The Dead Don't Talk, and Bagels

Summary: Peter and Diana's first team-up takes a turn for the worse.

now playing: she's lost control/joy division

That was the day Peter inadvertently learned how I entered my window from my alley. Move the recycling bin, hop on top, climb the fire escape. And always leave my window unlocked to get in. The likelihood of a criminal doing the exact thing I did to get onto the fire escape and then choose my window to break in to was low, but that was just what I figured the odds were. And the odds wouldn't rise, as long as Nightmare was around to keep the crime to an all time low in Queens.

A new all time low, now that Nightmare had teamed up with Spider-Man. A nearly unstoppable force, was what I hoped the news would pin, but media was unpredictable.

It was with this rigour that I gathered my Nightmare uniform as quickly yet quietly as possible, lest Madison get clued in on my climbing through the window. I almost invited Peter to follow behind me, but I could just picture him knocking over something stupidly loud and alerting the whole floor of his presence.

Also, I couldn't help but blush at the idea of Peter being in the same room as I changed.

It wasn't like I was uncomfortable changing in front of my friends. Bodies were bodies. But I did fear the awkward tension that would certainly arise from me not being able to read Peter's mind to be sure he didn't... feel anything I didn't reciprocate.

I shook the thought from my head. Obviously I found Peter attractive, but jeez, I needed some time before anything remotely sexy. And preparation. Lots of preparation. Once again, I cursed Madison at her lack of giving me the talk and resorting to those ridiculous sex pamphlets. And the school curriculum, for not teaching me anything of significance.

With that thought, my Nightmare outfit was complete, sans my black shoes. It would be okay, since it was dark out, and I didn't have to worry about Spider-Man recognising me in them. I pulled up my gloves, adjusted my mask, and left my window open a crack behind me.

On the ground, it seemed that Peter had disappeared, until the lid of the recycling bin opened, and Spider-Man crawled out. "Heyo."

"Jesus!" I said, jumping at how he sprang up behind me. "You're lucky that yesterday was garbage day."

Spider-Man- no, Peter- shrugged. "I've definitely had worse."

I didn't want to think about the situations Peter had gotten into that involved garbage.

"If we're both teaming up for patrol," I said, changing the subject, "Should we focus on your neighborhood's side or mine? Even though... I guess you kind of go everywhere, don't you?"

It was no secret that Peter was faster at navigating the streets of Queens than me. I'd lived here my whole life, so I knew my way, but I didn't have web shooters.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck through his mask. "Well, this will definitely be more difficult since you don't have a phone. But... if you want to split up, you can do a full circle around, say... a three block radius, and I can do a bigger circle around you. That way we're covering lots of ground, but we're not far from each other if one of us needs backup."

I cursed my lack of phone, but Peter's plan sounded sufficient enough to complete without one. "I have a watch," I informed, holding up my wrist that had a cheap little digital one on it that used to live in my dresser drawer. "We could make up quarter points between the circles to meet up at and touch base, if you want."

Peter used his hands to animate his plan. "If you started here-" he pointed in the air, "-and did a loop around the edge of my street, you'd be covering from your place to mine. I'd take on the rest a few blocks further up in circumference." He topped it off by doodling a circle around where his finger pointed with his other hand.

"We'd have to change it up every so often to stay unpredictable," I added. "But this is a great start."

The eyes of Peter's suit moved slightly upwards, and I could tell he was just as satisfied with our plan as I was.

"So," I said, grappling my way back up the fire escape to reach the rooftop of my apartment's neighboring building with Peter close behind. "How the hell did you find my building?"

"Nitara told me your room number and address," Peter replied, his webs sticking to the side of the building before I could even land.

We landed on the rooftop at the same time, him landing classically with a hand in front, me opting for a roll to lessen the blow. "Did she tell you the building code? How did you get in the door?"

"I didn't," Peter said. "I climbed the back to the roof."

How foolish of me, to think that Peter may have waited at the door for someone to open it ahead of him, or something. Why do that when you can just climb a building?

I paused to look at Peter. "The roof door is always locked."

"Was it?"

I silently mourned the deadbolt that used to be on the door to the roof that was now almost certainly broken by Peter, without him even realising it. It seemed collateral damage was an inevitable part of heroism.

Then, as soon as that thought hit me, I wanted to throw up. It certainly wasn't inevitable, and I would be the hero who proved it. Peter and I had done it once when we diverted the plane's course to the beach in our fight with Vulture. The whole point of being a hero was to save as many lives as possible. Tony Stark didn't do that when my dad died in his fight. Did he?

No. He has enough tech, enough money, perhaps even enough brains to prevent civilian deaths if he wanted to. And he didn't save my dad. All it took was a team of people working on call for risk assessment, evacuation, and rescue, but I suppose that's too much to ask if it were to come out of his pocket.

A red spandex hand waved in front of my face, and I snapped my eyes up to meet Peter at eye level, crouched next to me. "Diana. You okay? Ready to go?"

I parted my lips to reply, but was interrupted by a sound that's never good to hear. There were three separate bangs from somewhere around us- not close, but certainly not far- that caused Peter and I to instinctively press our backs to each other and scan the streets.

"Gunshots," I said, not seeing anything of significance, even with my now-enhanced vision. "Gunshots, right?"

"Yeah," Peter responded breathlessly. "Unless someone's shooting fireworks that we just can't see."

I gulped. The possibility of that being the reason was astronomically low.

A brief bout of silence followed, and just when I let my body relax the slightest amount, the sound of a thousand gunshots erupted from below. This time, though, we could see the aftermath. A plume of smoke was rising from a collection of blazing flames that disappeared behind the side of a building. It was, at most, a five minute run away from where we were right now. Two minutes, if you're Peter Parker and equipped with webs.

"I'm going," Peter said immediately. Another bang sounded out from a distance away, and I saw red and blue lights reflecting on the windows of an apartment complex a block down from Peter's destination.

"Not alone," I said, looping my arms around his front. "Can you move like this?"

"You're perfect," he said, taking strides towards the edge of the building as if I were weightless. "Don't let go."

I wrapped my hands around him tighter. "I wouldn't dream of it."

In less than a second, my feet were off the ground.

"Shit!"

Peter had caught up to the chaos, which was moving faster than the cop cars trying to follow the damage. Damage being something-someone- maneuvering from the sides of building to building as if possessed by the Hulk himself. Every wall they propelled off of left a crowd of screaming citizens on the street and a cloud of dust and smoke that allowed the villain to evade my sights.

"It's fast!" Peter shouted, stating the obvious. "Since when could Bigfoot move like that?"

I caught another glance at the figure as it jumped like a panther across another intersection. "Since when was Bigfoot red?"

Peter made a noise of confusion, but I could see it. I didn't see any clothing with what I could initially see. Instead, there was just a red blur of skin, or a skin-tight suit. But judging by the feral nature of this thing, I was inclined to believe my initial observation.

We had been following the path of destruction for what felt like forever, but must have only been less than ten minutes. Despite the time, as Spider-Man, Peter was incredibly fast. It didn't matter, though, since the creature was completely ignorant of its surroundings. Meanwhile, practically every block consisted of me using a trail to prevent debris from landing on a person or vehicle as Peter steered us forward.

Slowly, though, we were chasing it out of the city. It didn't seem to be running from us, but instead, just hellbent on creating chaos. But as the buildings got shorter, it became increasingly difficult to maintain our speed.

"There's less casualties here," I shouted through the wind as we continued to soar. "I could try to hit it!"

"With a trail?" Peter yelled back, with an edge of uncertainty in his voice. He was right. It would be hard to aim a trail that far ahead, and to hit it head on. Plus, we didn't even know if it would harm the creature.

But I was growing tired of clinging onto Peter. My arms had an ache spreading past my elbows, and if I changed positions, it would slow Peter down. Then again, with my extra weight, I was already slowing Peter down.

I was struck by an epiphany. "Throw me!"

I could hear the eyes of Peter's suit mechanically widen, and prepared myself as I felt him use a free hand to shoot a web onto my wrist. It stuck to my skin, and I knew that was to make sure my clothing wouldn't rip or hinder the throw. It felt weird- strangely cool, like the opposite side of a pillow, but also sticky, like gum. I made a note to avoid getting it in my hair.

I didn't have the luxury of being able to overthink the sensual aspect of the web, because as Peter reached the height of the momentum he could garner from his latest swing, he sent me flying overtop of a forested area as we reached the end of the neighborhood.

This was good, I thought to myself in the air. This way, he can use his webs to focus on swinging. And if I miss…

Then I wouldn't be able to help. Simple as that.

So I dived. Put my hands together, straightened my body like an arrow, and when I was within reach of the creature, sent a trail flying.

It went just over its head. Perfect.

I projected the trail into a sharp end, and wrapped it around the trunk of a large tree. And when the creature took its next leap, I pulled on it. Hard.

There was a sickening thwack as the wood contacted its head, and the tree crumpled with the hit. Still, the method was a success- its red body had made impact with the ground.

As I landed in a roll supported by my trails, Peter landing next to me soon after, we ran at it, full force, as it began to brush off the debris that I had hit it with. I could see now that its body was like a human. And, it did have clothing. A maroon pair of ripped shorts clung to its waist, probably hanging on by a thread. There was probably more, at some point, that got lost in the absolute devastation it had caused in the more densely populated part of Queens.

In fact, it was only a little bigger than the size of a biological human male. The difference being its blood red skin, of course, and claws that it donned on its hands in place of nails.

And not a scratch anywhere on its body.

Miraculously, there was something on the ground next to the tree that I had thrown at it, but there was no time to look. Without needing a recovery time, the red creature snarled, and began to stomp towards us. Unlike before, these movements were incredibly slow. Predatory.

I almost wished it was fast again. At least things wouldn't be personal.

Peter sprung into action first, using a web to bring the remnants of the fallen tree into its face. The wood merely turned to chips, falling onto the ground below. The ground of which, uncomfortably, was made of soggy soil covered by an inch of water. It soaked into my shoes, and the bare feet of the creature as well, but didn't deter it. Water must not have been a weak spot for it, then.

"Okay," Peter huffed after the second attempt at the tree didn't work. "So, he's the Hulk."

The creature roared.

Peter and I barely managed to jump in different directions to avoid it barreling into us, and both prepared for another attack. I called on my trails, making the six of them I had out longer and at the ready. I couldn't engulf the place in darkness- not while it put Peter at risk.

Peter himself had already gone forwards to fight again, spinning a web around its arms, over and over again until there had to be ten layers, just from Peter hopping back and forth around the thing as it stilled from the attack.

Peter was panting by the end, as he ended up next to me. "Did it work?"

The creature answered his question when the claws from its hands practically doubled in size. They curled up slightly, breaking the bottom of the web trap seamlessly, and cutting through the rest like wrapping paper through scissors.

"Crap," Peter squeaked.

"It didn't work," I breathed, taking slow steps back as the creature stood to its full height before us once again.

Peter scoffed. "Oh, really? Really, Nightmare? It didn't work? What makes you say tha-"

Peter was cut off by a guttural scream erupting from the red creature, and it sprinted towards us with its shoulder at its front, causing Peter and I to tumble separate directions. I landed on my hands, which would have been fine if the ground didn't resemble a swamp, or if my gloves were waterproof.

I could alter my costume later. Right now I would just have to work with soaking wet hands.

I stood up, struggling with my shoes getting stuck in the muddy ground. I wiped what I could from my hands onto my pants before an alarm went off in my head. The creature wasn't attacking me, which meant-

"Spider-Man!"

I looked just in time to catch Peter getting promptly picked up from the ground and thrown back to where he was just knocked down. Water squelched as he hit it again, this time with triple the force. The red hand made an attempt to grab his leg again, but Peter directed his web shooters towards another tree, gliding towards his destination just in time for the creature's hand to dip into the mud.

"This thing makes Frankenstein look like Prince Charming," he gasped, shooting upwards into the tree to get temporarily out of reach. "Who fucked this guy up so bad?"

"Frankenstein was the creator's name," I huffed, circling a different tree opposite to Peter, so that one of us would have a vantage point no matter the thing's next move.

Peter crouched on the top branch as we both caught our breath. "Wait, what?"

I peeked from behind my tree to assess the field. "How did you not know that?"

Peter fiddled with his web shooters. "No one tells me these things!"

With a roar, the creature decided which direction it wanted to go in this time. Its beady eyes were locked on me, and I slipped behind the trunk again. Fuck.

Its eyes were an emerald green. I could have sworn, just for a moment, they actually sparkled in the night air.

"My webs aren't doing a whole lot," Peter shouted from above. "And we can't hit it. Any ideas?"

My brain whirred. Trapping it would be the best route, but if it could break through webbing so easily, our best option was eliminated.

"I can't pierce it if the skin is impenetrable," I shouted, looking for a new tree to hide behind. "I'm fresh out!"

"I can call Mr. Stark," Peter began. "He'll be able to handle it, to bring something we can beat it with-"

"No!" I yelped, eyeing the branch above my own tree. I could copy Peter and go upwards, not to the side. "We're at least keeping it away from the public. Let's just think of something!"

The words I'll owe you one went unsaid.

I could tell Peter hesitated, but before I could even consider his next move, I heard it move towards me.

I shot a trail to the tree, to wrap around the branch, but when I jumped and retracted it to pull myself up, something else happened. The trails were sharp, and they sliced the tree branch clean off. I jumped behind the next, mostly out of surprise.

What the hell was that? I was supposed to be able to control whether or not they were sharp. I wanted to grip the tree- they should have been dull. That wasn't supposed to happen.

Peter's next yell told me that the creature was close, but my feet were frozen. My mind was blanking, because all the variables that I normally worked with, that I depended on, were changing and I didn't know what to do.

The tree I was behind was uprooted, and thrown by the creature over its shoulder, like it was an inconvenience.

It was funny, because the only thing I could think of was how the tree wouldn't have worked out for me to climb anyway.

"Diana!"

Damn, I thought. He's only using my real name because he thinks I'm about to die.

Which, I probably was.

A plain survival instinct took over. As the red hands shot towards me, in return, I sent my trails. One, two, three and four wrapped around the creature, momentarily pinning its arms. This wouldn't last, considering the raw strength I just witnessed from it. My head was on fire, my brain went to my trails, and suddenly, I was back in the alley with Vulture, watching the gun fire energy at that man, at me, and I felt it as it shocked my entire body, using me as a circuit-

I was barely focused on how I was doing the same with my trails now until a red blur collapsed into the water, drenching me with a tsunami of water droplets. I stopped shaking. I hadn't realised I had been.

"-ana," a voice echoed. "Di-na!"

I wanted to listen, but there was a deafening ringing in my ears, rattling my soul from the inside out.

Yet, as my eyes focused again, the rattling was just Peter shaking my shoulders back and forth. "Diana!"

"Nightmare," I muttered, eyes trailing to the unmoving red body in the shallow water. "We're not dying."

"Okay," Peter said, sounding a bit relieved to hear what I had to say. "Okay."

I swallowed, hard. "Is it-"

Peter looked at our former opponent. "I think so."

"I…"

In the dark, my eyes picked up on a certain object on the ground, probably soaked through and through. It was a light blue, and something white stuck out of it.

Staggering closer, I kneeled to pick it up. It was a wallet.

I looked at the reverse side of the exposed paper. A photo.

A little girl, on a swing tied to a tree, smiling wide.

I dropped to my knees, taking pressure from my still shaking ankles.

"Tell me no," I murmured, flipping through the wallet. Credit cards for an N. Adder, with an OSCORP stamp. A points card for bubble tea. A driver's license, and the picture-

I looked at the dead, open eyes of my victim. They were no longer shining, but they definitely belonged to this man.

"No," I whispered, and it almost sounded like a whine. This red thing- whatever it was- wasn't a thing at all. It was a person. A father. A guy who had a penchant for boba, but he would never have it again. "No, fuck!"

"Diana," Peter tried again, placing a soft suited hand on my shoulder, crouching down by my side. It was an easy form for him to take. "He was dangerous."

"That doesn't make it right," I gasped. "I need to-"

"I know you don't like it," Peter continued, drawing circles into my shoulder, "but we have to do something about this. I can-"

"No! Let me just- if I can- give me a second, I…" My fingers shook like streamers in a hurricane as I ran them through my hair above my mask. My pinky got caught, but I ripped through the knot of wavy brown before thinking. "His body. There are burns, probably, so we have to get rid of it. We-"

I stopped, throat dry. I didn't want to drag Peter into this. I was the one who had just committed murder, after all.

Murder.

Murder.

It was starting to not sound like a word anymore.

"I can take him to a warehouse. Or a beat up building. The Vulture's old spot, maybe. Burn it to the ground, and then maybe they won't be able to tell it was me-"

"No," Peter interrupted, shocking me silent. "You're not hiding a body, or going down for murder, or anything. This guy has killed… I don't even know how many. I know you didn't get every block of concrete or brick before it fell on the way here."

"Thanks," I yelped, full on sobbing shamelessly, now. "Remind me I didn't save more people!"

"Not what I meant!" Peter said, trying to save himself. "That's on me, too, since I couldn't catch up- I mean he wasn't a good person. For all you know, you just saved more lives."

"That's easy for you to say," I murmured. "You didn't just fucking kill somebody."

I could hear sirens. They were far away, but only getting closer.

Judging by Peter's cocked head, he could hear them too.

"Listen," he said, pulling me out of the muddy water. "You're going to hate this, but hear me out."

"If you say you're calling Mr. Stark," I threatened, "I swear-"

Peter nodded, and I nearly crumpled to the ground again. The thing was, I couldn't even blame him for wanting to. I had just fucked up monumentally, and now we needed someone to clean up the mess. To deal with the corpse I had just created before the cops arrived.

I was just like him. Like the scum that murdered my father.

"I can't stay," I said, the tears on my cheeks finally reaching my chin, and falling away.

"I know," Peter said, already holding his phone. "It's okay. But we can't waste time."

I was already walking away.

The wallet was a weight in my pocket.

Getting back was harder than it took to get here. My legs were no match for Peter's webs, and it wasn't exactly like I had a lot of energy.

Peter was currently explaining to Tony Stark why he was standing above a red dead body.

And I was walking home.

I wondered, briefly, if he was going to lie to cover for me. The sentiment was nice, but…

A part of me just wanted him to drop the bomb. Spill the beans. Let the cat out of the bag. Just to take this crippling secret off my chest before it crushed me.

After an hour of walking, I found myself in front of Nitara's apartment.

God, did it feel like the night when this all began.

I jumped onto the fire escape at the side, mostly hidden in shadows. I wasn't using my powers to get up here. I didn't want to see them. I hadn't even removed my gloves, my muddy, disgusting gloves-

Nitara opened the window before I could even knock. She let me in without asking a single question.

"My dad isn't here," she said after a moment of us both standing silently in the middle of her room.

I blinked. "Oh."

"Are you okay?"

I opened my mouth to answer, and I knew that the moment I said something, I would break.

Nitara's eyes evaluated my appearance, her eyebrows tilting into a concerned expression. "D?"

"It was an accident," was all I could get out before my breath caught in my throat, and I started to cry.

It didn't seem fair that my punishment for tonight was just me being upset, and that N. Adder, whoever he was, whatever happened to him that caused him to turn into that red creature, was dead. His punishment was death. At my hands, no less.

"No," Nitara said, pulling me into a hug, the shit on my uniform no doubt flaking off of me and sticking on to her. "It wasn't your fault. You wouldn't feel like this if you had meant to."

I didn't say anything. I just squeezed my best friend back. Sometimes, it felt like she could read my mind, and she always knew what to say.

"Let's clean you up," she suggested, leading me to the bathroom. "Do you want me to call Madison? Peter?"

I shook my head no as I kicked off my shoes, stepping onto the tile floor. The swampy water had completely fucked my socks, so I took them off too. It felt robotic.

"My dad's out for the night," Nitara said. "We can throw those in the wash and they'll be good as new."

The tears still fell. I didn't deserve her, and I didn't deserve to have clean shoes, or-

"Bullshit," Nitara said, wetting a cloth under the sink. "You didn't mean to do anything. You still deserve good things."

I had said that out loud. My throat was tight, and I wanted her to stop saying that, to protest, because I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve jack shit right now, and I needed to get that through her head, so I barely even thought before I spoke my next words. "I killed somebody."

Nitara brought the washcloth to my face. "Okay."

She didn't even stutter.

"Did you hear me?"

"You killed somebody," Nitara repeated, rinsing the washcloth and bringing it to my cheek.

"You're not mad," I said flatly. "You should be mad. You shouldn't want to be doing this right now."

"I do want to do this," Nitara said. "I wanted to do this two minutes ago. I still want to do this now. You're still the same person you were since you walked through my window, and since before you told me that. I know that you're a hero, and that you wouldn't have let that happen if you weren't trying your best. So no, I'm not mad."

"I don't feel like a hero," I sputtered. "Heroes don't kill people."

"Maybe, maybe not," Nitara spoke. "But I know for a fact that heroes are human, and humans make mistakes. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person, but that you can learn from this, okay? Maybe not right now, but you'll look back and see. Come to my room and we'll find you clothes. I'm going to start the washer."

I trudged behind Nitara, who's stance seemed to be unmoving on my morality. She only took a moment to go through her drawers, before setting a pair of pants and a band shirt on her bed.

"Tonight, you like Mother Mother."

"Okay," I said, staring at the shirt. What a way to get introduced to a band.

"I'm going to get us food. But I do have one question," Nitara said, standing in her doorway. "Why were you out tonight? You told Harry and I that you were staying in."

The guilt nearly went to the back of my mind from the extreme confusion I was experiencing. "I never told you guys that. I haven't even seen Harry in… forever." What felt like forever, anyway, except we were together at the diner the night of Vulture and Homecoming. He hadn't gone to the last Yearbook meeting, either.

"Um, yeah you did," Nitara said, more pressed than when I had told her I had committed a capital offence. "Harry and I's date earlier? You came by the deli, I said, 'Hey, are you going out tonight?', and you said, 'No, I have a ton of school,' and I said, 'Spanish?' and you said, 'Yeah,' and then left with a loaf of bread? Kind of rude, actually, because you didn't even say goodbye."

I stared at Nitara for a minute before replying. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

She looked a little concerned. "Are you sure nothing else happened to you tonight? Any reason your memory-"

"My memory is fine," I said quickly. "And you know I don't study for Spanish! I was at home. Sleeping. You can ask Madison. This…"

Madison.

"Madison," I said out loud.

Nitara raised a brow. "You want me to call Madison?"

"No!" I yelped, loud enough for Nitara's eyes to widen. "No," I said, calmer. "I mean, this is like when I saw Madison on the beach, and I confronted her about it, but she didn't know anything, just denied it! And- the diner! I saw Spider-Man outside, but he didn't actually have that suit, so it couldn't have been him! Holy shit, I thought I was crazy since it was me, but if it happened to you, then I'm not crazy!"

"You're going to have to tell me about every detail about those encounters," Nitara said seriously. "But… you're saying there's an… impersonator out there? Following us, specifically?"

"It feels like it," I said. "Right here, we need a safeword. Or a different one, for each of us."

"Mine is bagel," Nitara said immediately. "I'll say it whenever we meet up, as long as no one can hear."

"Then mine is jam," I concluded. "I will tell you everything. But were you... were you going to make bagels?"