There weren't many officers outside of the GCPD headquarters this time around. Peter could hear them inside of the station, holed up in their dry offices. He wondered if he should enter the building too, not really comfortable at the prospect of being surrounded by law enforcement.

Thankfully, Gordon hadn't forgotten him, he could spot the man waiting under a sturdy black umbrella, a few feet from the entrance. He waved at Peter when he saw him, leading him into the parking lot again.

Guess the man didn't fear rain.

They walked to the very back, up to a police van which had its back door open. Gordon sat in the large trunk, used to carry men and women through the city, and Peter did too, after some hesitation. His feet hung under the rain, as he stayed on the very edge of the vehicle's exit, but the rest of his body was relatively protected. The vehicle faced away from the wind.

Was this how the GCPD met all of their informants when the weather was like this? With how heavily the water was falling, it was hard to see anything further than ten feet away, or hear sounds other than the thundering of the rain, it did wonders when it came to privacy.

Gordon didn't light a cigarette this time, which he was grateful for considering how close they were sitting. The older man accepted the pizza box he handed him, opening it and generously giving him a slice.

"Seen anything interesting during your deliveries?" The policeman asked him after a while, his voice barely audible over the sound of the rainfall.

Peter had thought about what he would tell him all the way from the Bowery to Old Gotham. Firefly was out of the question, so was Harley, he didn't want anyone to dig into why he had a shotgun and where his papers and license were.

That left only a few of the strange encounters he had had over his first week.

"Anything out of the ordinary," Gordon pushed him. "Might be meaningless to you but could be important to us."

"Well…"

He lowered his head, deep in thought. Anything odd that had happened…

"There's a lot of activity in Crime Al- sorry, Park Row. Last time I went, there were at least several gangs there." He tried to grasp for anything more to say, as this did not seem like anything new to Gordon. "Uh… one of the gangs was kinda kept apart from the rest."

This seemed to get his interest. The man perked up slightly. "Any idea which one?"

Peter remembered the confrontation. He shook his head, then hesitated and nodded.

"I don't know the name but they were all wearing black jackets."

He was handed a twenty dollar bill for that piece of intel. "Anything else?" Gordon wondered.

"Maybe. But I'm not sure it's-"

"Go ahead."

"Uh ok."

Rain pattered on his shoes as he recalled the odd encounter, it dripped down and pooled on the ground. His battered sneakers were useless against the downpour and he could feel his feet ache with the cold.

"I delivered to a man who lives behind a bunker door a few days ago. It had a lot of locks. A lot." He cringed internally, hoping he wouldn't be asked to explain how he had noticed that.

Gordon frowned, stroking his chin pensively. "Anything else you can remember about this man?"

He focused as hard as he could. "He had gloves on." He said, "Even when touching the pizza. And he had me play a game for tips, asked me a riddle."

Over the rain, because they were so close and he was paying close attention, he could hear Gordon's heart beat slightly faster in excitement. For some reason, this information seemed to be of great importance to him.

"Do you recall where in town that happened?" The man asked, hand flicking to his pocket as if to grab a smoke then shooting back awkwardly when he changed his mind.

"I don't know the exact address," he admitted, "but it was somewhere South-East of the Bowery. And it was a basement apartment."

"Part of a building?"

Peter nodded, remembering the row of white faced gothic houses. It had been in the Bowery alright, he even remembered seeing some "joker boys" hanging around the area. He had delivered to so many people, however, that outside of the weirdest details, he had forgotten a lot about the interaction. The man's face, for example, was blurry in his mind.

This one tip earned him a whopping hundred dollars. He felt his heart skip a bit when he realized he was now carrying double that on himself. His suit budget looked like it was expanding pretty fast.

"Thank you so much sir," he grinned, pocketing the cash.

"Thank you, kiddo. That was some good info, could really help us out. Anything else you spotted?"

He shook his head, still not wanting to mention Harley or Firefly too scared to implicate himself. Before Gordon could dismiss him, he remembered the question he had meant to ask him. Things had gone a lot better than he had expected, with the man treating him gently, which was surprising for a police officer and he was feeling a bit emboldened by it.

"Sir… I have a question."

Gordon grunted, looking impatient. He had closed the box again and was now looking at his smartphone, a sleek black thing that made Peter drool with envy. He missed having access to technology.

"Sorry if it sounds weird but… are you the commissioner?"

The astonished stare he got as the only reply to his question made him blush deeply. Gordon opened his mouth to answer, closed it again then, out of nowhere, he started to laugh.

"If I am the commissioner?" He chuckled. "That's a good one, never heard it before." Peter's flush grew to reach his neck, he felt like an idiot.

Once he was done laughing, the policeman grinned at him, an expression the teen had never seen on the older man's face before. So far, he had acted serious and his only smiles had been to make him feel more at ease. This, however, looked genuine.

"You're my first informant who isn't from Gotham, sorry about that, I should have expected it." Gordon shook his head. "I am the commissioner. I thought you already knew."

Peter didn't feel as intimidated as he was expecting to upon hearing this. Their talk that night had made him feel significantly better about his police contact. Privacy appeared to be something many people in Gotham were willing to respect and he hadn't expected a police officer to do the same, yet he did. The man had only been concerned with professional information, not about him or his life. He hadn't asked about anything specific either, other than pushing for details about the location of the bunker, letting him pick what intel he offered up.

This was, all in all, a lot less dramatic and stressful than what he had pictured earlier. He felt foolish, and also like a bit of a jerk. Gordon was a good man from what he could see, and he had assumed he wouldn't be one. It wasn't like him, to judge so quickly.

There was something about the police in general that made him anxious, recently. He had tried to ignore it again and again but, sometimes, when he heard emergency sirens, he could smell smoke and blood, he could hear a man laughing hysterically, feel the hot stain of blood on his clothes, the stillness of a woman's chest in his arms. Every flash of police light reminded him of bullets, tearing through the nights despite his screams.

He didn't know why those things would come to him, in such a relaxed setting, invading his mind against his will. He had to clench his teeth hard when he shook Gordon's hand in goodbyes. He felt …

Angry. Afraid. Sad. Lost. Lonely.

He left Old Gotham as fast as he could after that, disturbed by the way his heart was betraying him. Cops were the good guys, weren't they? Why did he have so much trouble trusting them?

He wished M-J was there to help him talk through his feelings. They had always tried to that, work through hard times together. He missed her so much and failed like he had failed their relationship. He had promised her that he would make her remember him. There was no way he could keep that vow now.

Peter ended his shift later than he ever had before, deep into the night, probably one or two. Marco hadn't decided if he wanted a new hire yet by the time he came back. Despite the hour, he had still been waiting for him. As he often did, the cook slid him a box. It wasn't a pizza this time but a salad, loaded with meat, cheese and bread.

"Used to sell those too, back in the day. Gimme your opinion, might put it back on the menu. Small ones go with pizza, big ones, well…"

He shrugged, digging in his pockets for Peter's salary. 100$ that night. He was carrying on himself a lot more than he had been able to ever earn since he got to Gotham. It made the prospect of getting furniture for his workshop a lot less daunting, suddenly. He could probably find a good sewing machine and modify it to work on harder materials with only half of what he had earned that night. That was without even counting the money left in his desk.

He did the maths, walking out of the pizzeria with the salad box in his hands. Gordon had given him 120, Marco 150. His other deliveries had earned him a total of 60 in tips, and he had 100 back at his apartment. 430 dollars. In only two days.

He had never been able to make this much money this fast. Most high schooler jobs did not pay that well, and he remembered M-J often took a week or more at the coffee shop to make this much, and that included her tips.

His appartement looked slightly better than it had every other time he had came back after a night of work. The red locker added a touch of color and life that the room had been missing. He wished he still had his old movie posters and ship miniatures, to make the place feel more like home.

The feeling faded as he remembered that he wouldn't ever be home, couldn't ever be home. There was no one to share this place with him, as pretty and put together as he made it, it wouldn't fix the loneliness he was still feeling.

He turned on the radio and dug into the salad, not wanting to keep thinking about his situation. It was pretty good, and more than nourishing enough. He had seen traditional Italian places offer other meals than pizza before, so he wasn't surprised by it.

He wondered if Marco's had ever thought about doing pasta, those were pretty easy to package.

Also, he really liked pasta.

It wouldn't be very on brand, though, for him to start going around delivering noodles and, if Marco was alone in the kitchen, he probably wouldn't have time to deal with so many different recipes.

At least salad had similar ingredients as some of the more traditional pizza. Spices, cheese, vegetables, meat, mushrooms and many other could be shared between the two. A bit harder to do that with pasta…

Disappointing but not the end of the world. At least it gave him some variety from the endless cycle of ramen noodles and pizza, and it was probably better for his health, too. He didn't really gain weight, he needed too many calories in a day to be able to put on fat easily, but he did know a bit about nutrition. Technically, he was aware that it wasn't good for him to only eat a specific kind of food.

Now the hard part was actually doing something about it. He didn't have the patience to try and figure out a way to eat healthily and without having to share the basement fridges with his shady neighbors, not when he had Spider suits to think about and a whole city to investigate. He could think about that later, especially if Marco's started selling other food than pizza.

Tomorrow, he decided, he would start researching again. He would have to stop by the library, probably, unless he should go and buy some actual books. That would allow him to read while at his apartment, which was a boon.

Plus, he had to find a map of Gotham somehow.

Peter threw himself on the mattress, which he had dragged under the second roof window, so that he could see the sky. The rain was still falling hard, reducing every other outside sounds to mere whispers. He was starting to find comfort in sleeping in an attic; the height and easy access to the roof alone were worth it.

Next to him, his radio was playing a tune he had never heard before, probably from a band unique to this universe. The foreign song helped him calm down, oddly. He was learning new things, meeting new people.

And, tomorrow, he would start prepping his apartment for research. Getting books was a good idea, but he still needed to use the computer for some informations he wouldn't be able to get that way. Book store in the morning, Public Library in the afternoon, then.

Once that was done, he hoped he would have enough intel to decide what suit he wanted to develop first. He had started envisioning yet another one, a stealth oriented suit that would blend in with the darkness of Gotham. He had been partially inspired by the few pictures he had seen of the city's vigilantes : most of them wore black.

What should he call it? Night Spider? Dark Spider? Hmm… Maybe the Black Spider or the Sneaking Spider.

He fell asleep halfway through his musing. He did not have nightmares that night, for the first time in a long while.