Chapter Text
Standing, barely , on the cracked cement roof of a decrepit building, Peter found a moment to really take stock of his situation. Cracked ribs? Check. Possible concussion? Double check. An impressive assemblage of moderately bleeding wounds? Priceless. He shifted his weight to lean against the rough brick of the roof access vestibule. With a wheezing inhale of the perpetually damp and smoggy Gotham air, he winced against the dull pain that was becoming gradually less ignorable.
It really shouldn’t have come as any sort of surprise to Peter that this was how his day was progressing. I mean, given how my year has been going, this isn’t even a terrible day. The thought, while intentionally sarcastic, leaned a hair more maudlin than he currently had time for.
His spidey-sense clocked someone landing lightly, almost silently, on the roof behind the accessway. Considering that the entire crew of very eager up-and-coming mobsters he had just dealt with should now be en route to prison, Peter was fairly certain that the parties responsible for his current injuries couldn’t have followed him. Which left so much room for bigger and badder, to be honest. The vibe wasn’t overtly malicious according to his senses, but it was Gotham, so it was still inherently vaguely threatening as a matter of principle. He breathed deeply, preparing to launch into a web-slinging escape that would be less graceful than his usual fair for obvious reasons.
A person with an athletic build that had been made more imposing through apparently well-crafted body armor and a thick leather jacket rounded the corner. He had on a seamless red helmet, sturdy boots, and a gun holster on both his legs. Peter would have to be some kind of an idiot to not recognize the Red Hood, especially since he'd been doing his absolute damnedest to avoid the imposing vigilante.
To say that Peter tensed minutely in preparation for a confrontation would be putting it rather mildly, but in his defense, he was rather maimed right now. ”Hey, I know you’ve got this whole ‘Crime Alley is my territory, stay out or I’ll shoot you’ thing going on. Very cool of you, totally respect that. I’m just passing through, taking a quick breather.” And Peter probably would’ve nailed nonchalance if he hadn’t gasped his words out between rattling breaths. C’est la vie and all that , he supposed to himself wryly.
“Kid, you’re literally a stiff wind away from passing out.” The man’s modulated voice was dry and sarcastic, but Peter wistfully imagined more concern in it than he had heard from anyone else in at least a week. Which felt kind of nice, even if it was pretend.
“Good thing it isn’t breezy tonight.” Despite the possible collegial worry from the other man, his mind was already ranging past this interaction. Peter really needed to game plan where he was going to pass out for the night because he knew he didn’t have very long before his body stopped cooperating with him.
“I know someone who can patch you up, no questions asked. She’s good people. Free clinic for any who need it.”
Oh, Peter’s brain skipped for a second before he focused his attention back onto the Red Hood. Maybe he was actually worried, huh? “What’s in it for you?”
“The knowledge that I didn’t let Spider-Man bleed out on my turf for dealing with some thugs I hadn’t gotten around to yet.” The man shifted his weight in what could have been annoyance or discomfort. Impossible to tell. “You helped the Alley. And I don’t like owing people any favors.”
“Well, when you put it that way, I probably should stop bleeding all over your turf.” Peter pushed off against the brickwork and tried to hide his full-body wince with a roll of his shoulders. “Where are we headed?”
Hood let out a noise that sounded, despite his modulator, suspiciously like a snort. “Just a few blocks over. Do you want to hitch a ride on my bike?”
As the two vigilantes walked towards the edge of the roof together, Peter attempted to rib the man a little. “Pegs or handlebars?”
The featureless face of the helmet whipped towards Peter. “Christ, just how young are you?”
“Okay, so a guy can’t make transit puns without his age coming into question? Ageism is so real.” Peter spotted the motorcycle he recognized as the Red Hood’s and contemplated whether his injuries would be strained more by a ride or by swinging. After a moment's consideration, he decided the vehicle was probably the lesser of two evils and shot out a web carelessly. “Last one down has to drive!”
Red Hood followed close behind but not fast enough to contest Peter. The man grumbled the entire way. “As if I’d let a pre-teen drive my motorcycle.”
Peter graciously ignored the comment, because, well. He was physically roughly twelve or thirteen years old in this universe and couldn’t fault the guess in terms of accuracy.
The short trip to the free clinic was silent, as Peter stifled the sounds of pain that tend to come with having cracked ribs on a motorcycle over some of the roughest roads in the city. Red Hood cut the engine in front of an unassuming and nondescript building that was cleaner and in better repair than most of the others in the neighborhood. It was late, but the clinic wasn’t empty by any stretch.
Several prospective patients lingered in the waiting room. A few anxious-looking moms with kids in various states of unwell, some people slumped while holding hurt limbs closer to themselves, and a few people who looked simply exhausted. His spidey-sense remained conspicuously silent which spoke well of the environment. The people populating the lobby seemed normal levels of at-the-hospital-stressed instead of anything worse which was strangely putting Peter at ease.
Someone at the front desk looked up at the sound of the door opening. Their expression hardened a little bit at the sight of Red Hood. “Doctor Thompkins is busy. I assume this can wait.”
Without missing a beat, Hood leaned dramatically while looking back at Spider-Man over his shoulder. “How’re those cracked ribs, Spidey? Feeling up for a hang out in the lobby?” It was sarcastic and performative on Hood's part, of course, but Peter was inclined to agree. He didn’t have any right to cut in front of any of the other patients.
“Yeah, that’s fine. It’s not a big deal.” Peter shrugged, which he instantly regretted as it pulled at a wound he hadn’t noticed on his back. His adrenaline was fading fast, and all sorts of things he hadn’t paid attention to were suddenly catching up to him.
By the time Hood let out a presumably annoyed scoff, the entire room had gone quiet, eyes on the two vigilantes that had just entered the building. A small child looked up at Spider-Man with wide eyes. “You’re bleeding a lot, Mister Man.”
“What? Mister Man?” Peter’s brain stalled for a second at how the young kid had addressed him.
“Well, your name is Spider Man, so you’re Mister Man.” Rosy cheeks flushed in embarrassment and the small child with dark hair started to cling to his mom.
“That makes sense to me.” Peter nodded and kneeled down in front of the kid. “But I can wait, I’ll be alright. Thank you for being concerned.”
“You got it, dude.” The kid flashed a brief smile before disappearing again behind his mother’s leg.
The clinic waiting room was still silent enough to hear a pin drop when an imposingly professional woman in her fifties cleared her throat near the door to the exam rooms. “What’s going on here? Hood, if you’re up to some shenanigans, I swear to—”
“Wow, can’t a guy do altruism anymore? I bring in the nice new vigilante of Gotham, so he doesn’t bleed out on a rooftop, and this is the thanks I get? Unbelievable.” Red Hood made no special show or drew any attention to helping Spider-Man back to his feet. “Can we just use an exam room? I can get started on the basics, and if I find something beyond me, I’ll let you know for you to check out when you’re free.”
The doctor nodded and huffed out under her breath, “Damn vigilantes.”
“Sorry,” Peter ducked his head slightly as Red Hood started to practically drag him through the clinic.
“Exam room four.” The unimpressed medical professional called back firmly while she strode purposefully away from them.
“She’s not actually mad,” Hood opened a door and gestured for Spider-Man to go inside. “And even if she was, it wouldn’t be at you.”
“I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Peter could only describe the pace at which he moved towards the exam table as a pained trudge. Possibly even a strained limp. Both seemed fairly accurate.
“For Christs’ sake kid, how badly were you messed up?” Hood was already removing his thick leather gloves and jacket before scrubbing at his hands in the sink. He pulled on medical gloves as if this was an everyday occurrence for him and turned back to Spider-Man. “I’m gonna need you to take off most of your suit, because even with the ‘red doesn’t show bloodstains’ gimmick you’ve got going on, I can tell we’re gonna be doing a lot of stitches.”
Peter hesitated for a moment before clearing his throat. “Well, we probably shouldn’t do stitches if we can avoid it.”
“Why? Big kid afraid of a little needle?” Red Hood was studiously setting up a small rolling medical tray with equipment and disinfectant.
“Um, I mean, I’d heal through the stitches in a few hours which isn’t super enjoyable, speaking from experience.” Realistically, Peter at full health could probably heal through standard medical sutures in around an hour, but finding enough food in Gotham for a mutant vigilante metabolism was asking a bit too much of his current living conditions.
“Hmm. Doc doesn’t really keep that many supplies on hand to deal with accelerated healing factors. Too expensive for a free place like this.” Hood let out a breath and spun slowly in the rolling stool he’d scooted over to the bedside. “So, I’m guessing that means standard fever reducers and pain relievers are out?”
Peter nodded quietly, simply fidgeting with the crinkling paper that covered the medical cot.
“Okay,” Red Hood busied himself opening some drawers and pulled out a different set of medical supplies, a hospital gown, and a small black mask. After handing off the wearable items to Spider-Man, Hood once again feigned incredible focus on setting up the tools on the metal tray, turning away from the other vigilante entirely.
Getting the hint, Peter quickly slid off the cot on the other side, putting the large item of functional furniture between himself and the man. He looked away, and shimmied out of his fairly ruined vigilante attire, affixing the domino mask underneath his own mask before removing the last piece of his suit. Once he had finished, he hopped back up on the table and resisted the urge to swing his legs.
Hood, apparently listening the entire time for whenever Spider-Man was ready, turned back after the smaller vigilante had settled onto the exam table again. Whatever he was expecting to see Peter didn’t know, but the man paused sharply in shock at seeing Spider-Man out of his suit. Maybe it was the difference of knowing someone was young, and seeing them beat up. However, given what Hood regularly did to child predators in Crime Alley, Peter had reason to doubt that was solely responsible for the man’s surprise.
“You ever live in the circus?” Was all the man said regarding his confusion.
Which was most definitely not what Peter had been expecting. “Um, no? Have you?”
That seemed to make the man relax for some baffling reason since he snorted and shook his head. “No, you just look exactly like someone I used to know.”
They were both quiet for a moment as Red Hood began a very clinical review of Spider-Man’s injuries. The silence as the gun-toting crime boss gently cleaned his wounds was making Peter feel like this was all some kind of crazy fever dream.
“Uh, can I ask who I look like?”
The Red Hood, who Peter had heard once threw a duffle bag of eight severed heads onto a table to threaten Gotham underworld, seemed almost sheepish in his unwillingness to answer the question. “You look like the first Robin.”
—
Jason was really at a loss for words. Which quite literally never happened. Words were kind of his thing. If he was mean enough, if he was witty enough, and if he was bold enough he could protect himself. That’s what living on the streets taught him. It was a lesson reinforced by being Robin. And it was a truth hammered into his very bones from his time in the League of Shadows.
He, Jason Peter Todd, was never stunned into silence.
Everything from finding the kid a breath away from passing out to right before he found out about the healing factor had all been pretty boiler plate as far as helping out another vigilante went. He had no history with Spider-Man. The kid was incredibly skilled, and despite his notable aversion to killing, Jason really didn’t have a problem with him working in Gotham or even Crime Alley. It was obvious that he wasn’t with the Bats, which was an even bigger point in Jason’s estimation of the young and independent vigilante.
But the knowledge that the Spider-schtick wasn’t a gimmick like so many other Gotham vigilantes and villains, and was rather a potentially apt description of the powers this kid could possibly have as a meta, really threw Jason for a loop. He’d seen weirder, of course, he just hadn’t been expecting it in Gotham.
He could roll with the punches, of course, and Jason decided to focus on what he could do to help the young vigilante right now. Which was of course to help him stop bleeding before his accelerated healing could take over.
Seeing a familiar face looking up at him with the domino mask, however, that’s what really made Jason lose all ability to maintain his perpetual devil-may-care attitude.
Jason hadn’t even known Dick personally at that age. Which maybe almost made it worse. Because most of Jason’s core childhood, if one could even refer to his adolescent memories as a childhood, Robin was everything he could have wanted to be. For eight years, Jason grew up watching news clips of Dick as Robin. He saw pictures and read articles. He wanted to be someone like Robin so badly that it hurt. So, as much as Jason hadn’t met Dick before he was already eighteen years old and Nightwing, he’d grown up watching Dick being Robin.
And sitting in front of him was Robin. The Robin. It wasn’t Jason’s brash Robin, Replacement’s calculated Robin, or Demon Brat’s arrogant Robin. It was Dick Grayson’s light-hearted Robin. Sure, the hair was dark brown instead of black. His skin was lighter and dusted with freckles. But the messy curl to the hair, and the bone structure of his face in the mask, down to the tilt of his head when he flashed an easy smile were all identical to that of the first Robin.
And really, the ages line up. Dick is currently almost twenty-nine. This kid is around twelve or so. That would make Dick a very young parent, but Jason knew that the man had a fairly chaotic handful of years when he first left Gotham as a teen.
Jason also knew that this would hurt him so deeply.
So, he stayed silent while he cleaned the kid up and disinfected everything he could. There was definitely a head wound, but he thought he should let Doc Thompkins look at that. Jason got caught up in the routine of first aid, putting his spiralling thoughts from his mind.
“Uh, can I ask who I look like?” The kid’s voice was hesitant. Despite being confident enough to put on a suit and fight crime every night, the boy in front of Jason had a persistently timid manner.
He didn’t know how to respond. Jason, already stunned by just seeing this mini-Dick Grayson Robin, couldn’t even fathom how to scratch the surface of his existential crisis without blowing up everyone’s secret identities to a child who just happens to look like his childhood role model. He couldn’t say Nightwing, because while the kid did obviously look like Dick, he was so young. It’s harder to say he resembled Nightwing when he so clearly looked like Robin had. Jason couldn’t and wouldn’t say that the kid reminded him of his brother in so many words because that was an emotional can of worms he really couldn’t unpack right now. And it would be weird to offhandedly say that the kid shared characteristics with Gotham’s favorite famous adoptee Dick Grayson that were distinct enough to tell through a mask. But most people didn’t even officially know Nightwing was the first Robin. So, that felt like the safest choice. “You look like the first Robin.”
“Oh.” The kid’s voice took on a tone of empathetic sadness. “Is he…gone?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Jason shrugged with what he hoped was a casual air. “He’s still alive, but he isn’t Robin anymore.”
“It must have been hard.”
Jason, slightly taken aback by the question, looked at Spider-Man’s face for the first time since he’d started patching the kid up with copious amounts of liquid bandage. “What must have been hard?”
“I don’t know, but this person must be important to you, because you seem upset just talking about them.” The kid started rambling to beat the devil. “I mean, whatever happened must have been hard for you to be this stressed about because I haven’t seen you be stressed at all about anything else in the past hour.”
It felt like a blow to the gut. This kid read him like a bedtime story even though Jason still had his helmet on. He sat back on the stool slightly, partially because he’d reached the end of what he could help with, and partially because of the kid’s insight.
“It’s okay. What happened then, I’m over it.” Jason shrugged again, and started packing up the things he knew Leslie wouldn’t need. He cleaned the space as he went and tossed the disposables that he’d used.
“You’re lying.”
Jason froze at the hoarse whisper as the kid clapped a hand over his mouth. Jason had been throwing away his gloves and washing his hands again, and he turned slowly on his heel to look back at the vigilante on the exam table. “Excuse me?”
“I, uh, well, I mean…” Spider-Man was practically vibrating in anxiety, fidgeting with the hospital gown and the loose corner of a bandage on arm. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Oh? So, you just meant to think that I’m a liar.” Jason crossed his arms in annoyance. “Tell me why you think I’m a liar, Mister Polygraph.”
“I didn’t say you are a liar , I just said that you were lying .” The kid wasn’t even looking at him anymore, and was very obviously searching for a way out. “Which if you think about it, is a bit different.”
“Semantics.” Jason crossed the room again and sat back on the stool. “What made you think I was lying.”
He didn’t frame it as a question, since he wasn’t asking Spider-Man to answer, he was demanding that he did.
“...Your heart rate.” His mumbling voice. “It was consistent with increased stress, meaning that you probably weren’t over whatever you were thinking about and therefore lying, in a manner of speaking.”
For what felt like the umpteenth time that night, Jason took a moment to process what the kid said before deciding to change the conversation track slightly. “So, elevated healing factor and enhanced senses. What else is spidery about you, hm?”
“I’m sticky.” Spider-Man was most definitely holding back other details, but Jason couldn’t really blame him. In his position, Jason would’ve been even less forthcoming.
“Oh, so it's not the suit sticking to things, it’s you?”
Spider-Man nodded, chewing on his lower lip nervously.
Before either of them could say anything more, a crisp knock at the door punctuated the air.
“So, how are you two getting along here?” Leslie looked up from a clipboard tiredly.
“Just peachy,” Jason instantly fell into his teasing rapport with the familiar doctor. “Swapping tricks of the trade.”
She arched one eyebrow suspiciously looking between the tense helmeted vigilante and the fidgeting child on the medical table. “Spider-Man, do you want Red Hood to leave? It’s okay to say yes, he’s frustrating enough for this adult on a good day let alone for a kid like you on a night like tonight.”
Jason remained passively quiet, letting Spider-Man make his decision.
“Um, well, he can stay if he wants.”
The room fell quiet again, all three of them looking vaguely surprised by what the kid had said.
“Hey, my goal was just to make sure you didn’t die. You’re in good hands here, so if you want me to go, I can.” When he noticed Spider-Man’s small hands tighten around where they were gripping his hospital gown, Jason realized that this was a twelve year old meta alone in a hospital in Gotham. Given the kid’s state, he was obviously struggling with some degree of homelessness. It stabbed Jason's heart to know that the hour or so Spider-Man had spent in his presence was probably the most neutral social interaction the kid had in days. “But, if you need company while the good Doc runs her tests, I don’t mind hanging around.”
“Okay.” Spider-man gave a jerky nod and a ragged breath. “Thanks.”
Leslie took that as her cue and seamlessly launched into a full evaluation. Doc praised Jason’s work with the first aid, which had him preening a little bit. There wasn’t much talking outside of the standard fair medically relevant questions and answers, but the kid seemed relatively at ease with the doctor. However, when she reached for some needles to grab a blood sample, Spider-Man didn’t just flinch but fully cringed away. Wordlessly, like the saint she’s always been, Doc Thompkins skipped over it and moved on to the next task she wanted to accomplish. “Would you mind a CT scan? You have a lot of tissue damage, and I know you’ve mentioned a healing ability during this exam, but I want to make sure anything going on won’t kill you before your body can work it out.”
Spider-Man released a breath he didn’t seem to notice he’d been holding. “Yes, that would be fine. Thank you.”
Following Leslie, Jason helped the kid over to the scan room, and got him set up before joining her on the other side of the window. The scan was quick, and Doc Thompkins had them go back to the exam room where Spider-Man’s torn and bloodied suit lay crumpled on the floor.
Wordlessly, Jason grabbed a plastic bag from one of the cupboards in the room, and tossed the frighteningly thin fabric into the bag, tying it closed and setting it next to where Spider-Man sat on the medical cot. “Once Doc Thompkins gets back with the scans, I can grab you some street clothes from a donation closet they keep here. You can keep the mask too, if you want.”
“Why are you being nice to me?” Spider-Man looked up at Jason who had wandered over to prop himself up next to the closed door. “Doesn’t this ruin your street cred or something?”
Jason desperately wanted to laugh it off, and joke the conversation away from why he was helping the kid out. The kid had left an opening for Jason to joke about. But, the kid’s unwavering earnestness chipped away at Jason’s ability to shrug things off. With a put-upon sigh, he pulled his helmet off and set it on the desk beside him. Jason ran his hand through his hair and considered the kid in front of him. “Honestly. I’ve been where you are. I’ve done the child hero gig. I’ve also been homeless and alone in Gotham when I was too young to have any options. Both are lonely. Both suck. But, I’ve never had to do them at the same time, I can only imagine how awful it is, and I honestly wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
He paused for a second and realized who his worst enemy was. “Actually, no, my worst enemy deserves that and worse, but I digress. What I’m saying is, I’m not being nice. It’s honestly tragic that a kid whose biggest worries should be middle school shit is confused by someone showing basic human decency.”
“Basic human decency would’ve been dropping me off at the clinic door and leaving.” And damn if the stubborn set to Spider-Man’s jaw wasn’t the spitting image of a young Dick Grayson. “Since then, you’ve been nice. You didn’t have to help with first aid, because you got me to the clinic already. But you did. You didn’t have to stay while a doctor I didn’t know gave me a medical exam. But you did. And you definitely didn’t have to offer to help with getting me a clean set of clothes after making it easy to take my suit out of here discreetly. But you just did.”
And how wrong had Jason been that he thought this kid’s demeanor was timid. It seemed like he was perfectly willing to speak up for things he believed with conviction. Unfortunately, that list just didn't seem to extend to his own wellbeing.
“Okay, you got me.” Jason was glad for the presence of his own domino mask, so at least the kid couldn’t quite see his eye roll. “After giving extensive first aid to a tween whose very clear living situation reminded me of different stages of my own childhood, I decided to be nice to him because that’s what I had wanted when I was his age.”
It was at this exact moment Leslie gave the door a sharp knock and stepped in. “Well, Hood, when you put it that way it sounds like you might actually have a heart underneath all the kevlar and bullets.”
Spider-Man had the audacity to snicker at the doctor’s joke and the literal Red Hood’s expense.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Blood from a stone and all that.” Jason drummed his fingers against his helmet that still sat on the surface of the desk. “What’s up with the scans, Doc?”
Leslie graciously changed the topic to pouring over the full-body CT scans of Spider-Man, tacking them up on the light board mounted to the wall for a better visual. “So, as you can see, we had identified the cracked ribs earlier, they’re thankfully intact and in position so as long as you don’t do anything that can change that before you heal, those will be fine. But you also have a few microfractures in the bones of your left ankle.” She pointed to a scan of Spider-Man’s foot and lower leg.
“The points of stress are in your talus and cuboid. So, I do recommend staying off of that foot. I can give you a compression ankle wrap. I would like to give you a CAM walking boot and crutches, but multiple decades of helping vigilantes has taught me to lower my hopes.” The doctor looked at Spider-Man expectantly.
“I’ll take the compression wrap.” At least he had the good sense to sound at least a touch chastened, and Jason couldn’t help but snort in response.
“Of course you will.” With a sniff, Leslie made a note on her clipboard quickly. “So, based on the rate of healing I’ve witnessed from the bruising you sustained, I would like to cautiously recommend you stay away from any heroics for at least a week. Wearing the compression wrap consistently, as well. The ribs are probably looking at a full two weeks.”
Spider-Man groaned in annoyance. “Two weeks?”
“Honestly, my timelines are a shot in the dark, since I’m not familiar with the pace of your healing processes. If I thought for a second you’d listen, I’d quote you a standard healing time just to make sure everything is okay.” Leslie frowned at both vigilantes, taking a moment to remind Red Hood that he was the exact same way but with no added benefit of improved healing. “Just be grateful that if you’d had any internal bleeding, it was resolved like the bulk of your bruising by the time we did the scans, so it wouldn’t have been that serious. Despite the initial perception of the severity of your head wound, there’s no noticeable swelling or trauma. Overall, very lucky.”
“Nice.” Spider-Man did a little fist pump that had the doctor sighing in a fond exasperation that Jason found achingly familiar.
“However, it is close to the inciting incident of potential head trauma, and you seem surprised by the rate at which I think your ribs will recover, so I’m worried about your healing factor flagging behind what you’re used to. I would like you to be under observation for the night to make sure nothing further develops.” As she delivered her fairly benign request to help an obviously homeless child sleep in security while very maimed, Spider-Man went still.
“Like, here?” His voice wavered slightly. “Do I have to?”
Leslie sighed again. “It doesn’t have to be here, but I do recommend you get some rest in a safe place where someone can keep an eye out for you.”
“Oh…” It was heart wrenching how despondently the child looked down at his hands in his lap.
Jason really couldn’t bear the thought of this straight up golden retriever of a kid trying to tough it on his own in this state, and since the kid was clearly uncomfortable in the hospital, Jason wanted to at least offer a potentially more palatable solution.
“I have a safehouse nearby.” If Leslie looked surprised in any way by what Jason had said, she didn’t show it in the slightest. “If you want, you can take the bed while I do some casework on the couch,”
The relief was immediate and showed through Spider-Man’s very posture as he sagged slightly, tension evaporating from his body language. “Really?”
“Really. But only if you let Doc get you a change of clothes and whatever else she says you need to convalesce or whatever.”
“Of course!” The kid nodded eagerly. “For sure, thank you so much.”
Leslie gave a stiff nod and left the room briskly to acquire what she thought was necessary. Jason just knew he’d be leaving another sizable anonymous donation to the clinic as he does every time he ends up coming here for help with something a bit too beyond his ability.
“It’s nothing, kid, really.” Jason could hardly bear the overt reassurance in Spider-Man’s attitude when the kid realized he wouldn’t have to sleep on the streets in his condition or at a hospital he was unfamiliar with. “Really, being relieved to hang out at a known criminal’s safehouse while actively wounded is insane. Gotham is fucked.”
“Yeah,” The kid agreed nonchalantly. “But you’re the one who chose to live here, Mister Hood.”
Jason huffed indignantly. “Please, Mister Hood was my father. Just call me Hood.”
“Spidey works for me, I guess,” The kid said with a loose shrug. He was obviously starting to flag, getting more exhausted as the night continued.
“Cool, so what does Spidey want for dinner?” Jason knew that the safehouse he’d be taking the kid to was, thankfully, one of his better stocked ones as it was pretty centralized for him, so he visited regularly if only for the convenience and making sure anything that wasn’t shelf stable didn’t spoil.
“What?” Spider-Man seemed impossibly small as he looked up at Jason incredulously. “Dinner?”
“Yeah, long night and all that. I’d like to eat. What’re you in the mood for?”
“Um,” The kid seemed to be at a complete loss. “Options?”
“I keep shit fairly stocked, so I can make most things.” Jason understood where the kid was coming from, the culture shock of being homeless one night then cooked dinner by Alfred the next night never really went away. “But we can just decide when we get there, and you see what we’re working with.”
“Okay.” And with absolute certainty, despite the one-way lenses of the domino mask Spider-Man had on, Jason knew that the eyes of the kid in front of him were probably wide with wonder.
Leslie, predictably at this point, knocked at the door and opened it promptly. “A change of clothes, crush-type ice packs, the compression wrap, and extra disinfectant and bandages. Also, typed instructions that you’ll probably ignore regarding care and recovery.”
“Thanks, Doctor Thompkins.” Spidey took the bundle of clothes from Leslie, and she wasted no time gesturing to his ankle. At the kid’s nod, she shows him how to put the compression wrap on, explaining how to tell if it was on properly and when to adjust it for comfort and efficacy.
“Now, you two go rest .” The doctor gives an offhanded wave as she leaves the room.
“Thanks, Doc!” Jason called to her before closing the door after she left. To give the kid some privacy to change, Jason made a show of grabbing his gloves, jacket, and helmet, putting them on slowly until he heard Spidey clear his throat.
“Ready when you are, Hood.”
When Jason turned around, the kid was standing there in a slightly oversized hoodie, a well-worn denim jacket, a pair of black jeans, and a pair of sneakers. He wore a baseball cap with Wonder Woman’s logo low over his domino mask and his hood pulled up. Leslie had also apparently given him a backpack that he’d tossed everything else into. Everything said and done, if you didn’t look closely you’d miss the mask and just see a normal kid trying to fly under the radar. The clothes were clean and in pretty good condition. Jason was pretty satisfied with how it looked.
“Let’s leave through the employee exit, so that anyone still out front doesn’t clock that I came in with Spider-Man and left with a middle schooler.” Jason opened the door and stepped to the side. When it was clear that Spidey was following, Jason led them through the familiar halls towards a discreet side entrance. They looped around to the alley across the street where Jason had stashed his bike.
Jason started the bike and looked over at the younger vigilante, encouraging him to hop on. When he didn’t feel the kid’s arms wrap around him or even his weight lean into him, Jason glanced back sharply. “I’d feel more comfortable if you held on to me.”
The kid wiggled his fingers in a sort of look-ma-no-hands kind of way with a classic Dick Grayson smirk on his face. “Sticky, remember?”
“Everywhere?” Jason raised an eyebrow reflexively beneath his helmet despite knowing that the kid couldn’t even see it.
“Everywhere.”
“Huh. Damn, alright.” He kicked the bike off its stand and revved the engine. “This is gonna suck on those ribs, but it’ll be over soon, I promise.”
—
Peter had really not expected his night to improve in any meaningful way after winding up short of breath on a roof in Crime Alley. However, Peter was known to be wrong about several important things in his life up to this point and should really be quite used to it.
The unexpected help from Red Hood was initially baffling, but appreciated. As Hood kept stepping in to help, Peter found himself bracing increasingly for the proverbial rug to be pulled out from under him.
But, he supposed to himself that it’s maybe some goodwill built up from whoever Peter looks like in this universe. Helpful? For sure. Guilt inducing? Definitely. But beggars can’t be choosers afterall, and Peter knew for a fact that he’d never been hurt quite this badly in Gotham and had been decently concerned about what he was going to do to not die in his sleep. There was the added aspect that the roof he’d been on when Hood found him was where Peter had left his backpack several hours before, only to return to a disappointingly empty space.
So all-in-all the trip to the clinic which yielded basic treatment, a safe place for the night, and a replacement to the clothes and bag he’d lost was a huge win for him.
Again, very surprising given his usual brand of Peter Parker luck.
The ride to Hood’s safehouse was, predictably, exceedingly uncomfortable for his cracked ribs but significantly more pleasant than the trip to the clinic had previously been, which meant his healing factor was still at least fairly elevated. Big ups there.
Hood rolled to a stop in an underground parking ramp that had a crazy well-hidden entrance. They both dismounted the bike, and Red Hood strode briskly to an elevator that opened rather instantly when its call button was pressed. Peter followed quietly, noticing that the garage and elevator were very secure and private making him curious about the interior of the safe house.
He obviously didn’t have to wait long. As the elevator pinged and the doors slid open to reveal a nice but understated apartment, Hood set his helmet down on a conveniently placed side table. “Let’s get you fed, kid.”
Red Hood moved towards the kitchen confidently. “Any sort of genre you’re in the mood for? Soup, pasta, casserole, etc.”
“Um, can you make any Thai food?” Peter shocked himself by asking for a type of food he hadn’t eaten in almost a year, since Aunt May had died. There were a lot of foods he hadn’t eaten in the past year, mostly due to access. However, Thai food was one that he was fairly certain he wouldn’t have been able to stomach eating alone in a different universe.
“Nothing fancy, but I could probably do a pared down Pad Thai or Pad See Ew.” Red Hood waited, visibly expectant for Spider-Man to answer.
“Um, Pad Thai please.”
Hood nodded and got to work pulling out cookware and ingredients. He got a pot of water set up to boil, and a pan ready with some oil, and then mixed a bowl of sauce and set it to the side. Peter just watched the man as he worked diligently, the pleasant scents of the bold flavors in the dish drifting throughout the apartment as they warmed on the stove. He seemed to know exactly what to do next. It was baffling to Peter that someone with the money and notoriety of the Red Hood would be as sufficient in the kitchen as he was at both organizing and fighting crime.
Truly, the Red Hood was a multifaceted man.
His awe must have been a little obvious, because Hood was smirking as he set two bowls down onto the counter. “Fork or chopsticks?”
“Chopsticks.” Peter placed his hand out, palm up.
“Correct.” Hood grinned at Spider-Man and deposited a pair of plain black resin chopsticks in the expectant hand.
Once Peter took a bite of the food, all thoughts of attempting to maintain a conversation during the meal absolutely vanished from his head. It was the best tasting food he’d eaten in days, if not weeks. Honestly, it might have been the best food he’d had in this universe.
Needless to say, Peter wolfed down the Pad Thai.
“Dude, that was so good.” He balanced his chopsticks carefully across the lip of the now-empty bowl. “Thank you so much. I haven’t had Thai food in forever.”
“... Are you okay?” The man across from Peter was leaning forward in concern.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Peter’s face felt a little flushed, but he attributed that mostly to housing an entire bowl of food with a minimal amount of breathing between bites.
“Because you’re crying?”
“What?” Peter reached up to his cheek, his fingertips wet as he pulled them away from his face. He was glad that the tears were apparently not pooling behind the lenses of his borrowed mask, but he was a little bit concerned about the solubility of the adhesive in a saline compound like tears. “Wow, that’s crazy. I don’t know why I’m crying?”
Hood wordlessly pushed his own bowl forward, trading it for the empty bowl, which he cleared off of the table and lowered into the sink. “I mentioned earlier about how I was homeless for a bit as a kid. Well, after that I was adopted for a little bit by this rich guy who had a butler and everything. It was surreal, not having to worry about food suddenly. Not having to worry about anything money related, really. But, it didn’t really hit me until one night, a year or so into the whole thing, when dinner was scalloped potatoes and a roast ham. It was a dish my mom used to make back when we had enough money, and she was lucid enough to cook.
I don’t know why, but the taste of it, even though the recipe wasn’t the same, made me start crying. I didn’t notice at first, and just kept eating. On my third plate of food, I felt sick, and I was practically sobbing. But I just couldn’t stop eating. It was a food I associated with comfort. But it hurt because I knew I’d never get back the reason the meal meant so much to me.”
“What’d the rich guy and his butler do?” Peter traced his fingers along the edge of the bowl, doing his level best to avoid looking at Hood. It felt raw, being understood in this way. He didn’t know how to react to it.
“I don’t remember.” Hood’s answer shocked Peter into glancing back up at the other vigilante who was studying the tiles of the kitchen floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Why not?” Peter had to know. He had to know what to do next. How to move forward from this creeping existential grief that threatened to consume him.
Hood ran a hand through his dark hair with its white streak at the front, and shook his head with an expression that could’ve been described as forlorn. “I was in an accident a few months after that, so my memories around then are a little spotty, honestly. But I don’t think it really matters what the rich guy and the butler did.”
Peter repeated himself, slight incredulity slipping into his tone. “Why not?”
The man in front of him hummed with uncertainty before making eye contact. “Because I was a pretty shitty person then, and an even worse person for a while after the accident. I’m glad I can’t remember all the ways I must have disappointed them.”
“What if you didn’t disappoint them? What if it was okay that time?”
“Then it’s for the best that I can’t remember. I can’t miss what I don’t know.”
The brutal truth of the logic forced the air out of Peter’s lungs. It’s what he’d been telling himself since landing in this universe. That the only two people left in the multiverse who cared about him were better off not remembering him, and he didn’t have to feel guilty about it because they couldn’t miss what they’d never known. What had been a semi-comforting thought experiment to alleviate some of the worst of his guilt, was suddenly a harsh and unforgiving reality. He could feel an edge of panic as his breathing increased, and his vision softened around the edges.
He must have been pretty out of it, because a hand was suddenly reaching out to him from his periphery, and he instinctively shot straight off of the stool he’d been sitting on and landed in a tense crouch on the ceiling.
Hood held his palms outward and took a few placating steps back from the space directly under the teen clinging to the ceiling of his living room.
Peter’s heart rate was going crazy despite his spider sense being eerily quiet. He couldn’t figure out what was happening.
“Hey, kid, you need to breathe.” The vigilante who was standing on the floor like a normal person was affecting a tone of forced calmness.
That can’t be right, of course I’m breathing.
“Kind of, but it’s too shallow and erratic. I’m gonna need you to breathe with me.”
Is this guy a fucking mind reader?
A strained chuckle fell from Hood’s mouth, “I’ll tell you when we get that breathing level again, okay?” He then started making an obvious show of inhaling and exhaling.
After what was probably only a few minutes of forcing his breathing to match Hood’s, but felt like an eternity, Peter’s heart rate and vision returned to a state that was close to normal. When his thoughts caught up to what had happened, Peter was instantly embarrassed. He dropped down from his upside-down crouch in mortification.
“I’m sorry, thanks again for the food, but I should probably go now.” Peter avoided Hood’s gaze, and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, his other hand reached for the backpack he’d unceremoniously dropped on the floor by the kitchen counter.
“Don’t.” Hood didn’t move from where he’d been standing for the last several minutes. “You’re maimed and literally just had a panic attack. I’d rather you not roam the streets as an easy target with no one to look out for you, and I can tell you’d ditch me if I tried to follow you, so let’s skip the self-flagellation lone wolf bullshit, okay?”
“... Okay.” Peter acquiesced if only because he knew that Hood was right about his chances on the streets of Crime Alley and Gotham in his current condition.
“I’m gonna walk past you to make some tea in the kitchen. Would you like some?”
Chagrined and thoroughly drained, Peter shuffled out of the way, sinking to the floor in front of the couch. “Yes please.”
“No worries.” Hood was, in Peter’s opinion, suspiciously calm. On the other hand, the Red Hood had a reputation on the down low for being the best vigilante in the city when it came to protecting kids, as disparate as that seemed to be from his usual guns and crime lord approach to vigilantism. So, in a way, it made sense to Peter that the man would be well-informed at dealing with intense trauma responses.
A few minutes later, a mug of steaming and calmingly fragrant tea was placed within arm’s reach of where Peter had pressed himself between the couch and the coffee table, knees hugged to his chest. Hood had chosen to sit on the same couch, but on the opposite end, sitting cross legged which meant Peter was free to pass between the coffee table and the couch on either side completely uninterrupted. Additionally, it meant that there was a large amount of space on the couch for Peter to sit without being in close proximity to Hood if he didn’t want to be.
After a few moments of silence that was tense probably only to Peter, he reached for his mug of tea with a soft, “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
It was quiet again for a while before Hood spoke. “You don’t have to talk about it, but I do want to try to avoid saying or doing whatever I did again.”
Maybe it had been the loneliness, and maybe it was that he was so tired, but Peter just really didn’t see the point in keeping things a secret from Hood anymore. Red Hood seemed like a nice enough guy to Peter, and this was the first person he’d interacted with that didn't want to hurt him in some way since he’d gotten his aunt killed, nearly blew up his reality, and ended up in this universe after everyone he knew was forced to forget him.
And really, when he thought of it like that, what did Peter Benjamin Parker even have left to lose?