Now normally Peter would be freaking out, but Peter simply did not have the mental capacity to worry about anything at the moment. Not to mention the dust on everything told him it hadn't been used in quite awhile.
He trudged to the bathroom to look through the cabinets. Finding what he was looking for, he grabbed a loose piece of cardboard and a towel. Settling back down on the couch, he spread the hoodie out, inserted the cardboard into it, and spread the nail polish remover onto the logo. He'd have to wait half an hour for the nail polish remover to actually work on removing the logo, but he had other things to do (plus he didn't want to dwell on how bad he felt for ruining someone else's hoodie). Taking the sleeves of the hoodie, he started sewing the same web pattern into them as the cowl.
Peter suddenly remembered he was missing one of the most important things, a spider. He scoured through the extra clothes he'd dumped on the floor until he found a black tee. It was bloody, torn apart in some places, and even had what looked like bullet holes. Peter didn't feel bad about cutting this up. A few minutes later, Peter held up two spider emblems; one of which was more simplified than the other.
He set the emblems down and got back to sewing the webbing. His fingers fumbled some while working, his need for sleep catching up to him. Peter grabbed the cloth and gently scrubbed the logo off of the hoodie. He'd need to wash it, but that could wait. Taking the spiders, he began to meticulously sew them onto the fabric. His vision began to blur as the day stretched into night. Quickly throwing the last of the suit together and thinking that he'd get to the rest of it later, he passed out on the couch.
He woke up to find himself in a defensive position on the ceiling, heart nearly beating out of his chest. Distant gunshots rang in his ears and set off his senses. Peter crawled to his semi-finished suit and threw it on, rolling up the sleeves enough for him to be able to use his webs.
It wasn't incredible, but he was still proud of his handiwork. He actually quite liked the way the red webbing stood out against the black, enough to be noticeable but not enough to make him easily seen. The design would also help him keep to the shadows better in the dark, gloomy city that was Gotham.
Within seconds, Spider-Man began his first patrol since landing in Gotham.
The polluted air was refreshing as he jumped through it, webs slinging out and carrying him above the ground. Peter would usually be taking his time to enjoy it better, but he was on a tight schedule at that moment.
Gunshots still rang out and got deafeningly loud as he closed the distance. Peter landed nimbly on the ledge of the warehouse before crawling over to look into skylights. His senses burned and adrenaline shot through him.
Two sides shot at each other below him. One looked like a group of everyday thugs surrounded by crates of smuggled weapons, judging by the few boxes that had spilled their contents all over the floor, and the other was a team of two. The larger one wore a red helmet and favored his right arm, which hung limply at his side, while the smaller seemed to be assessing the situation and arguing with the other man. Peter couldn't be sure if he was hearing correctly over the sound of gunshots, but with the way the smaller one was acting, he was pretty sure he had the right idea.
Peter stealthily opened the skylight and slinked into the warehouse. Paying no mind to the dangers below him as he dangled from the ceiling, he crawled over to the side of the thugs. He made his way to the back of the group before dropping down to the rafters in his signature spider pose. Peter flicked his wrist towards the stragglers, knocking them out, then stringing them to the ceiling. After dealing with only a few of the men, the ones in the front took notice and turned upwards, some screaming about a bat.
Spider-Man flattened himself against the metal, hoping to not be seen. He was.
Peter was forced to move as bullets screamed past him. He flipped and dodged around them, heavily relying on the ringing of his spider sense, before fully lunging towards the wall and bounding off it, headed for the ground. Rolling as he hit the ground, he ran and ducked behind the same crates the team of two were at.
"Fuck off replacement, I'm fine!" the larger one hissed. His right shoulder was a mangled mess and blood gushed from the wound.
"Oh yeah, just a few bullets and a car to your shoulder is fine!" the smaller one retorted sarcastically.
"Just fine!"
"Hood, you can't move it. B's-" at this point the smaller one noticed Spider-Man. He blinked in confusion. The larger one turned to see what he was looking at.
Peter waved, "Sup."
"Who the fuck are you?"
'Red Hood,' something whispered in him
"Spider-Man." Peter said, ignoring the whisper and inspecting the wound closer, "Also pretty sure you are not fine."
Peter didn't know how, but he could somehow feel the death glare coming from the man called Red Hood. He then pointed to the still shooting thugs, "We still need to deal with them though."
Hood sassed back, "Oh really? I thought we were going to go prancing in a field of fucking wildflowers?"
Peter sighed and looked at the other guy. 'Red Robin,' it whispered again.
"You wanna help dispatch 'em?" Peter asked him.
Red Robin looked between him and Red Hood before nodding. "As much as I don't want to leave him alone," Red started, "I'm up for that."
Red Hood groaned before taking a gun and fired out randomly over the crate he was behind. "I'm not about to sit on my ass and be useless. I'll cover you guys, go have fun beating people up."
Spider-Man nodded and him and Red Robin split out in different directions, moving to cage the thugs in. Red Robin signaled for him to pause before throwing out smoke bombs. Peter moved in, sticking low to the ground and knocking the men over as Red Robin finished them off with well placed hits from his bo staff. When things got dicey, the occasional bullet would wizz past and eliminate their attacker. The blinded thugs stood no chance against the trio. Within moments, the criminals were tied up and the crates were thoroughly investigated.
Red Hood trudged up to them, obviously trying to hide the pain he was in. A thought struck Peter and he went up to the man.
"Hey, uhm, your injury isn't doing much better," Peter said lamely.
Red Hood stared down at him, "No shit Sherlock."
"Well, I have an idea to help with that, but…" He waved his hand at Red Hood.
Peter could practically see the eyebrow raise behind the man's helmet. "Ah," he said, "You want my permission to do it."
"Yeah."
Red Hood took his time to ponder before giving in. "Just know that if you fuck anything up, I'm running you over with a car."
"Just like the car you were hit with today?" Red Robin quipped, a devilish grin on his face.
Red Hood glared daggers at Red Robin who was cackling maniacally.
"I mean it's better than a bullet train," Peter joked through stifled giggles, "That's not a fun experience."
Both reds slowly turned to face the spider. "... What?" They asked in unison.
Peter blinked, realizing his mistake too late. "Nothing! Nothing at all. I can get that now." He said, trying his best to change the topic. Neither of the reds seemed convinced that being bulldozed by a train was nothing , but dropped the topic.
He sprayed a web into his hand and spread it apart until it looked similar to gauze before attaching it to Red Hood's shoulder, albeit a bit rougher than intended. Peter kept pulling the webbing out and tightly wrapping it around the injury. Red Robin looked over Peter's shoulder as he worked on the other red.
"So… is that like a webbing?" Red asked. He suddenly perked up, "Wait! Is that coming out of you? Dude, that's so cool and," he paused while making a disgusted face, "really kinda gross."
Peter preened under the compliment, decidedly ignoring the insult packed behind it. He couldn't risk himself getting mad over something and losing his temper around people who wouldn't be able to take a punch as easily as a dumpster could. Ignoring and bottling up his emotions would probably come back to bite him later, but that would be a problem for future him.
He finished wrapping with a sharp tug to keep it tight and sticking it to the rest of the sticky webbing. Hood visibly flinched from the sudden pain, but sent him a thumbs up regardless.
Spider-Man returned the gesture along with a smile. "Alrighty, let's figure out what they were hiding here."
"Hmm, pretty effective," Red Hood mumbled, finger prodding the webbing.
"These are some weird looking guns," Red called out, "Hardly getting any readings on them too, and the readings I am getting are off the charts."
How he had managed to get several feet away from Peter undetected completely baffled him.
Hood tilted his head and put a hand on his hip, "What's that supposed to mean RR?"
"What I'm trying to say is that these are most likely extraterrestrial weapons," Red Robin replied, deliberately talking slowly to get on Hood's nerves. "Either that or some really strange Earth weapons that are using alien tech."
Peter only had to look closer at the weapons to recognize them. They were the ones the Vulture liked to use, which didn't make sense because he was in a completely different world. His head spun as he tried to understand how that was even possible.
His silence did not go unnoticed as Red Robin eyed him suspiciously.
"Oh splendid!" Red Hood said with an overly cheery tone. "We're dealing with alien weapons."
"Say, Spiderman , you wouldn't happen to recognize these would you," Red Robin questioned.
Peter stilled. "Uhm, no no. Absolutely not." God he sucked at lying. Then he decided to do what he did best, change the topic. "And it's Spider-Man , not Spiderman . There's a hyphen."
"How the fuck can you tell?" Hood asked, genuinely confused. His mechanical voice was muffled from the wooden crate he was sifting through.
"I'm just special like that," Peter replied, doing one of those hair flicks you'd see in a chick flick; he was wearing a cowl, a cowl that didn't let any of his hair hang loose.
Red Robin still stared at him accusingly, "Mhm, right."
"That's weird," Red Hood broke the stare down.
"What?" Red asked, walking over to Hood.
Hood handed him one of the weapons from the crate. "These guns are way different than the others."
Red Robin inspected closer and took what looked to be a scan with a wrist computer.
'I have got to get myself one of those,' Peter thought.
Red Robin's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Huh, they're completely different. It's almost like they tried to duplicate the others but couldn't. And there's more human tech in it, actually there's barely any alien tech put into these."
"Maybe they ran out of resources," Peter threw in, "Or they didn't have the original blueprints to make them accurate to the original."
"Yeah," RR muttered. His gaze still piercing into Peter, trying to unearth all of his secrets. He shook himself out of his thoughts, "I'm taking these back to B. But we're gonna have to do something with the rest of this stuff."
"You can figure that out, Red," Hood said. Then he looked at the tied up thugs, head tilted in confusion, "I swear there were more goons than that."
Peter snorted at that, getting the others' attention. "There were." He pointed to the ceiling where his beautiful masterpiece of unconscious humans and webs hung.
He swore he could see Red Hood's jaw drop at the sight.
"Holy shit," Hood whispered.
"That's not creepy at all," Red Robin added.
Spider-Man used the distraction to silently scurry out of the building. The Red Robin guy was starting to get on Peter's nerves and if he was being honest, he was kind of scary. Scratch that, both of the vigilantes were scary. His senses never went off with them, but he could feel the dangerous aura emanating from them and it put him on edge.
The rest of the night was uneventful for him; a few fights here, a few robberies there, simple stuff. Stuff that he was used to doing in Queens… well his Queens really.
'I wonder if they have Delmar's here, their sandwiches were the best,' Peter thought, trying to distract himself from the sudden pang in his chest.
He crouched atop the Wayne Enterprises building, staring out upon the gothic city. The cold night wind pierced through his clothes and right into his soul. His soul that felt just a bit off… empty… wrong. It frustrated him behond belief. The fighting had helped to release some of it, but it wouldn't go away. He just sat with a bottomless pit of rage.
Some of the criminals that he'd fought with were manhandled more than Spider-Man from a few years ago would have. Peter was starting to feel like he couldn't care enough anymore.
He really needed therapy, not like he could afford any though.
Peter sighed, he'd need to end early tonight. He didn't want to deal with the guilt if he let loose too much of his frustration on someone.
He'd also need to start finding a job somewhere that didn't require much of an education or a birth certificate for that matter. 'Tomorrow,' he thought.
THUMP
Someone landed behind him. They were noticeably trying to be quiet, but Peter easily picked up on it. Judging on their racing heartbeat and harsh breaths they must have booked it to him.
"You know, you've caused quite the ruckus," they said, obviously thinking they had caught him off guard.
Spider-Man shrugged, not bothering to face the person. "Pretty sure I was cleaning up the ruckus, but whatever suits you I guess," he replied.
The person was quiet for some time. "Are… are you angry?"
Oops, Peter didn't think he had shown it that much. "... A little bit I guess," Peter honestly replied.
"Is there a reason for it?" The question was harsh and blunt.
The wall crawler tilted his head to the side to face them, glaring. "I'm sorry?"
Red Robin's lenses suddenly widened as he tried to backpedal. "Ah! No. I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I- Ugh…" Red's head fell into his hands, embarrassed. Suddenly, Peter wasn't looking at the critical, dangerous Red Robin and instead a socially constipated, clumsy teenager.
'Just like you,' the voice said softly.
Peter was pretty sure he was showing symptoms of insanity.
Spider-Man chuckled, feeling ever so lighter, and patted the spot next to him. Red Robin blinked at him before slowly settling down next to Peter.
Peter gently asked, "Did you mean to ask me what made me angry?"
The bird sighed heavily and nodded. "Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out so rudely."
"Hey hey. Don't beat yourself up over it. You at least understand what you did wrong, so now you know what not to do."
"Where did you learn of such knowledge, wise man," Robin joked.
"My mom- wait. I don't have parents. Nevermind."
Red Robin choked on his spit, caught completely off guard by what was just said. He coughed some before talking again, "I- uhm, sorry."
"It's alright, I never knew them anyways," Peter reassured him. This absolutely did not make Red Robin feel better.
They sat in awkward silence before the bird teen decided to bite the bullet. "So back to the topic. What made you angry?"
"You."
The bird made a startled and hurt noise. "Oh…" he choked out, "... okay, ouch."
He moved to get up and unfortunately for Peter, his mind had blanked at that moment and he'd acted on instinct. So now it was just him and Red Robin awkwardly holding hands and staring dumbly at each other.
"Sorry," Peter said softly, "That was rude of me, and dumb."
Red Robin's face split into a smile. "Well, to quote a dumb wise man, 'You at least understand what you did wrong, so now you know what not to do.'"
He settled back down next to Spider-Man, who felt a bit better.
"Not to say that it wasn't mean, but I also have to deal with the others and they can be like dealing with a bunch of toddlers."
Peter hummed and nodded. He sensed that there was more to the relationship between the vigilantes. A family maybe. Red Robin was looking him up and down now.
"Yes?" Peter asked.
"Is that comfortable? Like that position just seems a bit awkward and uncomfortable." Red replied.
Peter perked up a bit, he always found it fun to show off his spider flexibility. He went to put his hands on his knees before noticing he was still holding Red Robin's hand. "Oh yeah, it's actually really comfortable," he said, trying his best to act like he hadn't noticed.
"Really? I never would have-" the bird tilted its head and the lenses narrowed, "Is that my mask?"
It suddenly dawned on Peter why Red Robin's cowl had looked so familiar, it was because he was wearing it, or at least what was probably a backup one.
Peter's thoughts flew around as he tried to find a way to answer. 'Think, Peter think… Ugh brain not thinking. Alright backup plan, just act dumb.'
He responded with utmost confidence, and a slight hint of sarcasm, while staring directly at the bird, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
'Not that dumb, Peter.'
"Did you steal my mask!"
"Oh would you look at that," Spidey said, looking down at a watch he did not wear. Realizing this he just stopped and awkwardly met the other teen's gaze. "Kachow."
Red Robin stared back at him dumbly. "Wa… What?"
Peter slipped his hand out of Red's before sending him finger guns and slowly tipping over the ledge of the building. The wind whizzed past as he swung away from the now awkward conversation.
'Dumb Peter. Dumb dumb Peter.' Were the only coherent thoughts in his mind. Well that and, 'HOW LONG WERE WE HOLDING HANDS,' that was usually followed by internal screaming.
By the time Peter made it back to his stolen apartment, he had tired himself out enough that he ended up passing out on the couch while still wearing his costume. Even then, he could swear he heard the voice giggling in his ear.
