The muffled thump of a body hitting the ground resounded deep within every person present at the scene, and even into the souls and hearts of the anxious viewers watching at home, although the microphones had not picked up the noise. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath; even the news anchor, who had never before let the silence stretch while she was on air, couldn't manage a single gasp. As the hero - for truly, powers or not, famous or not, this person had to be a hero - fell, it was as if the world fell with them.
Joan had been inside the building when it exploded. One of her friends - Mirabelle - worked as a lab assistant on one of those top floors. Always bragged about her beautiful view. Always worked hard - had always worked so goddamn hard - in an attempt to prove that she was destined to be someone more than… And Mirabelle always - always - forgot to eat lunch. Joan, who had a comfortable desk job with a cubical on one of the lower floors and who never forgot to eat her lunch, normally brought something up to Mirabelle. Something healthy and maybe a coffee, even though it was later in the day. They'd chat while they ate in the break room, safely away from the mechanical experiments that Mirabelle adored. Joan was looking forward to playfully dragging her friend away from her lab, cajoling her with promises of dessert and treats alongside a hardy meal that Joan made herself this morning. Mirabelle would gripe and groan and grin, and give in instantly.
It was supposed to be another normal day. Like yesterday had been, and the day before, and the day before that. Joan had been walking down the hallway towards Mirabelle's lab - like always - when her ears started ringing and she was blinking her eyes open painfully even though she didn't remember closing them. Or being on the floor. Things blurred, after that, dizziness from her close proximity to what Joan only later discovered to be a hastily made exit by some pyromaniac asshole. The jerk had broken into Wayne Enterprises then made his escape after stealing the blueprints for a highly complex and efficient energy source invented by one of Wayne Enterprise's lab assistants "under the radar." Wayne Enterprises would later release that information regretfully, saying they didn't know how such inventions could be created under their noses, how they would "Do better" to heighten security and make sure "Such dangerous creations remain out of the hands of those who aim to do harm." The news would also later assume that the asshole - and maybe even the inventor, it was oh-so-slyly implied - intended to use the designs to charge up another city (or perhaps world, if the asshole was feeling particularly ambitious, which they often do) ending disaster.
Joan knew exactly what plans they were talking about. Had heard Mirabelle detail them nearly every day over lunch for the past year. Had listened to her friend gripe about her supervisor not taking her seriously. Had comforted her friend when, less than a month ago, Mirabelle vented about her supervisor, despite not being willing to support her new clean energy source proposal to the board, wanted to be given the plans anyway. To see them again. To be allowed to take pictures. Had supported her friend when Mirabelle firmly refused. Had, two days before the explosion, driven Mirabelle home after her dear friend expressed a worry about being watched .
And maybe all of the pieces Joan collected - at a later date, of course - would join together in her mind to form a horrible conspiracy that she knew no one would take seriously. Because if Mirabelle's supervisor disappeared without a trace, then who's to say such an esteemed and philanthropic (because of course he'd been a good person. Of course.) researcher hadn't been vaporized by the blast, just like poor, poor Mirabelle, who died on the spot when her labs were exploded. No body, no voice , left to mention who might have stolen the designs, aside from the sole text she'd sent to Joan - unseen until later, later, later - that said "Someone was in my office. Stole my blueprints."
Because it was Joan who had told Wayne Enterprises what had been stolen. Somehow, though, everyone seemed to miss the tiny, insignificant detail that the "dangerous energy generator" had been, in fact, a clean energy generator, one which Mirabelle dreamed of one day having mass produced and shared with the world, to create a cleaner and better planet. Mirabelle wanted to do better . She would have done better .
Ha! Dangerous. As if. It wasn't Mirabelle's fault that she was brilliant - that her clean energy generator happened to be capable of - surprise surprise! - generating energy for inventions made with evil intentions just as well as those made for good.
But, of course, this would all happen later .
Right now, though, Joan didn't know the why or how , only the what , and even that understanding was shaky at best. There had been someone - slim and shorter than her, even without her heels, which had been lost somewhere between walking down the hallway and the shockwave of explosive force and flames and fire - present in her memories, if only for a moment.
Or perhaps it was longer than a moment. Time felt as though it had yet to resume: as if it had been put on pause the moment Joan blinked into a vague awareness on the floor.
But there had been someone . Greenish, maybe, and silent. Dedicated. Joan hadn't had the strength to stand and so he'd picked her up in a fireman carry, perhaps thinking her unconscious - for all she knows, she might have been, with how far away the moment seems to be now, how distant the memory feels, as though it were a dream - but still ever-so-gentle. Then things moved again, sped up, or perhaps Joan fell deeper into unconsciousness, because for the second time in far too short of a period, Joan blinked into her own awareness once more.
There was a blanket around her shoulders, and her throat and head felt like thousands of needles were stabbing into them. Everything around her was either doubled or tripled, and Joan wanted to hurl - might have - if there hadn't been an oxygen mask strapped to her face. Time slowed or maybe stopped or maybe rushed forward once more - and Joan was truly tried of not knowing when she was existing - because first there was the noise and chaos and then there wasn't: a horrible silence that amplified the ringing in her ears.
She tried to see what was going on, but the firm hands of the paramedic kept her still. He'd been there for a while, his voice and actions serious and professional even as his face showed blatant fear, terror, and - oddly enough - a sort of wonder. He'd said, "You have a concussion and inhaled a lot of smoke, and will have a lot of soreness, but other than that you should be alright. You should still go to the hospital," and Joan had nodded her consent then paused, croaked out, "Wait, my friend. She was on that floor too. I need to wait for her," and the paramedic's face grew grimmer, but still, he nodded and moved to another person without protest.
Gotham was kinda like that. A lot of people, after being through something like this - some sort of otherworldly horror that shouldn't ever happen to people yet was somehow a semi-normal time Gotham, barring the fact that the explosion happened during the day - would refuse to go to the hospital. Or they'd wait and watch and hope to see a rare Bat, or they'd wait and pray that the people they cared about would also be okay. Then maybe they could go to the hospital together, instead of parting with one of them in a body bag.
Joan was the latter and she was content to wait, until the silence fell and the world sounded like a tomb. The paramedic protested when Joan pushed against his hands again, but still allowed her to move, the oxygen mask having been removed a few minutes prior. Joan circled the side of the building and followed everyone's gaze - up, up, up - and had any potential noise she could have made swallowed alongside them.
Someone - maybe green, once upon a time - and slim and shorter than her even with Joan's bare feet, was crawling down the side of the sheer faced building, leaving a trail of blood behind him while one hand held (carefully, carefully) a bag of death.
No. That wasn't fair. A bag full of the dead.
The someone made sure the bodies landed softly on the ground but was much less gentle with their own descent, feet slapping against the rough concrete with a firmness that made Joan wince. They, too, had bare feet, although the socks that once adorned them had melted into the skin and flesh, a horrific burning smell wafting from them. Even if Joan wanted to know what her savior looked like, she wouldn't have been able to, the synthetic cloth of the mask having also melted, looking as though it had melded to their skin and seeped into the very essence of their being. It looked disgusting.
It looked painful .
And then the person collapsed, head knocking against the concrete with a sound that made Joan want to puke, the soft thud of the rest of their body falling not much better.
No one moved. No one breathed. Then someone was screaming " Paramedic! Help! Help!" Joan's throat constricted even further and she realized it was her own voice screaming: ragged and hoarse and unrecognizable. The sounds of her own screams were paired with the sounds of bare feet hitting the ground. Joan couldn't hear them past the ringing in her ears, but she knew they were hers nonetheless, because the figure in maybe-once-green (slim, shorter, young- ) was growing closer.
On a whim, Joan and Mirabelle had taken a first aid class together. They'd become CPR certified and everything. The paramedics were right around the corner but Joan didn't even pause before feeling for a pulse and, upon finding none, began chest compressions. Began life-saving CPR on the person who'd saved Joan's colleagues, friends, acquaintances, and those unknown to her but who might have been always unknown to her instead of in the hospital. Even for those that did die, this person had returned them safely. They'd done their best and now Joan would do hers.
Two breaths. The fabric smelt like something rotten against burnt flesh. The chest compressions continued. The next two breaths were unneeded, a handful of paramedics arriving and placing an oxygen mask on the person's face, another replacing Joan at their side. The man Joan had almost begun to think of as her paramedic put a blanket back over her shoulders, hid her face from the camera, and reassured Joan quietly that she did a good thing as she retched and heaved off to the side. The paramedic provided her with anonymity from the crowd while Joan emptied her stomach, the smell of burnt skin forever ingrained in her memory.
Later , Joan would receive an email from Wayne Enterprises apologizing for the incident and offering heavy financial recompense. At that time, Mirabelle's invention had yet to have been called dangerous and Wayne Enterprises had yet to claim that they will do better , and so Joan quietly accepted the money and didn't quit out of respect to Mirabelle, who had loved her work, even with her shitty supervisor. But then it became even later , and Mirabelle's hard work - her good work - was bad-mouthed while the inventor herself was never named, and Joan would quit her job at Wayne Enterprises the very next day.
That night, however, after being checked out at the hospital and told she could go home as long as she promised to, "Take it easy," Joan would drink herself sick even when it burned her throat, because Mirabelle didn't even have a body to be found. Incinerated on the spot. And Joan could do nothing about it, because she was just an office nobody.
That night, Joan's neighbor knocked on the door of her apartment - a young twenty-something woman fresh out of college and fifteen years Joan's junior - would knock on the door wearing something definitely green and familiar. The young woman was taller than Joan, even in her slippers, with wide eyes and colorful hair and said, "I know sorry doesn't help, but. But. But we're neighbors. I made a casserole. Want some?"
And Joan, drunk and sad and mourning and pissed, nodded after a little while.
"I think I'd like that."
There was something strapped to Peter's face. Breathing hurt for some reason. Not in a panic-attack way, which Peter was intimately familiar with, but in a "taking a breath physically hurt" way. The source was, obviously, the thing strapped to Peter's face in spite of the fact that his danger sense wasn't actually going off even the slightest amount. But. But something was on his face and Peter sort of felt like he was dying again, just a little bit, similar-but-not-really to the time when his lungs once found themselves in a constant loop of disintegrating and knitting themselves back together.
Peter knew (vaguely, sort of, not really) that he wasn't actually dying.
That did not, however, mean that he could restrain the violent instinct to rip away the mask. There were hands on him, feather light, trying to keep Peter from tearing the mask off his face, but they couldn't stop him. Distantly, Peter remembered to reign in his strength, but one of the people trying to hold him down still reeled away when Peter batted him to the side, a garbled curse leaving their mouth that Peter couldn't quite make out.
The mask was gone. Breathing hurt more now, for some reason. Peter opened his eyes to a plain ceiling, not concrete, thank Thor, but still far too close, far to white and endless, and he sat up swiftly, dislodging a second pair of hands in the process. The world presented itself to him in a haze and Peter wrenched himself up and off of the thing was lying on (snapping sounds followed, which Peter would later realize had been the sounds of the straps holding him onto the stretcher breaking, but at the time rang in his head like gunshots), swinging his feet over the side and throwing himself at the doors he could vaguely see through blurry vision. They gave way easily underneath him as Peter ignored his danger sense, which chose now of all times to start blaring - shouts and yells of not-quite-anger (maybe terror instead) following his movements - and Peter was tumbling onto the road. Luckily he curled into a ball before making impact, rolling with the movement rather than becoming a Peter-pancake.
The impact shocked Peter into a greater awareness, fully alert now instead of existing in a dull haze of pain and fading adrenaline. His danger sense flared right as Peter's momentum began to slow. He listened this time around, rolling to the side before a second vehicle could run him over. Peter's senses were still screaming at him, but so was the world, and Peter belatedly recognized the sound of sirens. Sirens? Yes, Peter strained his ears, sirens. Almost like an ambulance.
Oh.
Peter would have smacked himself in the head had he been, well, able to move.
He must have been in an ambulance, and not - haha, whoops, honest mistake really - dying and/or being tortured (well, maybe dying a little, considering he'd been in the ambulance to begin with). And now, rather than in a cozy, anxiety-inducing ambulance, Peter was instead curled up on the side of the road, spine pressed against the wall of the divided highway. It should have been cold. Peter couldn't feel it. The road should have been rough against his skin, but aside from the white-hot-burning pain of rolling out of a moving vehicle and the general horrificness of his body, Peter couldn't feel much of anything.
Whatever: fine. He'd felt worse. He'd died before. This wouldn't kill him (probably-maybe), but getting hit by a car just might , with how Peter's body was starting to not hurt with how pain he was in.
Peter got up. Mentally. Spider-Man always gets back up-! but he couldn't. Could not make his body move - his fingers barely twitched even as Peter repeated a mantra of get up, get up, get up - despite the fact that he needed to. Had to. Peter wanted to live , goddamnit, he wanted to get up, he needed to go home -
"Hey! Hey!" Hands that Peter couldn't feel but could see through his barely opened eyes hovered over him, a broad set of shoulders now between Peter and the vehicles that must have stopped because of him, considering it was quiet, "Kid, what the fuck was-"
Things became a bit fuzzy after that. Peter's rage at being called a kid felt duller than normal. He kinda did feel like a kid, if Peter was being honest. A kid in a fuckton of pain, who wanted May, who wanted Happy, who wanted… who wanted someone to protect him, for once, instead of him always protecting others.
Like Daredevil. A month after all that shit went down back in Peter's universe, he had been crouched on the edge of a building in his Spider-Man suit. It was the first time he'd gone out since… everything, and the sounds and smells and sensations were boxing him in from all sides. Paralyzed by indecision, by panic, by fear - what to do what to do what to do - Peter felt as though he was a singular breeze away from falling forty stories and silencing the overwhelming sensations forever. He didn't want to. But. But it felt impossible to pull back, to stop , and Peter's body rocked forward on its own and he was afraid and there was Daredevil, grabbing the back of his homemade suit (Peter made it with his own hands and he was proud but it was lonely in there. He'd tried to call for Karin and she wasn't … and then-) and pulling Peter down from the edge.
Daredevil might have been shouting his name. His hero name, of course. Maybe. At least, Peter thought he might have been, because as he was laying against Daredevil's chest and his - Daredevil's - heart was racing and his chest was heaving. But Daredevil didn't get tired like a normal person and it wasn't that late quite yet, so he must have been shouting something and had yet to catch his breath. Daredevil held him tightly, like he was afraid Peter would lunge away and towards the edge if he let go, and talked to Peter for hours or minutes or some indecipherable amount of time until the world wasn't choking him with its expectations. All he had to do was "Breathe, y'twerp. Breathe."
Memory-Peter frowned. No. That wasn't right. Daredevil had called him Spider-Man that night. He wouldn't have said twerp and he didn't have a faint drawl to his words either. Memory-Peter opened sticky and crusty eyes - though not crusty from sleep, but rather from dried blood melted against fabric - to a world that was not his , to people that didn't know him, but maybe, Peter thought, as he looked up at a red helmet worn atop worried shoulders, "They might want to."
That was the last thought Peter - memory or real - had for a while.
Finding out that Wayne Enterprises was on fire probably warranted a larger reaction. As always, Tim knew everything first, and sent a message to the Batchat:
Tim: WE attacked. bomb set off on one of the top floors, perp seen leaving on cams, unknown individual entering. eta? mine 25 min
Bruce: I did not go into the office today. Will hurry. 30.
Damian: Father, I can hunt down the perpetrator with ease. ETA 15
Dick: if u leave class so help me god
Damian: Fine.
Cass: 5
Bruce: Cass, you are closest. Follow after the bomber
Cass: Cannot.
Tim: y?
Cass: Cannot. Going offline.
Duke: In pursuit.
Bruce: Cass, where are you going?
Bruce: Cass. Answer.
Jason had been watching it all go down passively. He didn't want to be in the Batchat to begin with - there was no way he was getting reeled into this business. But then Cass messaged him privately:
Cass: You have a car B cannot track. Bring it to WE.
"Okay," Jason murmured under his breath, "Now what the fuck does that mean?"
Jason: Why
Cass: Need you. Please. In suit.
And, well. There wasn't much Jason could say in response to that other than:
Jason: K
Cass had Jason park the car on the side of the road, anxiously watching the building from the passenger seat.
Jason wasn't sure what the fuck he was doing. Or supposed to be doing.
"Why the hell did y'need me?" But, like the last time Jason asked, Cass didn't answer - just kept staring. Jason hadn't talked to Cass in person since the semi-disastrous interrogation dinner with Peter, and as he watched her, he couldn't help but recall the questions everyone had been left with after Peter disappeared. Cass probably wouldn't answer, but fuck it, it wouldn't hurt to ask, "I know y'said that Peter," Cass started, Jason narrowed his eyes. The hell was that about? But still, he continued on with the original question, "Didn't know the rest of our identities - just y'rs- but I have a hard time believing that if he can read people like y'can. I know B is suspicious too, and the others have to be, even if they're all agreeing to take y'r word for it."
Cass's eyes danced from the building to Jason, back and forth, before finally settling on him with a weird sense of finality, "Peter recognized me because we are… attuned. And I cannot change the way I move from in the mask to out. The rest of you do . There is a difference. Peter cannot see it. He is not as good as me at reading," Cass sounded incredibly serious. Jason wanted to believe her but, "Then why did y'steal the blood sample B had?"
"What do you mean?"
She didn't deny it - Jason might have backed off if she'd denied it - and so he pressed, "B had a blood sample after Pete bled on him at the Iceberg Lounge. Only us 'n Robin were there. We saw the blood on B's sleeve. It was obvious he was gonna run it. But the shirt disappeared. Robin wouldn't have done it. I know that I didn't. Why?"
"Alfred washed it out when he found it in the cave," Cass argued calmly, her gaze like stone, "We all know that. Alfred admitted it himself."
Jason's brow furrowed as he bit back an instinctive bark of anger, " We, " he mocked, " All know that Alf wouldn't do that . I dunno how you got him on y'r side but-"
Then Cass's entire body tensed - visible even to Jason's untrained eye (at least, in comparison to hers) - and he followed her line of sight directly to a person crawling down the side of the building with a bag of bodies in tow. That, certainly, was a sight to behold. The Batchat was probably filled with a flurry of messages by now demanding why both of them had turned off their locations, but that was exactly why both him and Cass had muted the chat.
The person was descending slowly. Jason gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. Under his breath - although he knew that Cass could still hear him - he muttered, "Glad y'did it. Would've taken me longer to break in."
In a moment of weakness that neither would ever mention to anyone, Cass's shoulders dropped, her voice terribly relieved as she whispered, "...Thank you."
Then a call came through on Cass's phone. Both of them jumped, tearing their eyes away from the bizarre spectacle on the side of the building to stare at one another in surprise. The only person Cass (or any of them, really) never muted was - speak of the devil - Alfred. Even on secret missions, Alfred was never muted, because if he was calling then something big and potentially world-ending was going on, and secrecy probably didn't matter anymore. Cass answered the call after getting over her surprise and put it on speaker, "Alfred."
"Mn," Then Alfred rattled off an address not far from where they were now, "For when you pick up the package. I'll be there."
Despite Cass's obvious surprise, she still agreed (one didn't refuse Alfred, after all), seemingly knowing what he was referencing.
Jason, however, did not , and he was growing tired of waiting in regards to this random stranger on the side of a building. Even though Cass hadn't really answered his questions about the mysteries surrounding Peter, he'd have to be content with half-answers and quiet admissions for now, since Cass's attention had obviously turned toward a different person. Whether or not she'd be more or less willing to answer questions about this other stranger, Jason wasn't sure (it felt like less, though, since she'd refused to answer why he had to be here earlier), but before he could even try demanding an answer, Cass's hand shot out, pointing at an ambulance that was rushing away, "He's in there - follow it!"
Who , Jason wanted to ask, desperately, but the likelihood of Cass answering his questions when she looked that anxious felt slim to none. At least by following after the ambulance, Jason might actually get some answers, as opposed to interrogating an uncrackable Cass and letting someone(?) get away.
So Jason followed. Whatever - fine - it totally didn't bother him being left out of the loop. As always. But whatever. It wasn't like any of them actually trusted-
Jason wallowed in his own thoughts for a few minutes in silence, following the two ambulances that left Wayne Enterprises at breakneck speeds. His self-pitying moment came to a sudden screech, though, alongside the tires of his car as he slammed on his brakes as a body came tumbling out the back of the first speeding ambulance. Luckily there weren't too many other cars around - just the second ambulance which had been following the first, and Jason swore aloud as he figured that he was about to watch a dead body (because surely that killed them. surely .) get squished by a car too , but the person (what the fuck ) rolled out of the way at the last minute, barely a second after their rolling form had come to a halt. Cass was already out of the car, racing toward the person who should be - probably ten times over by now - dead . Of course, Jason followed. This time, though, it wasn't because Cass was asking him to, but because of the way his own heart had leapt into his throat. Cass's hands fluttered over the person's body, unsure of where to touch ( if she should touch, considering their body looked like one massive open wound), but Jason pushed her to the side. Not rough enough for her to fall, but enough to shock Cass out of her silent panic, "Get the car running. Y're driving," Jason instructed. Maybe it wouldn't be a good idea for Cass to drive in her current state of panic if she hadn't been, well, a Bat , who could be in the middle of a panic attack and simultaneously dismantle a bomb perfectly.
Well, that might be an exaggeration. But the point still stood. Jason's own hands hesitated over the prone figure for a moment, "Hey. Hey!" Jason tried to see if they would respond, then murmured under his breath, "Kid. What the fuck was that - why'd y'go flying out the back of the damn ambulance, holy hell." But on some level, buried within his subconscious mind, Jason deeply understood the panic of waking up somewhere unfamiliar, of being confined and confused and desperate to escape, so his voice was softer than what it could have been. Finally committing, Jason scooped the person up, ignoring the sounds of the paramedics - who'd finally gathered themselves up enough to arrive on the scene - as they shouted at him to release the limp body in his arms.
They could fuck off. They already lost the person once - obviously they couldn't be trusted with them again. Jason looked down at the person he was carrying and their eyes fluttered faintly open. Good. There should have been no possible way for this person to survive half of what they've forced their body to go through, but somehow, remarkably, they were still alive.
A rough sound came from the person. At first, Jason thought it was an unconscious noise let out because of the pain, but the person's eyes were squinted open, their face screwed up in a grimace despite it tearing skin as the melted fabric - which was now cool to the touch, but still plastered against their face - twisted.
"Nmf?"
Unfortunately, Jason didn't know what nmf meant, "Eh? What was that?" The person tried again, eyes falling closed entirely, "...Good nic. "
Fucking hell.
"Goodnight?" Jason repeated, and the person frowned. Maybe Jason should stop asking questions. He slid into the backseat of the car. The door had barely closed before Cass was gassing the vehicle, speeding off far too fast, although Jason didn't have any complaints as he watched the slow rise and fall of the person's chest. Far too slow.
Then, the rising and falling was decidedly not slow. Panicked gasps of air escaped through the person's mouth, undoubtedly aggravating their already sore throat from smoke inhalation. They were shaking, and Jason couldn't pry their fingers open from where they had curled inward into the palm of their hand, blood beginning to seep from crescent shaped cuts. They choked on a painful sob, a word, a cry, "Daredevil!"
Jason froze. He met Cass's eyes in the rearview mirror and saw confusion written plainly within them. Alright. This was fine. She didn't know. Only Jason knew, then. A phone call from weeks ago rattled around in Jason's mind. It had been his third time talking to some sharp mouthed twerp over the phone through a number that no one should have had access to. A number Jason hadn't changed, in spite of that.
("Yeah, I totally thought this was Daredevil. I have no clue who you are.")
Daredevil. Daredevil . Fuck.
"Breathe, y'twerp," Jason found himself soothing softly, his tone gentle in a way it hadn't been since first meeting a different sharp mouthed brat, "Breathe. I've got you." The person stopped breathing. Fuck . Before Jason could truly delve into panic, the person's body shuddered and their next few breaths evened out, steadying their body and Jason's heart.
The not-so-much-of-a-stranger might have been looking at him. Maybe, maybe not, but if they were , it didn't last for long, falling back into unconsciousness pretty much immediately. That was alright. Jason would watch over him. He'd keep him safe.
The random caller from oh-so-many weeks ago that Jason had been scouring the city for… and here Jason finds him: burnt practically to a crisp, and then almost ran over by an ambulance. Which had been trying to treat him for the aforementioned burns. What else could he expect from the person who had been scaling down the side of a building with his phone sandwiched between his shoulder and head? At the very least, Jason thought, the sight of his mystery caller sticking to the side of the Wayne Enterprises building flashing through his mind, it was good to know that he hadn't been in any danger from climbing down a much shorter building in much less harrowing circumstances.
It didn't help much, but it kept Jason from rotting in his own anxiety.
Cass must know something . Why else would she have insisted on watching and waiting otherwise? Something ugly and possessive reared up inside Jason. It felt like when Cass had proudly mentioned having Peter's email after meeting once , when Jason had known Peter for longer and still didn't have a way to contact him.
(It definitely didn't sting that Peter had yet to reach out. Certainly not. What a silly thing for Jason to be upset about - if he was actually upset, of course! Which he isn't. Totally.)
There was no way Cass knew that the limp figure carefully cradled on Jason's lap was their mystery caller. Jason's mystery caller. The mystery caller they'd all insisted had nefarious intentions.
(Ha! Look at the mystery caller now: a hero, saving countless lives out of a burning building, sacrificing himself for the good of others. Bad intentions Jason's ass. His caller was a hero. He'd refuse to believe otherwise.)
It did raise the question of how Cass knew the mystery caller - the twerp , as Jason had affectionately (although he'd rather die than admit the nickname was affectionate (goddamn brotherly ) in any way, shape, or form) called him in his mind - and their hero identity, but Jason would be fine with not knowing if it meant getting to keep his secret for a little while longer.
Fucking hell. This had all gotten way too damn complicated.
Unfortunately for Jason's sanity, nothing became clearer upon arriving at the address Alfred had given them. A safehouse, probably, not that Jason had known that Alfred had safehouses. The sting was taken out of it by Cass's own confused muttering. Good to know Jason hadn't been the only one left out of the loop. Alfred was waiting for them outside, helping Jason move - fuck , he really needed to figure out this person's name because calling his mystery caller twerp no longer felt right - his injured passanger out of the car while simultaneously instructing Cass to ditch the vehicle somewhere farther away.
"Hey," Jason protested, although it was half-hearted at best. Most of his attention was on the charred little hero in his arms, but it felt wrong to not be at least a little bit upset that his car was being sacrificed in the process, "That's mine. I paid for it."
"I'll take care of everything," Alfred reassured, "Once our brave hero is out of harm's way."
Jason didn't protest after that, following Alfred upstairs quickly. After setting his mystery caller down on the waiting cot, Alfred set to work. While Bruce would never let his next little sidekick prance into the field if they couldn't do simple field medicine (although simple wasn't really a word that Bruce had in his dictionary), Alfred knew more than simple field medicine and could do a more professional job than any past or present Robins, Batgirls, Signals, and whoever else had been adopted by Bruce (legally or otherwise) that Jason couldn't remember at the moment. And didn't care to remember.
Anyway.
But this … Jason looked at the fabric that had been melded onto skin - or damn near it, in the case of his torso and legs - and listened to how each breath sounded like a war … "Alf. This isn't something we can treat here. He needs a hospital ."
Alfred hummed in agreement, "True, but can you imagine him staying at the hospital long enough to get treatment? Or without panicking?" Alfred administered the anesthesia, hands steady even as his voice shook.
The sight of a small and burnt body rolling out the back of an ambulance and tumbling twenty feet down the road wasn't something Jason would ever be able to easily forget, "Yeah. I'm just…" Jason trailed off, uncertain, as Alfred carefully set about beginning to remove the melted synthetic fabric. The first piece he pulled away - Jason winced at the sight - the mystery caller started screaming . Both Alfred and Jason startled as the person thrashed, eyes shooting open and looking around wildly. Jason wasn't sure if the person was actually seeing anything - he certainly wouldn't be, if Jason had been in his position - but somehow they managed to wrench themselves upward, "Don't," he bit out, voice distorted from smoke inhalation, "Fuck, don't ."
Alfred was calmer than Jason could ever be, "Please, there are third degree burns on your face, hands, and feet. I need to treat them as soon as possible."
"No. Water."
Cass, who had just entered the safehouse apartment, heard the request and moved faster than Jason or Alfred would have been able to, ducking into the kitchen and coming back with a full glass of lukewarm water. The person drained it, then asked for more, with something soft to eat, if possible. This time, Jason went to get the water, and found a can of soup in the cupboard (which was again, odd, because Alfred despised canned soup) which he put on the stove, and came back to Cass speaking quietly to Alfred while the mystery caller stared off into the middle distance.
It should be impossible. The injuries he'd obtained from the fire should have him in excruciating pain. The melted synthetic fabric in his skin should make existing feel impossible. That alone would be enough to have Bruce unable to move. But this person had then taken a tumble out the back of a vehicle, rolled down the asphalt, then still had the ability to throw themselves out of the way of another ambulance before it could run him over. He'd passed out after that, sure, but but but he woke up again after Alfred had administered enough anesthetic to down a man twice the scrawny twerps size.
What the fuck . He must not feel pain, or some otherworldly shit like that, because this should be - and let Jason really emphasize how bewildered he is - fucking impossible .
Peter felt like he'd gotten hit by a train. Or trapped under a collapsed building. Or had his body nearly torn in half from holding a ferry together. Or some other painful thing, but not as bad as disintegrating, despite what his barely-lucid mind might have implied earlier. Plus he couldn't breathe. It felt like - and no one would ever guess this correlation - like being crushed by a building. Or launched into the upper atmosphere without an oxygen mask.
It always came back to the building. Thor's balls , Peter wished he could forget about the building. It hadn't been the worst thing to happen to him, looking back on years of throwing himself head first into danger with a "swing first ask questions later" mindset, but it had been memorable in a way being thrown through a building fifty-fucking-times just wasn't . He really had to give it to the Vulture: the guy knew how to make an impact.
Peter laughed at his own joke, but it came out more like a wheeze which set off a massive coughing fit. Ouch . Alfred held out a soft white handkerchief (how incredibly British) for Peter to cough in. It came away red.
"That's probably not great," Peter rasped, and it was just the excuse the Red Hood (or, let's be entirely honest: Jason ) needed to start going off at him. Mostly ignoring Jason, Peter looked over at Cass to try and figure out how much she knew. She looked pissed. Peter looked away.
Alright then. Cass knew it was him - fine, that was fine - and Alfred probably knew too, because of course he did. Jason must know something , but considering he had yet to call Peter Pete and instead kept calling him twerp (although it sounded borderline affectionate, which meant that maybe Peter's concussion was worse than he thought) instead, so.
Weird. In the middle of Jason's very fatherly lecture, Peter held up a hand. Silence fell. Or more like the noise came to a screeching halt.
"Those people needed help. I helped. Then I thought I had been captured by something. Panicked. Jumped out the ambulance," Jason had mentioned something along those lines. Peter hadn't been entirely sure how the events all lined up (like how he got from Wayne Enterprises to a white abyss to a road to here ), so Jason had been very helpful in clarifying what little Peter remembered, despite his goal having been to drill into Peter how reckless he was being, "And you can't treat my injuries." Alfred started to protest and Jason reared up for another lecture while Cass looked ready to tackle him. Wonderful. Just wonderful. This is exactly what Peter wanted: another ferry incident, where someone yelled at him after Peter had just been doing his best. Peter was so fucking tired of this bullshit.
The brief dream of being a kid again vanished as Peter remembered what being a kid entailed, "Look," Peter was probably being too harsh with them, but hell, they weren't one giant open wound, "I don't care. Appreciate the effort, but Christ, I'm not going to sit here and be yelled at for saving people's lives," Jason reeled back and Cass shot Jason a glare, as if this was his fault alone, " Or, " Peter added, "Be looked at like I'm stupid. Or five- fucking -years old. I'm not a goddamn kid , okay? I knew exactly what I was doing going into the building, and I might not have meant to jump out of a moving vehicle, but had I been more aware, I probably would have done the exact same thing ." Peter huffed, coughed, curled in on himself, " Fuck . I need-"
Food. Water. A safe place to sleep. Wade making jokes about their faces matching. Matt sitting beside him because he worries like an old man. Johnny freaking out like it was his fire that burnt him, even though it wasn't, and then acting as Peter's pillow while Peter slipped into a twenty hour coma of healing sleep . Johnny wouldn't move. Wade wouldn't have peeling the fabric away. Matt would have dosed him with enough anesthetic.
And it wasn't fair to make those comparisons. It wasn't . They - Jason, Cass, Alfred, who all looked at him with raw concern - didn't know. Because Peter didn't tell them. They didn't know because Peter wasn't willing to share this part of him with them - was barely willing to share any part with them. They hadn't done anything wrong, other than not being them , but Peter's heart still felt like it was being torn to shreds inside his chest as he wanted .
He wanted so much. But he couldn't have what he wanted, not right now, and even though Jason had Daredevil's phone number and Alfred had Happy's… they weren't them . That wasn't their fault. Peter wouldn't want them to be the same. Jason and Cass and Alfred… they were all their own individual people and that was perfect - Peter wouldn't have wanted anything different for them, he'd never wanted replacements for those he'd lost - but right now Peter just wanted someone who understood him without him having to explain. Who knew .
The fact that no one in this world knew was no ones fault but Peter's own, but- but- but-
It wasn't his fault .
Peter surprised himself at that realization. That he didn't have an obligation to trust people - to let them into his heart and be privy to his deepest secrets. He didn't have to let everyone in , but he couldn't keep everyone out either. Not right now. Not when his life was at stake. Not when they looked at him with concern - genuine concern - and Peter knew that they cared, even if he didn't know why .
Halfway. Peter could go halfway, "I heal fast. Peeling the fabric off will make it worse for me."
Peeling the fabric had felt excruciating, actually, but Alfred didn't need to know that. He might feel bad, which was the last thing Peter wanted. The anesthetic wouldn't be enough to dull the pain and make removing the fabric bearable, but Peter knew that if he just had forty-eight hours of peace he'd be fine by the end of it. His skin would heal beneath the fabric and push it out on its own, the blisters would smooth over, and once again Peter would looking like nothing bad in the world had ever fucking happened to-
Breathing. Right. Peter needed to do that. He had stopped doing so, somewhere in there, and gasped for air greedily (too greedily, the harsh sucking in of air hurt ) and coughed, more blood spraying from his lips before Peter could stifle it.
The three people watching Peter looked… Peter didn't look at them. He didn't want to.
But then, "Alright," Alfred acceded, "I trust you. The couch is a pull out. If you wouldn't mind sleeping here, I'd like to keep an eye on you while you heal, then. Mas- Red Hood," Alfred corrected with a knowledgeable look, "If you would get the soup before it boils over?"
Jason left the room. Peter decidedly didn't look at Alfred or Cass, instead looking at the barren walls. This place felt soulless. It looked a lot like Peter's apartment.
…Johnny liked interior decorating.
If, despite the fact that no one aside from Peter slept that night (they ended up granting Peter his wish of sleeping without someone watching over him, having truthfully claimed that he wouldn't be able to sleep with someone else was there), the pull out couch was empty in the morning, bloodstained sheets gone (not folded - gone )... well, no one was entirely surprised, although their hearts ached at not being trusted, despite understanding and relating in the same breath. They - all the Bats, really - were probably the best suited to understanding Peter's fears, which wouldn't vanish in a day. He'd trusted them with something , though, and that, they recognized, had to be enough.
Granny Gun could make a mean chicken noodle soup, Peter found out. She watched him eat carefully, shotgun in hand (it was comforting to know that Peter's back was protected as he allowed himself to be vulnerable like this) and aimed toward the kitchen entryway.
"They won't hunt me down," Peter had tried to reassure Granny Gun when she first took up her position, ready to shoot anyone who entered.
"Pff, of course they won't, luv. I'll shoot 'em before they can even try."
And it really did feel reassuring, despite his initial terror of Granny Gun catching him entering the house at dawn, still a mess of injuries. She'd just looked at him appraisingly, and then: "If I'd known you'd do something this foolish in your silly outfit, I'd have done something about it."
"You knew?"
"Luv, that green is noticeable , and I'm old, but I'm not blind. "
When Peter finished eating, Granny Gun jerked her head toward Peter's room, "I'm keeping guard, don't worry. You sleep. I'll keep the leftovers in the fridge. Help yourself to anything."
Peter felt warm - not the on-fire kind - but warm. Cared for. Safe.