answers to reviewers questions or statements:
RonaldM40196867: I'd say it's a tie between the likes of Elektra, the Winter Soldier, and Laura when she was X-23. On Earth at least.
WerewolfDJ: Not this call.
Nomad98: Peter will be forced into a situation where he has to work with the Joker in the very near future.
CRUDEN: You think a Joker, Peter and Deadpool team-up is crazy, wait until the second act begins and where.
Guest: The two aren't so much friends so much as the Joker happens to like Peter and Peter happens to for some reason let the man live and finds some of his things kinda funny in a morbid way.
BlackKnight6316: Sadly no.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or DC characters seen, mentioned or used.
The night where everything went to Hell started off like any other in Peter's opinion.
At least it seemed to be like any other since he found himself back in the League of Assassins, even if it wasn't the League. Talia called another meeting as she updated her people on how the arrangement she had with Silvermane was progressing and what her people had accomplished with the tasks she gave them. Once that meeting ended, which Peter swore went on half an hour longer than it needed to, the mentally unsound wall crawler made his way into the penthouse's kitchen for something to drink. After raiding the fridge for a host of fruits to shove into a blender to make his smoothie for the night, Peter than proceeded to the pool to lounge on one of the chairs and simply bask in the chlorine filled air and watch the night life of Gotham in silence-
'Peter, Laura, Jade, report to the living room now!' Psylocke's voice rang through Peter's head, causing him to jump at the sudden mental intrusion 'Lady Talia has received several unwanted visitors'
'Can I finish my drink first?' Peter mentally asked with a sigh as he stood up and began to make his way towards the pool house's door, pulling his mask out and slipping it on as he went.
'No' Psylocke snapped before she cut the mental connection.
"Big meanie" Peter grumbled aloud as he checked to make sure his web shooters were on and full, along with making sure the device's built in pistol mechanism was fully loaded.
Peter really hoped this unwanted visitor wasn't Jessica, she's been trying to call Peter for the past two days now and it was getting to the point that he seriously considered blocking her number. Though doing so might just cause the woman to make an appearance in person, which Peter could see happening regardless if he blocked her number or not.
"Heeey, your not my ex-wife!" Peter said when he stepped into the living room to see who it was that decided to invite themselves into the very heart of Talia al Ghul's operation.
It was none other than the Dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin!
At least he thinks the short kid with Batman was Robin, apparently the Dark Knight has like a dozen little helpers running around the city or something. The Red Hood was one, and apparently a former member of the Order of St. Dumas was another. How in the hell an assassin like that ended up as one of Batman's little helpers was beyond Peter's understanding given the two's vastly different ideologies.
"Thank God for small miracles..." Natasha muttered from her position behind Talia, a custom made Glock of some sort aimed at the Dark Knight's exposed chin.
Surrounding Batman and his brightly colored, and scowling, sidekick was Laura, who had her claws out and ready to be driven through either vigilante's Kevlar suits of armor, Psylocke who had her sword poised to cut through Robin's back, and Silencer who stood a ways back with a automatic rifle aimed in the general direction of Gotham's 'heroes' but not quite. Cheshire was sitting on the arm of a cushioned chair behind both Natasha and Talia, idly twirling a venom coated Sai in one of her hands.
"Ironically, her presence would've been a more welcomed one" Talia said as she briefly eyed Batman and Robin with a look of mild disinterest before she turned and casually strolled over to the room's fully stoked bar for a glass of wine.
"Shall we evict Mister Wayne from the premises ma'am?" Natasha asked as she kept a intent focus on the only exposed part of Batman's body.
"No need, tempting as it would be to watch" Talia waved off her guards "Let's hear what he has to say before making any rash decisions"
Collectively Talia's guard lowered their weapons while Laura kept her claws out and met the Batman's glare with one of her own. If Peter had any doubt that someone as beautiful as Laura could be related to the likes of Logan or Daken, that glare of her's put them to rest... in pieces. Talia seemed to notice Laura's reluctance and loudly cleared her throat before she spoke.
"Talon, sheath your claws"
Laura made a growl of annoyance as she very slowly retracted her claws and stepped back from the Dynamic Duo "Fine, but don't blame me when one of them knock's your teeth down your throat"
"If anything I'll be blaming the dentist" Talia smirked as she found a bottle that suited her fancy for the evening.
"Talia-" Batman began before Talia held a hand up to cut him off.
"If you have any of the others here with you, tell them to either come in now or I'll send my Spider here out there to kill them" the last known born daughter of Ra's al Ghul said with a hard look in her eye "I mean it Bruce, call them in now or send them away"
"It's just the two of us" the Batman growled, causing Talia to look at him with skepticism before turning towards Psylocke.
"Check for anyone else dear"
Psylocke nodded and reached out with her mind to see if she could sense any other minds that didn't belong while Peter took a few steps closer to the Dark Knight and his partner in crime and scrutinized their uniforms with narrowed lenses.
"So this is what a million dollar custom suit of Kevlar looks like" Peter said as he eyed the Batman's suit up and down before giving Robin's a brief once over "What's with the capes anyway? I mean, does it help you fly or something? Cause I can't see myself running around with a cape since if I am running around, I'm afraid it's gonna get caught on something and tear and than I'm gonna have to either fix it or find a new one and really that thing looks kinda exp-"
"Spider, your rambling" Talia interrupted Peter as she poured herself a glass of wine and took a small sip of the dark red contents.
"I am?" Peter blinked as he glanced at Talia with a raised brow "I thought I was just voicing everyone's thoughts on the matter-"
"I want you out of this city, now!" the Batman growled as he took a threatening step forward, causing Natasha and Silencer top raise their respective firearms towards the caped crusader.
"You can go fuck yourself" Laura fired back with an unimpressed look on her half covered face "Also work on the gravelly voice. Might scare some high school drop out high on whatever cheap drugs he can find out in the Bowery, but your voice is giving me the impression you smoke a pack an hour"
"Heh, with that sunny personality of his, his own hand probably needs to be paid to wank him off" Jade snickered as she climbed up from her seat and began to slowly circle the dynamic duo, twirling one of her Sai's in her hand with the ease only a master of the weapon would dare "I mean really, what's so desirable about it?"
"I don't know" Peter said with a shrug before he glanced at Talia "What is desirable about the man's personality? Or is it the like ten zeroes under his name that gets you going?"
"Believe it or not but it grows on you" Talia smirked as she took a sip of her wine and hummed at the taste "In very small doses at any rate. Also find whoever chose this wine to be stocked and give them a raise, it's quite-"
"Talia, I won't ask you again" Batman said as he took another step towards the daughter of Ra's al Ghul "Leave Gotham now or I'll make you! I won't let this city become a battleground between you and your sister!"
"Now there's an idea, though let's be honest Beloved, Gotham wouldn't notice a difference if two more factions started shooting one another in the middle of the streets..." Talia said as she sipped her glass, completely unbothered by the Dark Knight himself threatening her "And even if that wasn't the case, I haven't done anything wrong anyhow. Thus, I'm free to stay as long as I desire"
"Your servant killed twenty eight people at the Iceberg Lounge" Robin snapped as he glared at Peter with narrowed eyes, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, which seemed to be some sort of hybrid between a Katana and a Dao sword "He's lucky he's not picking his teeth up off the floor. Let alone walking"
"Do you have evidence that ties my Spider to this supposed crime?" Talia asked as she glanced at her son with a raised brow "A description from any eyewitnesses that night who saw and can positively identify him? Video or photographic evidence or even DNA that can put him at the scene of the crime? No? Than I suggest you stop throwing such accusations around my boy, before you make me upset"
"Also is no one gonna bring up the fact that Batman has a ten year old kid running around with him on a school night?" Peter said as he looked around to see if anyone actually did care "Or the fact that this is technically child abuse, maybe some neglect and just about every other CPS's nightmare?"
"I'm thirteen!" Robin snapped.
"Your saying that like it makes a difference Baby Bird, now hush while the adults talk about your mere presence here being a host of crimes against a minor" Peter shooed the child away with a wave of his hand before he turned his attention to the brooding Dark Knight "Like seriously, what the Hell are you thinking dragging a kid into all of this? He should be worried about asking a girl out or something, not whether or not he'll get freaking stabbed or see a guy shoot up a bunch of people!"
If Peter thought Logan was a shit father, Batman-Bruce, whatever he called himself, just made that cigar smoking Canadian the undisputed Father of the Year a hundred times over.
"Spider, do stop critiquing the Detective's child rearing, flawed as it may be" Talia smirked as she set her glass down on the table before she leaned back against the couch and folded her arms across her chest "After all, he'll be too busy dealing with the breaking and entering lawsuit I'll be filing against him. My apartment is outfitted with a number of air scrubbers that are so sensitive, they can identify the individuals within it via the skin flakes they gather. Plus I have you on camera right now"
As the Batman was about to respond, Laura suddenly looked at Talia with wide eyes from underneath her cowl "Wait, you've been recording the interior of this place?"
"Yes" Talia said with a frown "Why? What have you been up to in here Talon?"
"I think the shorter answer would be what hasn't she been up to..." Peter coughed a little nervously as he remembered some of the things he and Laura did in this very room last night.
He's ninety percent positive half the things they did are considered illegal in this end of the world... and parts of Mexico.
'Kinky luv...' Psylocke 's voice echoed through Peter's mind as she looked at him with a faint smirk followed by a sly wink 'Also that position you used towards the end is in fact considered illegal in southern Mexico'
Peter scowled at the telepath before noticing the Batman's hand slowly inching towards his belt. In a blur, Peter was next to the caped crusader and grabbed the arm and held it with a grip that cracked the Dark Knight's gauntlet with an audible 'krrk'. Everyone in the room froze at the sudden action while Peter stared into the calm façade of Gotham's infamous vigilante though he could feel how tense the man had gotten when his arm was grabbed and Peter felt a faint tingling at the base of his skull.
"Sorry... but when I see guys dressed like you reaching for a belt full of little goodies, I tend to get a little nervous" Peter said as he tightened his grip a little more for emphasis "now I'm gonna let go and your not gonna reach for this thing again-"
"LET HIM GO!" Robin said as he drew several batarangs and threw them towards the wall crawler.
Peter turned and brought his arm up and allowed the bat shaped shuriken to embed themselves in his arm, causing a grunt to escape as he pushed Batman back and turned fully towards the Boy Wonder. Robin scowled as he watched Peter reach up and rip the batarangs out and drop them tot he ground with a metal 'cling' sound.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to throw sharp things at people young man?" Peter scolded the young teen.
"I taught him to actually, before his seventh birthday in fact" Talia said as she took a sip of her wine and watched as events began to unfold.
Peter was in the midst of taking a step towards the young vigilante before stopping and turning to look at Talia with wide lenses "Wait you what?"
This brief pause was all the Dark Knight needed to launch a series of strikes towards Peter's back while robin rushed forward to attack from the front, and divide the wall crawler's attention. Laura was already moving in to attack with Cheshire leaped to her feet and holding her Sais at the ready while Natasha and Honor took aim nd waited for an opening to open fire-
"STOP!"
Peter's fist stopped centimeters from Robin's face while his other hand had it's web shooter aiming behind him and towards the Dark Knight's mid-section. Laura had her claws out and was about to skewer Robin through the back and Cheshire was prepared to run the Batman through from the side. All five turned to see Talia glaring at them all with a hand on her hip and her wine being twirled in it's glass before she took a sip from it.
"Bruce, you've overstayed your welcome, leave now and perhaps you won't be taking another dead Robin home" Talia said in a cold voice before her gaze snapped towards Peter and tuned absolutely venomous "And Spider, I'd ask you kindly to refrain from killing my son please"
Peter held Talia's gaze for a moment before he silently nodded and pulled his fist away from the Boy Wonder, all the while wondering when the hell Talia had a kid. Thirteen years ago obviously, considering the boy's age, but when did the daughter of the Demon himself manage to find time to have a kid? As Peter backed away from Batman and Robin, Laura sent a silent snarl towards the dynamic duo as she made her way to Peter's side. Cheshire shrugged and sheathed her Sais before going to Peter's other side and made a show of pressing up against it, causing the man to tense.
'What are you up to Jade?' Peter thought with a brief look aimed at Cheshire before returning his gaze to Batman and Robin as Talia pointed to the door.
"See yourselves out now, I've already had one of my people contact the police and inform them of you breaking into my home, threatening me, and my staff. My lawyers will be getting in touch with you shortly Mister Wayne. Leave now or I promise you that by this time tomorrow, everyone glued o a T.V. or a phone will know of your actions as both Bruce Wayne and Batman" Talia said.
"Why not just do it now?" Peter asked.
"Time and place my dear Spider, time and place" Talia answered.
"I'm still recommending Facebook be the platform we leak the info on" Cheshire giggled, though it seemed Talia and Batman chose to ignore it as they glared at one another.
"If your not gone by morning Talia, I will bring you down" the Dark Knight threatened "Whatever plans you had for Gotham, bury them. Or you'll find your sister and Cain to be the least of your concerns"
"I'm surprised you'll have time for little old me considering your friend the Joker is still on the loose" Talia retorted with a smirk "I always find it interesting that you can contend with malevolent Kryptonains, Gods, Demons, powerful sorcerers, but a man dressed like a clown can give you so much grief"
"If it helps I have trouble saying no to girls scouts trying to sell me cookies" Peter said, causing Laura to groan while everyone else looked at him with varying looks of confusion "What? It's true, I can be strapped for cash but the moment one of those little harpies gives me the puppy dog eyes I find myself like thirty dollars in debt and six orders of their Thin Mints"
Which sucked because Peter can no longer eat cookies, and blending them into a smoothie or something semi-liquid just wasn't the same in his opinion. Laura will usually take them and offer them at her bar in the place of peanuts or as a little bonus snack for some of her specials, but that was far and in-between.
"There is something wrong with you" Natasha said with a slow shake of her head.
"That's what the voices in my head keep telling me" Peter nodded in agreement before he received a sharp elbow to the side from Laura "Ow!"
"Father, you can't be serious right now!" Robin said as he stared up at his mentor and parental guardian "If we don't take them now than-"
"I think someone's calling you" Talia pointed towards the balcony, causing everyone to turn and see the Bat-signal was lighting up the sky.
"I wanna a signal like that" Peter said.
"Why?" Laura asked with a frown "You barely answer your phone, you expect me to believe you'll respond to a freakin light pointing into the sky with a spider on it?"
"Honestly, yes" Peter said with a straight face, causing Laura's brow to twitch.
If she didn't love this man so help her...
Batman stared at Talia with an unreadable expression before he turned to leave "You will be gone by morning"
"Your more than welcome to come and try Beloved" Talia said as the Dark Knight and Boy Wonder headed for the balcony before pulling out their grappling guns and fired them off into the city before swinging away.
"So now what?" Peter asked once he was sure the Dark Knight and his sidekick were lone gone.
Talia was silent for a moment as she stared at the cityscape outside with an unreadable expression on her face before she turned towards Peter and Laura with a look of grim resignation.
"It's time to see to Black Mask's removal of power so Silvermane can begin his appropriation of all of his assets... now!"
"..."
"..."
"...Like right now, right now?" Peter questioned after a few tense seconds "Like, you literally want me and Laura here to go right over and murder the guy to death, right now?"
Talia's response was a thrown glass of wine aimed for Peter's head, a glass he skillfully ducked under before he turned on his heel and made his way to the door with Laura right behind him.
"Right, got it boss!"
...
"You know, I think this is all gonna end up biting us in the keister" Peter said as he sat in the passenger seat of a all red SUV, while Laura sat in the driver's.
"How so?" Laura asked as she sped down an oddly empty road in Gotham's Chinatown.
Black Mask moves a large amount of Drugs through there and Peter and Laura's mission was to take out the crime lord's top lieutenants, destroy the drugs, secure any cash and collect any ledgers found to be given to Silvermane so he can get in contact with Mask's contacts and establish himself as their go between. It sounded simple, but something was telling Peter that tonight might not be the night to make their move, GCPD didn't light that Bat-signal for fun after all.
"Well, we're hitting this place a full week ahead of schedule" Peter said as he looked down at his web-shooters and re-checked them for what felt like the hundredth time "Place is gonna be near deserted because it's a Tuesday, the place is always vacant on Tuesday, only a few guys are gonna be there and maybe a supervisor or two. Product wise, there's gonna be at best a tenth of what would be there on a delivery day, which was what we were originally waiting for when we hit. Take out as much manpower and product as we can before moving on to Otisburg and hitting some of the places there that are laundering money for Mask... also did I mention we'd be doing this all with ten other people, one of them Silencer?"
"Talia will be keeping her personal guard back to defend her in the event Wayne or one of his lackies tries something while you and I are doing this" Laura said as she blasted through a intersection despite the light being red and causing a car trying to cross to swerve and blare it's horn "Not the first time we had to do this kinda crap on our own. We've had less"
"Yeah, but those times were when we originally planned to do it and than something unexpected came up and your dad was forced to pull your brother off for something else. This?" Peter gestured between the two of them with a frustrated exhale "This is Talia rushing things. When you rush, you make mistakes"
"I'm sure she's... somewhat aware of what she's doing" Laura said as she noted the street they were one and realized they were coming up on their destination soon "Look, let's just do this and get it over with. Talia can deal with whatever comes next"
"Who the hell do you think she's gonna have deal with it?" Peter asked in a sarcastic tone "Us!"
Well maybe she can pay you back with a night in her bed" Laura said with an eye roll as she pulled off to the side and put the SUV in park before she and Peter climbed out of the vehicle and looked around for signs of either Police, Mask's people or worse, Gotham Vigilantes.
"Kinda creepy no one's out" Peter said with a frown as he felt an uneasy feeling make it's way up his spine.
"It's Gotham, when is it ever not creepy?" Laura asked as she pulled a backpack out from the backseat of their SUV before she and Peter made their way down a dark, trash ridden alleyway that smelled like something died, which given the city, was very likely the case.
"Well I think the area over by the theater looks nice. Reminds me of the old Gothic stuff we saw out in Europe" Peter said as he hopped on the wall, and resisted the urge to shiver at how... wet it felt, and crawled along it's surface next to Laura.
"You remember the plan?" Laura asked as they came to a stop at the mouth of the alleyway entrance and peered around the corner to see the four story building they were to attack.
"Yeah, I do" Peter said as he narrowed his
On the outside it looked like your typical shop that sold 'authentic' Chinese tea kettles, glass, silverware, statues and other little nick knacks that made people feel like they were in Asia. In reality it was a front for Black Mask's drug operation in this corner of Gotham, having close to half a million tons of heroin and cocaine pass through it before it's distributed to the crime lord's various territories to be sold off. On days the building is expecting a large haul, usually on Wednesday, there was at least twelve men out front, half of whom pose as beggars or homeless while the other half usually take up positions at each end f the street the building is on. Inside was supposedly another ten individuals, three posing as store owners while the other seven are 'shopping' or 'using the bathroom'.
But tonight, the place was near empty except for a lone guard that would be posing as a homeless man out front, usually armed with a firearm of some sort.
"On my mark..." Laura said as she sniffed the air for any other scents in the area aside from Peter's and the guard up ahead.
"How can you have a mark, you heal instantly" Peter joked, causing Laura to glare at him.
"Shutting up"
...
Three minutes later...
...
Peter and Laura's infiltration of the building had gone so well without a hitch that even Laura was starting to feel a bit uneasy with how things were playing out. Despite only encountering seven more men inside once they dealt with the outside guard, they were able to wander through the building completely unabated, they even found a decent size stash of heroin weighing upwards of two tons along with close to half a million dollars in small bills.
"Huh... that's a lot more than I expected to find on a Tuesday" Peer said as he stared at the three pallets stacked with packages of heroin while Laura examined the bills to see if they were counterfeit.
"Could be a late shipment, or maybe Black Mask couldn't move it all and had some left over" Laura said as she held a bill up to the light.
"But for a whole week though?" Peter said with puzzlement "And tomorrow he's expecting more coming in, won't this just get in the way?"
"Maybe it's for his men?" Laura shrugged as she tossed the bill back on the table where the other several hundred thousand laid "who knows how these people think"
"Not well apparently" Peter shook his head before his head snapped up towards the ceiling and his lenses narrowed "Movement upstairs... floor above us or the next"
"More guards?" Laura asked as she unsheathed her claws and looked towards the doorway they first entered through, it was the only other visible way into this room.
"Either that or a member of this city's Neighborhood watch" Peter said as he and Laura quickly exited the room and headed upstairs to see if they could find the source of the sounds Peter was hearing.
The answer to their question was discovered quickly when the duo made it to the third floor and found three more guards, all dressed in high end suits and sporting crude black full head masks that seemed to be made of wood. It seemed they didn't even know the building had been breached as they seemed shocked at the sight of Peter and Laura based on their vocal reactions and body language. Laura quickly put an end to their concerns by cutting down each man before he could so much as even utter a gasp.
"You, there's always this question I wanted to ask, but could never find the right way to say it that didn't sound weird" Peter said as he watched Laura tear her claws free from a man's throat and allowed him to fall to the floor, twin streams of blood leaking from his neck.
"What's that?" Laura asked as she sheathed her claws and turned to Peter with a hip cocked out and a hand on the other.
"The blood you get on your claws..." Peter nodded towards her hands "Where does... where does it go when you put your claws back in? Like does it stay on your blades or does it get wiped by the skin folds that your claws come out from between your knuckles?"
Laura blinked at the his and looked at Peter with surprise before she opened her mouth to respond before catching herself. She held a hand up and looked at it as she turned it from side to side and hummed in thought.
"You know... that's a good question. It might be both honestly" Laura said after a few seconds of deliberating on which was likely true.
"Gross" Peter said with a shiver as he and Laura stepped over the bodies and made their way down the hall to a office with the door left open and the lights on.
"Oh liker getting someone else's blood inside me is the worst thing you've ever seen" Laura said with a scoff ass she and Peter peered into the office to see if there was anyone else inside before entering themselves "Huh, this almost reminds me of my office back home"
"Almost?" Peter asked as he looked around and realized that it looked almost exactly like Laura's old office above her bar, minus the table in the corner hooked up to six different monitors that were showing live feeds of the building and the surrounding alleyways outside.
"It doesn't have that smell of our love making through the years" Laura said with a teasing grin.
"What we did was far from love" Peter responded dryly "Also, looking back at it all, I kinda feel like I was coerced on a few occasions"
"Probably" Laura said with a snort as she found the safe they were looking for.
It didn't look all that fancy on the surface, but she's learned from the best that the simplest looking safe is often the most complex. Exterior wise, it'd be nothing special, but interior wise it was likely fitted with a number of alarms triggered to go off the moment someone begins to tamper with it. It may even have a failsafe that if damage to it's exterior is to extreme or the right combination isn't put in fast enough, it'll destroy it's contents.
'What I'd do to have Felicia here' Laura thought with a shake of her head as she sat down in front of the safe and began to analyze the dial on it as well as the door of the safe, any visible seams and possible security measures.
Peter took to leaning against the edge of the desk and watched Laura work her magic. She wasn't as skilled as this one girl they used to run with, but Laura had worked with, and slept with, her to know what to do for the most part. And if all else fails, she could cut into it with her claws and grab the information they need and bail out if things get... complicated, which should be happening at any moment if Peter's usual luck holds out-
BOOOM!
The room shook a little and the light flickered, causing Peter to look up towards the ceiling with a frown on his face while Laura stopped what she was doing and looked at Peter in shock.
"The hell was that?" she asked while Peter walked over to the setup of monitors to see if he could find out what that sound was.
Luckily Peter didn't have to login, just use the mouse to select a monitor and start scrolling with the little mouse wheel.
"Gimme a second..." Peter said as he scrolled through the video feeds until he got to a camera that was facing outside "Ah, here we go"
The once empty street was now filled with cars, three police cruisers and two purple colored vans that looked to have seen better days. Several men were behind each van, trading shots with the Police, all dressed like clowns.
"What do you see?" Laura said as she sat back from the locker and looked up towards Peter.
"Looks like the Joker's people since their wearing clown stuff and one of the vans has the words 'Laughter is the best medicine' but there's a 'S' painted in front of the world Laughter so it comes out to 'Slaughter is the best medicine'" Peter said before he groaned "Just what we needed tonight..."
It was entirely possible that the homicidal Jester's people showing up here of all places was a complete and random fluke, but Peter will swear to the end of days that the Clown Prince of Crime somehow found out where Peter was going to be and intentionally made sure to have his people show up there. Peter would've laughed if he wasn't so annoyed with the man right about now.
'I swear I'm gonna smack him into next week' Peter thought before he exhaled through his nose and turned towards Laura "It doesn't matter, let's just finish doing what we came here to do and leave before the Bat shows up. When there's a bunch of clowns running around shooting up places, there's always a Bat not too far behind to throw things at them"
Laura nodded and turned her attention back to the safe and began to cut into it with her claws, causing a myriad of alarms to go off. If there was anyone close by, they'd have to hear the loud blaring and ringing sounds the safe was making as Laura tore a chunk of the door off and began to reach inside and pull out folders of different colors and thickness, flash drives, sheets of paper, and small spiral notebooks and shove them into her backpack while Peter went to stand guard at the door. He could hear the sound of gunfire not too far away, he places it somewhere a few levels below them and it sounded like it wasn't getting any closer.
Sadly, it was also in the direction of the way Laura and Peter got inside, thus they'll be forced to leave another way.
'We're gonna have to take the roof so I can swing us away- crap!' Peter thought as he suddenly stepped back when he saw a figure appear at the other end of the hall and kneel down to examine the bodies of Black Mask's men.
Peter didn't get a good look at who it was before he pulled back into the room with Laura, but it was either going to be one of Joker's men, if he had any tonight, some member of Black Mask's people that Peter and Laura missed or a Gotham City Police Officer, either of which Peter would like to avoid. One because the Clown likes to hire crazy people for his crimes, the second is likely to just start shooting everything and everyone while the last is more than likely going to shoot Peter for just looking at him funny.
'And here I thought Mexico had crappy officers' Peter thought dryly as he heard and felt Laura step up behind him, slinging the backpack over her shoulder.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Person at the other end of the hall" Peter whispered back, his hearing could pick up the man's footsteps slowly approaching the room they were in, along with the tell-tell sound of a pistol being drawn from it's holster "He's armed, just drew his gun. Three meters away now..."
Laura nodded as he placed a hand on Peter's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. Peter nodded and slowly raised his arm and switched to his web-shooter's firearm mechanism and counted down to three in his head.
'One- THREE!' Peter thought as he suddenly moved out into the hall and aimed at the individual just as they were raising their gun towards Peter.
"FRE-"
BANG!
The man's head suddenly shot back as Peter's bullet tore through his cranium and out the back of his head, sending bits of brain matter and blood along the walls and floor as the man fell to his knees before falling face first on to the floor. Peter raised his arm and peered down the hall to see if anyone else would appear before realizing that this person was alone, allowing the wall crawler to let out a sigh of relief.
"Is he dead?" Laura peeked out from behind Peter and stared at the body.
"Well I shot him in the head and he's now on the ground and not moving" Peter said as he briefly glanced down at the body and listened to for any signs of life "I think he might be a cop. Sounded like he was about to yell 'freeze' or something"
"Possibly" Laura said as she slid out from behind Peter "Could also be a member of the Joker's crew, or one of Black Mask's people that we missed on the way in"
"I thought so too but... I don't know" Peter shrugged.
The man was clearly a cop, the standard issue looking Police side arm and the fact he was about to yell 'freeze' was clue enough but he wasn't dressed in the typical Police Officer uniform that Peter's seen other cops in Gotham wear. He could've been a detective or something, but he seemed a little too old for that kind of work. Than again, Peter didn't know much about age limits in regards to law enforcement, it could be the man was rather average in age for the GCPD's Detective... group... section... thing.
'Or could be a Fed' Peter thought as Laura bent down and searched through the man's pockets for a wallet 'DEA maybe, cause of the drugs? Or FBI, I know they've been looking to nail Mask for a while now-'
"P-Pete...?" Laura said as her face paled when she flipped open the man's wallet.
"Yeah, what is it?" Peter asked. he hadn't seen Laura this shaken up in a while, it made him wonder what it was she found-
"It's... it's the Police Commissioner... James Gordon" Laura said with dread as she stared at the bloodied police badge and the ID she pulled from the man's wallet.
"What?!" Peter's eyes widened at this and he snatched the ID from Laura's hands and looked at it himself before looking down at the body and kicked it over to see that the man's face matched perfectly with the photo.
And now that Peter was actually looking at the man' face, he could recognize him from the few times he's seen the coppery haired Police Commissioner on the news or on the front page of some article detailing the arrest of one of Gotham's Rogues.
"Ohhhhhh fuck" Peter whispered as he and Laura shared a look with one another.
THIS, this is what happens when you rush things!
Suddenly Peter pointed towards he man "Why the hell is he even here-"
BOOOM!
Suddenly the entire office went up in flames and Peter found himself suddenly falling into a raging inferno below while Laura was sent flying through a wall.
Correction... this is what happens when you rush things!
...
And done.
Next chapter, Wait it get's worse...