a mental hospital in Alaska after being checked in with a litany of issues that make half of Arkham seem stable"
"Wait, he got kicked out of the League of Shadows, and lived? How the hell is that possible?" Jason asked with shock evident in his voice as he watched Peter gibe him a two finger salute before standing up and allowing himself to fall back and towards the street below.
"No idea, but if he's still alive after all these years, I guess he wasn't one of Ra's typical foot soldiers" Barbra answered with some unease in her voice "Hang on, I'm gonna see if Bruce is done with that shootout in the Bowery yet. I'm really not comfortable with the idea of you going up against this guy on your own after what I just read"
"Trust me Babs, just knowing he was too much for good old Ra's to keep around is all the warning I need to hang back if I can help it" Jason said in a sarcastic tone as he sprinted towards the ledge and took a brief second to look and see where the man may have fallen before he saw him land in a crouch several stories below and quickly rush across the street and into a dark alley.
With a grunt, Jason threw himself over the ledge while he pulled out his grappling hook and quickly shot it off so that it connected with one of the buildings that Peter ran between and used it to swing down towards the alley, his helmet switching to thermal so he can make out the man's body heat in the darkness. Unfortunately the moment that Jason's feet touched the ground he was hit by something from his side which in turn sent him flying into the wall. Thankfully the padding in his suit cushioned most of the blow, from both what he assumed was Peter and the wall he hit, or else he'd be sporting a few broken ribs now.
"Look seriously, I don't have time to deal with you" Peter said with a hint of annoyance in his voice as he approached the Red Hood and made to grab him before he stepped back as the man drew his knife and attempted to run it through Peter's chest before he followed up with drawing one of his pistols and firing off a round at the man.
Peter leaned back to avoid being struck with the bullet before he sent his foot out and kicked the Red Hood square in the chest when he attempted to follow up his gunshot with another attempt to stab him. The Red Hood let out a pained gasp as he was sent back into the wall, the bricks cracking under the impact before Peter seized him by the throat and slowly lifted him up until his feet were just centimeters off the ground. Peter grabbed the hand with the knife and gave it a violent turn, causing the bone in the Red Hood's wrist to snap and release his grip on the blade's handle.
"GAHH!" the Hood sounded in pain before he placed the barrel of his pistol against Peter's chest and just began to pull back on the trigger before Peter released his broken wrist and shoved the gun away just as a round fired from the chamber.
With a flick of his wrist, Peter yanked the gun out of the man's hand and crushed it in his hand before letting it fall to the ground. Seeing he was out of options, the Red Hood reached up with his still free, non broken hand, and tapped the side of his helmet, causing it to start beeping.
"You have a bomb in your helmet?" Peter said with a raised brow.
"If I go, your coming with me" The Red Hood said as he grabbed the hand holding him up by the throat and dug his fingers into the wrist.
"Oh... well okay than" Peter said with a simple shrug as he stood there and listened to the beeping coming from the Red Hood's helmet "Kind of a waste if you ask me"
"You think you can take this and walk away?" the Red Hood hoped to god that he sounded confident in his question, because inside he was wondering if the man was durable enough to survive an explosive as powerful as the one he had rigged inside his helmet.
"I can and in the event that I don't, I'm sure dear old Talia will let me have a dip in her and her father's overhyped pool of healing juice and bring me back... maybe" Peter said with a nod as he kept staring at the Red Hood with a growing grin "That is, of course, if you actually set your helmet's bomb to go off instead of making some kind of beeping sound in attempt to scare me into letting you go"
Peter was certain that if he could see the Red Hood's eyes, they'd be narrowed in anger as he silently glared at him while the helmet continued to beep. After a few more seconds, the beeping stopped and Peter let out a snort of amusement as he pulled the Red Hood off the wall and threw him across the rooftop.
"Word of advice kid, don't bullshit a bullshitter like myself. I've literally made it into a art style by this point. Plus, what kind of idiot would put a bomb's trigger on the side of his helmet, where it could easily be activated with a punch to the head?" Peter asked as he watched the Red Hood spring back up and draw his remaining pistol and aimed it right at Peter's chest.
"Worth a try" the Red Hood said before he fired off three rounds, none of which hit Peter's already moving body.
"Jason!"
"Kinda busy Oracle!" Jason growled as he kept shooting at the man as he raced towards him.
"Jason, watch out, your-" Barbara started again before Jason cut her off.
"I know-" he began before he took a single step back only to realize that he was at the very edge of the building and he just took one foot of the rooftop "Oh"
Before the gun wielding vigilante could recover, Peter slammed into him and both men went spiraling down into the dark alley below. Jason had no idea how high they were or what they'd land on, but he made sure to maneuver Peter's body between him and the approaching ground in attempt to cushion his fall. To his surprise, Peter didn't bother to try and struggle and instead simply let his body slam into the ground after falling for five stories, an impact that would've shattered the body of a non augmented human like himself, just as the Red Hood's full weight crashed into him.
The fall, surprisingly, didn't hurt Peter so much as it knocked the wind out of him, apparently he misjudged just how high up he and the Red Hood were when he tackled the man off the roof. He also underestimated his own durability given how little pain he felt outside of dull throb in the middle of his spine.
'Eh, not the worse I've had' Peter thought as he pushed the Red Hood off of himself and sat up and was just about to stand and leave when he felt a hand on his leg and looked down to see it was the Red Hood's... and his spider-sense was flaring.
Peter made to grab and rip, literally rip, the Red Hood's hand off him before a powerful jolt of electricity raced into his leg and up into his body, causing him to let out a pained yelp as he slumped back to the ground and withered in pain as thousands of volts of electricity traveled through him.
"T-Thank you... b-built in... tasers" the Red Hood said with a groan as he very slowly pushed himself up and looked to see Peter's twitching form only a foot away from himself.
With a sigh of relief, Jason sat on his knees and raised a shaking hand to his helmet and tapped on the spot that housed his commlink "Oracle... you there?"
"Jason?!" Barbara said with shock and relief "Oh thank god"
"At this rate I just might" the lethal vigilante chuckled before he winced as he tried to stand up only to find everything was uneven "Whoa..."
"Jason, you need to sit down, your suffering from a concussion. A pretty bad one, you might even have internal bleeding in your skull" Barbara warned.
"Wasn't that bad... of a fall" Jason said as he looked up towards the roof he was tackled off of and let out a low whistle as he saw just how far he and Parker went "Damn... never mind"
"You've been out for almost an hour. Bruce and Damian are on their way now and two squad cars are down the block and should be there in a minute, just sit tight and wait for them to get there" Barbra explained.
"An hour...?" Jason said with confusion, his head did feel a little... heavy, for the lack of a better term "Fuck"
Before the Red Hood could question the Batfamily's resident super hacker, he noticed Peter had rolled over to his front and was trying to crawl away but his movements seemed jerky, hap hazardous. It was likely the shock he sent into the man had temporarily fucked up his brain's ability to process the synapses his brain's neurons used to operate. At least, that's what Jason thought, he did shock the guy with enough voltage to kill an elephant.
'How in the hell is he even still moving than?' Jason thought before he shook his head and instead reached into his coat and retrieved a small revolver that he kept in the event he lost his primary side arms.
After a quick check to see it will still work, Jason limped after Peter, who only made it a meter before he began to push himself up before he slammed his knee into his back and let his weight push the man to the ground and aimed the barrel of his gun at the man's back.
"Do you... surrender or do I... need to put a bullet... in your spine?" Jason panted as he pressed the barrel of his pistol deep into Peter's back, right over a vertebrae "Trust me... you've more than eared the right... to spend the rest of your life... in a wheelchair at best!"
"Wooooow..." Barbara sounded through his helmet's speakers, causing Jason to wince.
"Sorry, that was... that was kinda douche-y" he said with a hint of regret in his voice as he tired to get his breathing under control.
"No, no, it's fine" Peter said with a sigh of resignation as he laid there in the trash, ignoring the fact his face was half buried in something that smelled like week old apple sauce and half his body still felt numb from the Red Hood's super taser glove thing "You know, this kind of thing was bound to happen eventually. Personally I thought it'd be the big guy himself but this works too I guess. Long as it wasn't his little follower Sparrow or whatever the hell that kid's name is-"
"Shut the hell up... I wasn't talking to you!" Jason snapped with annoyance.
Peter blinked at this "Oh..."
The Red Hood shook his head at this before he noticed several officers approaching him and Peter, their rifles aimed at both men. He gave them a small wave as they slowly began to surround them "Evening officers, see you finally caught up to us-"
"Red Hood, your under arrest for the murders of-" the officer began and was almost instantly tuned out by the Red Hood.
"Your welcome too asshole..." the young man grunted, somewhat relieved that these weren't the same corrupt kind of cops he encountered at the Iceberg Lounge, before he turned his attention back towards Peter "And your a very, very lucky man..."
"Oh you have no idea" Peter said with a snort before his spider-sense tingled "Heeey, what are ya plan-"
Peter was cut off by a whack to the head from the Red Hood's pistol before everything started to grow blurry before he felt the distinct impression of a custom boot slamming into the back of his head as gunshots echoed off above him. Peter struggled to stay awake but the promise of sleep, even if induced via physical trauma, was a bit too appetizing for him.
'Hopefully when I wake up, I'll be somewhere nicer than this trash ridden alley' Peter thought as he slowly lost consciousness.
All in all, not the worst night out he's had... he still had his eyes and limbs attached unlike last time.
...
"Wake up!"
Peter made a sound of discomfort as he found himself floating in... well he wasn't sure what to call the space he was in.
It was black, but not like the color black, his surroundings were much darker than any shade he's ever seen, including. It seemed sorta like the darkness that one would see when they closed their eyes, but Peter was certain his eyes were open, or at least they felt like they were. With growing confusion Peter looked around for anything, a beam of light, another person maybe, anything to give him an idea of where he was-
"Wake up dammit!"
"The heck is that?" Peter asked with curiosity as he felt the impression of someone grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, causing his head to hurt.
Before Peter could figure out what he was feeling, or who or what that voice belonged to, he felt a stinging sensation on his face before he suddenly found himself staring up at a amused looking Jade. Peter blinked at the Asian beauty before he slowly looked around and saw that he was no longer in an alley, but on the roof of some random building. He also saw that Jade wasn't dressed in that green dress of her's anymore, but rather the garb that he saw her in when she first arrived in Alaska with Talia, with her Cheshire cat mask attached to her belt.
"Uhhh, what's going on? Where are we?" Peter asked as he slowly pushed himself up before wincing at the sudden headache and stinging sensation on his cheek "Also, ow! You know there's less painful ways to wake a person up!"
"We're on the rooftop of a apartment complex a few blocks away from where the Red Hood pinned you" Jade revealed as she stepped back and allowed Peter to climb to his feet "After he knocked you out, which is what's causing the headache your feeling I presume, I arrived and dealt with him and the police. Your welcome by the way"
"You kill him?" Peter asked as he did his best to brush some of the grime of his body.
"Well I stabbed him in the back with a Sai coated in a neurotoxin of mine, whether it killed him or not isn't my concern. Getting you away was" Jade answered with a shrug "But the cops that were there too? I threw a kunai into each of their heads"
"Least you made it quick" Peter said with a sigh.
He'd rather they not be dead, killing cops only invited more complications and made their co-workers all the more determined to find them. And Peter doubted Talia would appreciate having the police hounding her people even more than they will in the coming days. Granted they probably will regardless after tonight, especially when the Batman inevitably appears, but that was sort of Talia's problem at that point.
'I'm just here to make sure she doesn't end up dead... prematurely at least' Peter thought wryly before he noticed Jade was holding out a small duffle bag.
Curious Peter took and unzipped it and peered inside to see the red lenses of his suit staring up at him.
"Get dressed, we still have a mission to complete" Jade said as she took a few steps back and turned away.
"We do?" Peter said as he reached for his suit.
"Yes, we do" Jade said as she turned back towards Peter and grinned "Just because the initial plan went to hell doesn't mean we don't have backups"
"You had a backup for what happened tonight?" Peter asked with skepticism.
"Well, not exactly what happened, but in the event something went down at the Lounge and Ms. Hudson had to leave, we'd track and follow her back to her place of residence and offer her the chance to serve Leviathan" Jade revealed.
"And how do you intend to do that exactly?" Peter asked with a frown as he slid the last part of his suit on, his mask, and narrowed the crimson lenses at her in interest.
Jade's response was to reach into her belt and remove a small vial from one of the pouches on it and hold it up for Peter to see.
"Simple..." the toxicologist said in a coy tone "Blackmail!"
"This should be fin" Peter said with a snort, causing Jade's grin to widen as she stepped close to Peter and pushed her body up against his own, causing him to tense slightly as she reached up with her other hand and tapped Peter on the nose.
"Oh you have no idea!"
...
And done.
Next chapter, Outsourcing and negotiating...