"The Joker released it into the air." Batman tilted his head a little. "You seem to have flushed it out of your system. Though the Red Hood is still feeling some lingering effects."
Peter didn't know what to say to that. Had he truly been exposed to it? He didn't think he had.
"I…" Peter looked at his hand. "I remember feeling scared but I didn't…" 'I didn't hallucinate. Wasn't that one of the effects? Did the Red Hood have it worse than me? Is that why he was fighting Batman?' "Is Hood okay?"
"He's just a little cranky because he's being kept in for observation," Nightwing said and smiled. "B managed to give him an antidote before it got too bad for him so he's fine."
Peter let out a breath and nodded. He had to call the Red Hood just to hear it from the horse's mouth.
"What do you remember from last night?" Batman asked.
"What do you mean?" Peter asked nervously.
"Um, we think you may have been seeing things that weren't there," Nightwing said carefully. There was a note of sympathy in the tone of his voice.
'No way! I would know, wouldn't I?'
"Hood told us that you saw blood dripping out of the truck the Joker was in," Batwoman said, taking a step closer.
"That wasn't real?" Peter asked. Batwoman shook her head almost imperceptibly. Nightwing pouted. "The woman? She was…mutilated!"
As soon as he said that, he was right back in that truck. The woman was laying in pieces in a pool of her blood. Then her head moved on its own to face him. The dead eyes stared at him and then they blinked.
Peter awoke with a start. It had been a few weeks since that day. But Peter couldn't stop the dreams that plagued him. They were always a little different. Gorier than what he saw that night. And he was almost certain that he didn't have such a great rapport with Batman or his colony. He didn't think he'd had an actual conversation with the man…ever.
He also had other dreams about mundane things. Mostly about a life he'd never had. Or at the very least he had to remind himself that he'd never had. Because his dreams were bleeding into his memories. And he was starting to forget things. Like the name of his best friend. Why couldn't he remember it?
Peter rubbed his hands over his face and hair roughly. He had to get up. It was time to go to work. Half an hour later he was walking out of his apartment. From the corner of his eye, he saw a shimmer. He turned to stare at the area he saw it in but it was gone. Almost like it had never happened. Peter shook his head and kept walking toward the train.
Peter walked into the teacher's lounge to get a quick cup of coffee. He hated the coffee at work but he hadn't had time to stop and pick one up on the way to work. He walked by his usual coffee stop. By the time he realized his mistake, he'd arrived at the train platform and it was too late to go back.
Peter poured coffee into a mug and turned around to grab the creamer from the fridge. And he poured it right onto the counter. He had a two-second freak out about his mug magically disappearing when he heard a giggle.
"You shouldn't have bothered. I take it black, Mr. Peter. Or is it Mr. Richards?" said Traci Mercado.
Traci was the newly appointed English slash Literature teacher. She'd only started a couple of days after Peter did. She was five foot four inches tall without the three-inch heels she wore daily. She had beautiful long, straight, brown hair. Her eyes were a dazzling almond-shaped hazel. She sported a cute birthmark on the lower lid of her left eye.
The kicker was that she made Peter's heart beat a little faster whenever she spoke to him. He also had a hard time keeping eye contact with her. Maybe it was his shy side or the memory of striking out with pretty girls in high school. But he knew that she knew that he was attracted to her. And he hated it.
Peter turned to look at Traci with a slight glare. She'd been going out of her way to annoy him lately. When he took his lunch and he stood up to get something, she'd be in his seat when he returned. Sometimes she'd even take a bite or two of his food. If he was reading the paper during a break, she'd pull it right out of his hands as she asked what section he was reading.
"You know, you could just call me Peter." He gestured to the mug she was holding. "And I wasn't being a gentleman, I poured that for me."
"Into my cup," she said as she took a sip out of the red mug. Peter knew it was her cup. He just hadn't realized he'd grabbed it.
Tracy was smiling as she sipped the drink and looked at him through her lashes. How does she make smug look so fucking adorable? Peter cleared his throat and forced himself to look away before any embarrassing situations occurred. He went to the rack that held the coffee mugs and grabbed his mug. It was the only Superman cup on the rack. It was white with the bright emblem displayed on either side.
Todd had given it to him as a gift when he saw that all the mugs in the teacher's lounge were plain solid adult colors. His was a Wonder Woman mug. When Peter asked why not Batman, Todd scoffed and said he sucked.
"Yeah, I guess that was my mistake," Peter said, turning to face Traci's mug so as not to look at her directly. And he was talking to himself. Traci and the other faculty members were gone. It was for the best. He was still feeling the effects of that nightmare.
Peter poured his coffee and added creamer. Just as he was about to take a sip, the warning bell rang. "Of course!"
He drank the coffee in three big gulps, ignoring the burn. He left the mug on the counter and rushed out the door.
Peter was still giving a lecture when one of his students tapped in on the shoulder. Peter had been writing a formula on the whiteboard at the time and flinched at the contact.
"Sorry," the boy had said. It was Tim from his first-hour class. "I heard you talking and walked in."
"Uh, it's alright," Peter said and looked back at the empty classroom. He swallowed and turned to look at the boy. Tim, who hardly ever looked him in the eyes, was looking directly at him. His steel blue eyes were unwavering as he peered at Peter as if he was trying to solve a riddle. "What can I do you for?"
"Are you okay, Mr. Richards?" Tim said carefully as if he was talking to someone who'd react defensively.
"Sure," Peter said with a genuine smile.
"We're on lunch break and you were still giving a lecture as if you thought you were talking to a class full of students."
Peter gaped, inwardly, of course. The morning had gone by fast. Peter felt like he just blinked and it was over. He'd been teaching on autopilot. His smile faded and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. There was no lying to the boy in front of him. The boy whose goal was to learn how to juggle his persona between school, home, and work without getting lost in the monotony.
"Yeah, I've been lost in my head all day," Peter said with an embarrassed chuckle. "It happens to the best of us, I'm afraid."
Tim blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected his teacher to answer truthfully. He'd had a few more questions lined up to get him to drop his defenses and help him realize he was acting out of character even if he didn't admit it out loud. He didn't know where to take the conversation from here. So he nodded dumbly. Because what Mr. Richards said openly just happened to be something he'd been struggling with.
Peter squeezed Tim's shoulder and smiled. "Thank you. Who knows how long it would've taken for me to realize I was starving." And if on cue, his stomach growled. "Have you eaten?"
Tim nodded automatically but he hadn't had lunch yet. He would normally have already left school by now but he lingered wanting to give his teacher his journal. "I have to get to work, actually."
"Do you work nearby?" Peter said, gathering his things. He was getting ready to leave the classroom. He needed to eat something and there was a hot dog vendor a few blocks away. "I still have time. I'll walk you out."
"Uh, not really. I need to take the bus into Gotham," Tim said. It wasn't his usual mode of transportation but adults didn't normally feel comfortable seeing fifteen-year-olds drive.
"Great. I could buy you something to go," Peter said and ushered the boy out of the classroom as he locked it behind them. "How was your morning, Tim?"
"Uh, it went."
"Hmm," Peter said thoughtfully. "I guess that was partly my fault. I don't even remember the first hour of the day. Sorry about that, Tim. I try to leave my problems at home so that it doesn't affect my students."
"Honestly, I wouldn't have noticed anything. You didn't ask us any questions during your lecture, which was unusual. But it was interesting enough that even Lucas stayed focused on the material. Then you had us jump into a quick lab on modeling the water cycle. When you caught anyone making a mistake, you corrected them and then told us anecdotes about your lab mishaps. We laughed so much none of us realized time was passing until the bell rang. Erica and Jale volunteered to stay behind to clean up the lab tables," Tim said quickly as if he had to get the words out before he forgot them. "It was the best part of my day." He cleared his throat quickly. "So far."
"Good. I guess I didn't mess up as badly as I thought I did," Peter said and grimaced. "None of those stories involved me burning off all the hair on my left arm in a Bunsen burner incident, did they?"
Tim chuckled softly. "Nope."
"Oh, good. I don't have to worry about Luca recreating it then," Peter said with a small smile. "Lab safety is not a joke."
Then they both started to chuckle.
Peter waved goodbye as the city bus left the stop. He bought Tim a hot dog and some chips that he ate before the bus arrived. Peter was happy to see the boy come out of his shell. He'd only spoken to his messy brown hair during class and to Tim through the journal. It was nice to actually see the boy clearly and have him open up. Right before they parted ways, Tim handed over his journal and smiled sheepishly. Peter took it easily and placed it in a separate zipper pocket of his leather briefcase. It would be the first thing he read during his free period.
As Peter was making his way back to the school, his spider-sense assaulted him painfully. Peter bit back a shout of agony as his hands went to grip his head. Agee seconds later a bomb went off a couple of miles away. He heard the gasps of the people around him who quickly emptied the streets. Hiding before trying to figure out what had happened or what was happening.
Peter turned in time to see four large swat SUVs heading towards the only bank in the narrows. If SWAT was already in motion, how long ago had the danger started? No time to think of an answer.
Peter rushed forward ducking into an alley to find a shadowed corner. He stripped out of his clothes and showed them into his briefcase quickly before he slipped on his mask and crawled up the side of the building. He webbed his briefcase that was spilling out his clothes and webbed them to the back of a chicken coop.
Chicken coop? He didn't have time to dwell on that. He hurried forward. Jumping from one building to the next. They were so close to one another that Spider-Man didn't have to use his webs. He didn't stop his forward momentum even after he ran out of roof. He used his webs to make it the rest of the way. He stopped at a rooftop that had the best vantage point.
The bank had already been robbed? The windows were sealed but the front door was blown wide open. From the inside. That was the explosion that set off his spider-sense. Those responsible hadn't gotten away. They were standing in front of the bank wearing military-grade gear. There were five of them and each had a backpack and a semiautomatic weapon. Looking for a fight. The bank hadn't been the target. Then what was?
Spider-Man saw one patrol car in front of the bank. The lone officer he could see was frantically talking into his radio. As soon as SWAT was on the scene and setting up a perimeter, one of the men standing in front of the bank lifted his hand and pressed down on a button.
A bomb went off. The entire street was covered in smoke and debris. SWAT began open combat with the assailants that had suddenly doubled in size. Too many bullets. Spider-Man had never seen anything like this before. Never a silent group of assailants that were hell-bent on a shootout. Why hadn't they said anything? No demands. They weren't even trying to get away. SWAT hadn't even had a chance to try to open communications. It was just war. In the middle of the day. For no rhyme or reason.
SWAT had been forced back. Snipers on the roof. SWAT hadn't set up any snipers yet. Hadn't had time. Spider-Man took action. He silently and quickly worked his way towards the six men on the roofs of different buildings. They'd been positioned to box SWAT in. In less than a minute, they were all knocked out and dangling from the side of the buildings. A warning for the others.
Spider-Man noticed that the first officer on the scene was pinned down under a car. He was passed out but still alive. No telling how much longer he had. There was also a lone SWAT officer trying to stay alive stuck between those who'd been pushed back and five assailants who were focused on taking that particular officer down.
Spider-Man had to help them both. But his priority was the officer surrounded by dead teammates that wasn't ready to go down just yet. Not even with that nasty wound on his side.
Without thinking twice, Spider-Man jumped down from the eight-story building he was standing on to get down to street level. He flipped in the air to slow down his momentum and jumped off the side of the building to aim his fists at the biggest man in the group.
A/N : This story is written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. I know there are lots of questions that have not been answered. But I'm grateful to all the readers, those who've been following since the start of this story and the most recent. Your follows and comments are all very appreciated. You know it only takes one negative comment to put a wrench in the creativity machine. It also doesn't help that I have a lot less writing time than before and zero laptop. Writing and editing on my phone is not ideal. But imagination keeps this story alive. I just have to actually get it in writing.