I do not own the characters from Dc or Marvel comics
The Night of The Spider
That night haunted Dick. He'd lie awake at night hearing Jason scream for mercy while the Joker mercilessly beat him. He could still hear the crowbar smack Jason's poor broken body, and every morning Dick would wake up in a cold sweat.
"Are you sure about this, Dick?" asked Bruce, breaking Dick out of his daydream. The two men sat in the back of one of Bruce's cadillacs while Alfred drove them to Dick's new apartment in New York. "If you stay in New York I can't keep an eye on you as well."
Dick pulled out his earbuds, and looked at Bruce. "I need a change Bruce, I keep hearing Jason's voice in my dreams, and I can't get away from it. Maybe the new scenery will help."
Bruce sat back in his seat. It was clear that either Jason's death wasn't bothering Bruce as much as it was Dick, or he was just better at hiding it. "It's been a month," he said. "You'll need to get over it eventually."
Dick turned on Bruce," Why won't you let yourself grieve?" Dick almost spat the question out."Are you too tough? Or does being the Batman mean that you can't show any emotion whatsoever?"
Bruce looked away and said, so softly that Dick almost didn't hear him, "I am grieving."
They spent the rest of the car ride in silence until Alfred pulled up to the curb, and called back, "We're here, Master Dick."
"Thanks Al," Dick said. He grabbed his suitcase, and left the car. He only looked back when he heard Bruce call his name.
"I'll be checking up on you."
Bruce's final words stuck with Dick as he walked into the dorm and found his room. He opened the door, and saw a thin teenage guy around Dick's age.
"Hey, you must be Dick," the guy said. "I'm Peter, your roommate."
"Good to meet you," said Dick, shaking Peter's hand. "That's an impressive handshake."
"My aunt always tells me that most first impressions are based off a person's handshake."
"Sounds like a wonderful woman. My guardian told me something similar."
Peter helped Dick unpack. The two soon realized they had much in common. Peter was also an orphan who had been raised by his aunt and uncle until his uncle had been killed by a mugger. Dick told him about the days in the circus, and how his parents had died in a freak accident.
"So you were raised by Bruce Wayne?" Peter asked, grinning."I'd love to work with some of his cool tech."
Dick laughed,"It was mostly cool, but some of it was tough. I was always in the spotlight, and for a nine year old it was a lot."
They finished unpacking in silence.
That night Dick was plagued by nightmares once again.
Batman!
Robin, hold on!
Dick wake up!
Dick opened his eyes to see Peter's worried face looking down on him," You okay, man?" He asked.
Dick sat up, wiping his face,"I'm fine. Just a nightmare."
"You sure?"Peter asked.
"Yeah I'm gonna go out for a bit," Dick grabbed a briefcase, which contained his suit." I need some fresh air."
Nightwing jumped from roof to roof. The cool night air kissed his face under the mask that covered his eyes as he paused to catch his breath. He hadn't been on patrol since that night, and he needed to hit something, or someone. His lips curled as he saw a group of people in ski masks enter the dark bank below him.
The robbers didn't even hear Nightwing coming. There were five of them, armed with crowbars, and pistols. Which were useless as in a matter of seconds Nightwing had disarmed and hogtied the men.
"You know if you wanted to make a- what happened here?" Nightwing turned his head to the vaguely familiar voice, which belonged to someone in a ridiculous red and blue suit. "Who are you?"
"I'm Nightwing, and I was taking care of these guys."
"I'm Spider-Man you're in my city, so leave these goons to me."
"If all New York can produce is scrawny, flamboyant heroes, then maybe it's best that I moved here."
"Scrawny? Flamboyant? I'll give you ten seconds to take that back."
"Or what? You'll shoot webs at me from that stupid spider on your…"
Nightwing was on the ground before he could finish the insult. Looking at his foot, he saw an actual spider web as thick as a rope stuck to his ankle.
"I swear I was kidding about that one," Nightwing said as he ripped the web off. "Now I'm gonna make you pay."
"Oh I'm so scared. Does that blue bird on your chest throws metal boomerang types things?" Spider-Man taunted as he plucked Nightwing's birdarang out of the air, then jumped over Nightwing's lunge.
Nightwing felt Spider-Man's elbow collide with the back of his neck , and grunted in pain as he smacked the ground. Looking up, he saw his brightly colored rival jump onto a wall, and started climbing straight up like it was nothing. In a flash, Nightwing had his grappling hook, and he shot towards his crimson rival. Spider-Man climbed over the edge, and turned to find Nightwing's elbow in his jaw.
"So you're a persistent one aren't you?" Spider-Man rubbed his jaw, and tried shooting another web at him, but Nightwing, who was expecting that, caught the web, which he used to pull Spider-Man towards him and drove his foot right into Spider-Man's red chest.
"Alright," Spider-Man panted, Nightwing's kick must have knocked the wind out of him. " you're good, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve."
The two men advanced towards each other like wolves battling for dominance.
Dick pulled himself through his bedroom window, clutching his chest. He had definitely broken a few ribs, probably his nose, and possibly a finger. That Spider-Man was tough he seemed to be able to sense when nightwing was going to strike, and how to counter it.
Changing into civilian clothes, Dick powered up his laptop. Logging into the main server of the bat cave, he looked up everything the Batman had collected on Spider-Man.
"Web shooting, ability to sense what is about to happen, wall climbing," Dick considered studied the webbed warrior for hours before he powered off his laptop, and crawled into his bed.
"What happened to you last night?" Peter asked, flipping a pancake as Dick limped out of his room.
"I had a few too many drinks, then decided to pick a fight" Dick lied, and put his head on the table groaning. "You should see the other guy."
"Big guy?"
"I wish"
"I suppose you need a few of these," Peter set a plate of pancakes in front of Dick, who grunted his thanks, and drizzled syrup over the golden disc of cooked dough.
"Who's Jason?" Dick nearly choked on pancake at the abruptness of Peter's question.
"Where did you-?"
"You called it out in your sleep last night," Peter slid a glass of orange juice in front of him, which Dick used to dislodge the pancake he'd almost choked on.
"My foster brother," Dick said. "He died recently. That's why I left Gotham, I needed new surroundings."
"How did it happen?"
"Car explosion," Dick lied. "he was eighteen."
"That sucks, man," Peter sipped his orange juice.
"Yeah," Dick agreed,"it does."
Later that night, Nightwing was on patrol when he spotted a familiar, brightly colored suit swinging through the buildings. He grinned and started sprinting towards the building the bug had landed on.
Spider-man turned to Nightwing's footsteps, and groaned, "Didn't I teach you your lesson last night?"
"No you just let me figure out your moves, and come up with a strategy," Nightwing taunted. He had spent all day on the Batcave's servers studying the strategies employed by his arachnid rival.
Before Spider-man could mount a comeback, a voice behind him said, "Well this should be a nice warm up."
Nightwing turned to the voice. For a second he thought the speaker was with Spider-man, as he had a similar red mask covering his face, but on his chest was a red bat.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Spider-man's question cut through the silence between the two men.
"Who I am is of no concern to you, but you may call me Red Hood, for now," Nightwing could tell from his tone that the stranger was sneering. "All that matters to you is that I will use you to get my revenge on The Batman."
Nightwing paled.
"What do you have against Batman?" Spider-man cut in,"and what's up with the death glare at Nightwing?"
"He failed to save me," Red Hood answered,"and he refuses to get revenge on my killer, so now the Red Hood going to take another son from him."
With that, Red Hood lunged at Nightwing, who felt a fist smash into his broken rib. Grunting in pain, Nightwing clutched his chest, and responded with a kick that glanced off Red Hood's shoulder. Spider-man tried to intervene, but he was quickly dispatched by an elbow that got him right between the eyes.
Nightwing roared in fury,"Only I am allowed to hit him!" Lunging at his foe, he wrapped his fingers around the mask, and ripped it off.
"No, it can't be," Dick stared in disbelief as Jason grinned up at him. "How? That's not possible?"
"Lazarus pits can do wonderful things, Dickie," Jason manipulated the nickname so that it didn't sound like a term of endearment anymore, more like a cruel taunt.
NIghtwing noticed Spider-man stirring in the corner of his eye, "Lazarus pits? Ra's Al Ghul." Nightwing knew all about the underground pools that the man who trained Batman used to prolong his life.
"The very same," Jason pulled a knife, and twirled it. " And now to get my revenge on good old Batsy for not saving me, not killing the joker, when he had the chance, and replacing me."
Replacing him?
The web came out of nowhere and got Jason right in the chest, square on his red bat.
"Stupid bug," Jason spat.
Spider- man lunged at him, but was grabbed by Nightwing before he could reach his target. Nightwing had to hold on with all his strength so that his surprisingly strong rival couldn't hurt his friend.
During the struggle, Jason managed to cut his way out of the web, grab his mask, and jump off the building calling, "You haven't seen the last of me!"
Only when Jason was completely out of sight did Nightwing release Spider-man.
"I would have had him!" Spider-man almost screamed. "Why'd you stop me?"
"That doesn't matter, what matters is that I need to get him to Batman, and for that I'll need your help." Nightwing turned to his rival, and after a moment's hesitation, took off the mask that covered the top half of his face.
"Dick?"
Dick suddenly knew where he recognized the voice from he'd heard it for the first time three days ago when Bruce dropped him off. "Peter?"
Spider-man pulled off his mask, revealing the face of Dick's roommate. "You've been Nightwing this whole time?" Peter seemed almost as surprised that Dick was Nightwing as Dick was that he was Spider-man.
"Yeah I am."
"Did you know that guy?"
"That was… Jason"
Peter's jaw dropped. "You mean Jason, your dead foster brother Jason?"
"Yeah," Dick rubbed his jaw, "and he wants to kill both the Joker, and Batman."
"Well why don't we let him kill The Joker?"
"Because if we do that makes us no better than The Joker himself," Dick answered almost immediately. Jeez I sound like Bruce, Dick thought to himself. His mentor had told him something very similar in the early days of his training as Robin, back when he was a little nine year old who had just lost his parents. "We need to go after Jason."
"Nightwing, I think I've got something," Spider-man's voice sounded from Nightwing's earpiece, breaking through the silence of the past hour.
Nightwing let out a long breath before responding, "Where?"
"Pizza place on Broadway."
"Angelo's?"
"No Joe's."
"On my way."
Dick used his grappling hook to swing from building to building, silently envying Spider-man's web shooting abilities, and before long he was standing over Joe's pizza. "Spidey, I'm here." No response. "Spider-man where are you?" Static. Nightwing swore to himself. "Nightwing to Spider-man, what's your position?"
"Behind you."
Nightwing turned to the voice, and was horrified to see Red Hood behind him, holding Spider-man's limp body.
"He's alive," Red Hood reassured Nightwing. "For now." He tossed Spidey's body like a rag doll. "Now it's your turn, but first." Red Hood raised his hands to his mask, and pulled it off, revealing the face of Nightwing's brother. "You wouldn't hurt dear old Jason. Would you, Dickie?"
Dick removed his small mask, and threw it to the side. "If I have to." He got into a position that would allow him to be one the defensive.
The two friends circled each other like lions. Neither one wanting to strike first. They stared into each other's eyes looking for a sign of weakness, and waited for the perfect chance to strike.
It was Jason who struck first. With a loud cry, he launched himself at Dick, throwing his full body weight into the chest of his older rival. Dick, having predicted this, rolled backwards using Jason's momentum to make him over pursue, and go headfirst into the roof. Dick instantly pounced. He tried to put his knee into Jason's chest, hoping to force him to to the ground, and knock the wind out of him. Jason twisted so Dick's knee missed and smashed into the hard asphalt of the roof.
Back and forth the two men fought. Everytime one thought he had the upper hand, the other would snatch it out of their grasp. This continued until Dick was pushed up against the side of the roof with Jason's hands wrapped around his throat.
"Looks like I am the winner Dickie," Jason whispered.
Dick couldn't get a response out. He was starting to see white spots, and he could feel himself losing consciousness. Then, like a miracle, the pressure was gone. Dick gasped for air. He pushed himself up onto one arm expecting to see Jason holding a gun to his head, but was surprised to see that Spider-man had regained consciousness, and was fighting their foe.
Dick slowly got to his feet in time to see Spider-man get put into a choke hold. Dick had no choice, he needed to save his new friend. Curling his hand into a tight fist, he lunged at Jason. Putting all his strength and momentum into a single punch that Jason just looked up in time to see. The punch caught him in the jaw, sending spit, blood, and teeth flying, and sending the former Robin into the asphalt.
"Peter," Dick shook his friend's shoulder, and pulled the mask off. Peter's face was grey and bloody. Dick put his finger to Peter's neck, looking for a pulse. For a second, Dick didn't feel anything, then he could feel a faint beating. He sighed in relief.
"What happened here?"
Dick knew that voice, and that tone. It was not a good thing.
"Hey, Batman," Nightwing said, nervously.
"Explain."
After the Nightwing gave him a quick summary, Batman straightened up, and said,"I need to take Jason to the Batcave, you can either stay or come with me."
"I'm staying."
Nightwing almost thought he saw a smile cross Batman's lips."Thought you might."
As Batman walked away, Nightwing called to him, "Batman!" he raced to catch up to his mentor,"Jason said you replaced him. What did he mean?"
Batman sighed, "The new Robin. His name is Tim Drake, and I adopted him right before you moved."
"Why didn't I ever see him?"
"You were in your room all the time, and I hid him when you came out because I didn't want the child to suffer your anger that should be directed at me."
Nightwing didn't get to ask his next question. Batman had jumped in the Batplane that was hovering under the edge of the building, and was gone.
"So I guess you'll be heading back to Gotham now?" Peter asked Dick the next morning. "You'll probably want to make sure that Jason gets better, and I'm sure Batman needs your help."
"Nah," Dick saw Peter instantly perk up. "I wouldn't want to leave the people of New York with just a scrawny, flamboyant hero to protect them."
"Well I don't think he needs your help. I mean Nightwing doesn't even have powers."
"Nightwing doesn't need powers. He has muscle mass."
The two friends glared at each other for a second before laughter erupted from the two of them. Through the tears running down his face, Peter choked out,"He doesn't need powers he has muscle mass," before doubling over in laughter again.
After the laughter died off, Dick held out his hand. "Partners?"
Peter wiped his eyes, then shook the offered hand,"Partners."