Chapter Text
Peter crawled over the edge of the roof silently, listening to the commotion inside the warehouse. There was a skylight in this one, or at least, there was a fairly square hole that may or may not have had glass in it at some point in time, which allowed him to sneak over and get a better look.
Two masked vigilantes were tied to chairs in the middle of the floor while men in Kevlar and black masks surrounded them with guns. One of the vigilantes was dressed in a black and blue skin tight suit, with a black domino mask over his eyes. The other was dressed in sturdy black cargo pants, a Kevlar vest with a red bird painted across the chest, and more than a few empty gun holsters. His domino mask was red. Peter happened to know that the one with the red bird symbol usually wore a helmet in addition to the mask, but it had obviously been removed at some point. Peter looked around. Yep, there it was, sitting on a table against the wall. It looked remarkably undamaged.
He was glad that he recognized the two heroes. He’d been doing a lot of studying in the past few months, getting to know how this universe operated, and he liked what he’d learned about Nightwing and Red Hood in particular. Nightwing was well loved by the general population and had a solid track record of not only bringing in the bad guys with nonlethal methods, but also providing law enforcement the evidence necessary to make sure the charges stuck. It was something a lot of vigilantes, including Peter when he’d first started, didn’t think about.
Red Hood, on the other hand, reminded him more of Deadpool. Especially when Hood had first come to Gotham. Those records hadn’t been pretty. Lots of death, severed heads, criminals running scared. He tilted his head. It probably spoke to something broken in his psyche that he found it endearing how much better Red Hood was doing with the whole wanton death and dismemberment thing, but he'd just been so proud of Deadpool lately and he supposed that feeling was carrying over to this stranger.
He hadn’t met any of the local heroes in person yet. He was still avoiding the superhero community in this dimension, at least until he felt like he could stand on his own two feet here. He never liked feeling disadvantaged when face to face with superheroes. The only reason he was breaking his rule now was that Nightwing and Red Hood were obviously in trouble. His limited research had implied that the two of them didn’t work together often, but it seems like they had teamed up tonight for whatever reason. It wasn’t going well.
“You birdies are going to learn to stop interfering with our business,” the lead Bad Guy said. His mask was slightly different, made to look like a skull. It was probably meant to look more intimidating than it was. Unfortunately, Peter didn’t know who this guy was. He hadn’t been on the list of major Gotham villains, and Peter hadn’t gotten around to looking into the smaller ones who weren’t in and out of Arkham every few months. Judging by the naming system in this universe, though, he was going to guess that the guy was called something like Black Mask or the Menacer. Maybe simply Skullface.
The bad guy #1, as Peter had labeled him in his head, suddenly pistol whipped Nightwing in the side of the head. Both vigilantes were gagged, but Red Hood started making noise behind the cloth tied around his mouth that sounded an awful lot like swearing. He was tugging at his bonds, but they weren’t loosening. Peter saw the way Nightwing’s head lolled, dazed from the blow, and reacted before thinking.
“If they haven’t learned that lesson yet,” Peter said, sliding upside down from a line of webbing into the center of the warehouse, “then I doubt they’re going to this time.”
Shots immediately began to ring out. He’d positioned himself high enough that none of the bullets came close to anyone else in the warehouse, though he himself had to twist and leap to avoid getting hit. He moved quickly, quicker than the goons expected, judging by their inability to keep up with him as he swung across the warehouse ceiling. He picked up goons as he went, disarming them and securing them to pillars and walls with webbing.
Nightwing and Red Hood both gave muffled shouts, which Peter took as a warning. He ducked low and the bullets flying at him from behind hit the bad guys in front of him instead. One dropped with a bloody shoulder while another was hit in the chest. With the way his heart rate immediately became erratic, Peter wasn’t sure he was going to make it. He shot to his right and webbed four more bad guys out of the way. That only left two more, plus the leader. It was quick work to take out the last two goons – seriously, these guys needed better training and like, medical insurance. And dental. Did they get worker’s comp in this kind of job? He asked one of the criminals about this as he webbed him to dangle from the ceiling. The guy just spat at him. Peter grimaced and dropped back down to the floor.
“Don’t worry Mr. Nightwing, Mr. Red Hood! I’ve got this.”
Their responding grunts did not sound reassured, despite the fact that the warehouse was mostly clear now. He frowned at the lack of faith.
“A new player,” the villain said, in a stereotypically villainous voice. “And not even a bat. A spider come to play.”
“That’s me!” Peter responded cheerfully. He shot his webs at the guy’s limbs, but he was faster than Peter expected. He adjusted to keep up and managed to web one of the guy’s wrists to the wall. He quickly followed up with webs to the guy’s other wrist, chest, and mouth. He had to get close to disarm him, which caused the muffled noises behind him to increase dramatically, but he ignored them until all of Bad Guy #1’s weapons were in a pile, far out of reach, and coated in a thick layer of webs.
“Play time’s over now. Time for the responsible adults to come pick you up.”
Bad Guy #1 snarled at him in a way that was genuinely frightening, but he couldn’t free himself from the webs. It took Peter’s level of strength to break them and even he had to put in effort. He took another look around the warehouse, but there were no more goons left standing. He was running low on web fluid after all of that, but it was worth it.
He turned and smiled at Nightwing and Red Hood, even though they couldn’t see beneath his mask. Nightwing was listing slightly to the side and breathing heavily. That hit to the head did a number on him. Peter’s smile slipped away and he rushed forward to free them. He carefully grabbed the zip ties and ripped them apart, freeing their hands and feet. The number of zip ties seemed like overkill in Peter’s opinion, but perhaps the villains here had simply learned to stop underestimating the local hero community.
“Who the fuck are you?” It wasn’t the most grateful greeting he could have received, but Red Hood seemed like the blunt, no-nonsense type, so Peter decided not to take it personally.
“I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!” He grinned wryly beneath his mask.
“How old are you, kid?”
Peter frowned, not that they could see it. “Old enough to have just saved your lives.”
“Touché.” Red Hood looked around at the criminals currently stuck to the walls and ceiling, minus the two that had been shot. Peter could have slapped himself for forgetting the man who was bleeding out on the floor. His heart climbed into his throat as he leapt over and checked on the one that had been shot in the chest. He was alive, but barely. He used his webbing as a makeshift bandage for both of the men and stepped back. He’d already called 911, so with luck the paramedics would be here soon.
“He’ll be alright,” Peter assured them both. Red Hood didn’t seem too concerned, but Nightwing did and Peter wanted to make sure he knew that Peter hadn’t wanted him to die either. He was used to death by now, but if he could avoid it he would do everything in his power to do so. “The bullet missed his heart and his lung isn’t punctured, which is good.”
“You’re a medical expert too now?” Red Hood asked. He’d retrieved his helmet, but Peter was sure that his eyebrows were raised underneath.
“Well, no, but I know the basics. And I can hear his heart and breathing, which helps.”
The other two vigilantes shared a quick look. Peter wasn’t sure what the look said, but he didn’t really have time to stick around. He prepared himself to swing back through the hole in the roof, but stopped at the sound of Nightwing’s voice.
“You move like you know what you’re doing, but I’ve never seen you around. Or heard of you operating anywhere else.”
There was an implied question in that, several of them, but Peter didn’t have the answers Nightwing wanted. He shrugged.
“I mostly just do little guy stuff, you know? Muggings, lost kids, cats stuck in trees. You’d be surprised how much people appreciate that. Don’t get me wrong!” he hastened to add. “What you guys do is super important too and we absolutely need people like you, it’s just not…what I do.”
Nightwing looked at him for a moment, then smiled. “Yeah. I can see how the ‘little guy stuff’ gets lost sometimes.”
Peter nodded and pointed finger guns at him. “Exactly. Now, the police will be arriving in…forty seven seconds, so I’ve gotta skedaddle. See ya! It was nice to meet you both!”
He was up on the roof before either of them could respond.
“Well that was weird as fuck,” Jason said, staring after the kid who’d just saved their lives. His costume had been surprisingly well made, with a full face mask and a large red spider across the chest. Despite all evidence to the contrary, this Spiderman didn’t fight like a newbie.
Dick sighed. “No kidding.”
Spiderman couldn’t be more than sixteen by Dick’s estimate, and even that was being extremely generous. Thirteen would be his actual guess. He was skilled, but undisciplined and flippant in a way that was likely to get himself hurt. As adorable as he found the idea of Spiderman rescuing cats from trees and walking kids home at night, he was deeply worried that the kid was in over his head. He’d almost been shot immediately upon landing in the room, for one, and a later mistake had nearly gotten one of False Facers killed. A quick look at the kid’s handiwork, however, proved that his webs were surprisingly good at holding wounds together and it seemed like his assessment of the man’s survival would be correct.
“Loud. Acrobatic. Over confident,” Jason listed. He cocked his head to the side, as though a thought just occurred to him. “Was that what you were like as a kid? I see now why B has gray hairs.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
They broke into a brief, childish shoving match that ended abruptly with the sound of approaching sirens. Dick glanced at his watch. Exactly forty-seven seconds from when Spiderman had left. He wondered how the kid had known. He and Jason slipped silently back out into the night.