Chapter Text
Red Robin’s gauntlet ground against the rough, asphalt texture beneath the shadow-mass of Teekle. The familiar’s foul, metallic-ozony smell was overpowering, and its shadowy bulk pressed the last sliver of air from his lungs. Tim twisted, legs straining, and finally found purchase, kicking hard against the familiar’s knee. The creature shuddered, its form briefly dissipating into smoke before reforming. That split-second was all Tim needed. He shunted Teekle aside and sprang to his feet, eyes on the pale, trembling source of the trouble.
“We’re done playing, Clarion!” he yelled, rushing the witch boy.
"Go away!" Clarion screamed, the sound sharp enough to hurt Tim's ears even through the cowl.
The wave of light—sickly green and pulsating—hurled Red Robin through the air. It felt like his bones were vibrating out of sync with his body, and the agony stole his vision. The world became a smear of light and he was thrown backward, the expected impact of the crates never arriving.
Instead, the sickening lurch continued, gravity seemingly forgotten as he tumbled through empty air. For a precious, damning moment, consciousness left him, his mind a blank slate.
Woof was all he managed as a crushing pressure slammed into his ribs.
He was jolted back to the present not by landing, but by a sudden, jarring collision.
His internal systems, reacting to the shock, forced the protective lenses of his cowl to darken against the blinding glare. Bright... why was it so bright? This wasn't the polluted, artificial night sky of Gotham. This was high-noon sun, reflecting off glass towers in a city he didn't recognize.
Tim sucked in a desperate breath, realizing two things simultaneously: he was a solid twelve stories up, and he had just slammed into a person who was in the process of swinging. The collision sent both of them spiraling out over the concrete canyon below. Tim’s hand shot out, his fingers locking around the person's upper arm, his grip a frantic vice of desperation. For a sickening second, the fate of both of them rested on the friction of their gear.
"Whoa—! Where'd you come from, Red?" a voice grunted, male, sharp, and laced with surprise.
Red Robin ignored the nausea and vertigo. He looked up and saw a chest clad in a skintight red and blue suit crisscrossed with black web motifs. Above that was a mask with large, shocked white eye-lenses.
Before Tim could formulate a single confused question, a sharp, whizzing sound cut the air.
"Heads up, new guy!" the web-suit wearer yelled.
A dark, spherical object smashed into the wall inches from Tim's head, exploding into a cloud of pungent smoke and orange shrapnel.
Tim squinted. Hovering fifty feet away on a noisy, silver battle platform was a truly freaky-looking creep—all armored green and purple, topped by a terrifying, grinning mask. This lunatic was winding up to throw another projectile.
"Taste a genuine pumpkin bomb, you costumed clowns!" the man cackled, launching a fresh, glowing gourd straight at them.
Before Red Robin could process the bizarre terminology or the sudden shift in reality, the "clown" he’d crashed into reacted. The web-slinger didn't just dodge; he defied physics. With Tim still gripping his arm, the man executed a sudden, whipcord-tight contraction, leaping and twisting in a sudden blur. It was a movement that made Dick's fluid, practiced style look merely human. It was like an Olympic gymnast had been injected with an unstable energy drink. He pulled Tim with him, swinging their joint weight out of the path of the incoming ordnance.
"The name's not 'clown,' pal, it's—" the web-slinger yelled, his voice strained.
But the cackling maniac on the battle platform wasn't done. He hurled a handful of the spherical explosives—three more orange bombs arcing toward their new trajectory. "And you and your little friend too!" he screeched, relishing the chaos.
Tim didn't wait. Instinct and training took over, overriding the crippling confusion. He released the web-slinger, letting the other hero's momentum carry him further out of the blast radius, and simultaneously deployed his collapsible bo staff. The titanium snapped into full length with a metallic shing.
With a focused grunt, Tim spun the staff into a blur of defensive motion. The first bomb struck the staff's midpoint with a heavy thunk. The second and third followed rapidly. Tim didn't just deflect them; he used the kinetic energy of the incoming projectiles, striking them with precise, sharp blows. The bombs, their internal timers counting down, were redirected instantly.
Fwump. Fwump. Fwump.
Three glowing pumpkin bombs flew straight back toward the freaky-looking creep on the battle platform.
Tim didn’t just deflect the pumpkin bombs; he struck them with such force and precision that they became projectiles targeting their owner.
The Green Goblin was tracking the web-slinger's wild, serpentine movements. He had not anticipated the sudden appearance of a professional martial artist with a titanium staff.
"No! You little—!" the Goblin screamed, the cackle replaced by a choked roar of surprise. The first bomb struck the nose of his glider. The other two detonated a split-second later against the hover platform. Smoke and metallic shrapnel blossomed violently. The Goblin’s glider bucked and spiraled out of control.
He was forced to retreat, the damaged platform sputtering. But the lunatic was never one to leave quietly. As the glider plummeted several stories, the Goblin twisted, his arm flicking out in a desperate, final counterattack.
He flung a handful of his razor-sharp shuriken—six aimed at the Spider and four at the new guy.
The web-slinger was momentarily airborne, grappling for a new handhold. He danced in the air, his impossibly fast reflexes keeping him clear of five shuriken, but the sixth found its mark. It bit deep into his thigh with a sickening thwack, sinking right into the femoral artery.
Tim, still falling, spun his staff, the metal ringing as he parried three of the blades meant for him. The fourth shuriken bypassed the guard, its edge slicing through his cape and embedding itself with a jarring impact into his left shoulder. Pain bloomed hot and crippling.
The injured Goblin and his smoking glider vanished around the corner of a skyscraper.
But the fight had already been lost. The web-slinger cried out, a sound of shock mixed with sharp pain. The puncture had been catastrophic. With the force bleeding rapidly from his leg, his superhuman coordination vanished. His half-formed web dissolved, and he plummeted, dropping a catastrophic thirty feet.
CRUNCH.
He struck the pavement in a tangled heap, the sound of his impact sickeningly loud, followed by the distant wail of shocked civilian sirens beginning to swell up from the street.
Tim didn't hesitate. The pain from the shuriken embedded in his shoulder was a hot, insistent ache, but the sight of the web-slinger’s bloody thigh—and the sickening angle of his fall—overruled his own injury.
He dropped out of the air, using his cape's glider function to cushion the final forty feet, landing with a jarring impact next to the still, unconscious hero.
Tim’s cowl flickered, his HUD flashing "NO CONTACT" over the cityscape. Gotham’s comms network—Oracle, Batman, everyone—was silent. He was alone.
A quick, clinical glance at the hero was enough: pale skin, shallow breathing, and the pooling crimson that stained the pavement next to the deep slice in his leg. The fall had done massive damage; the artery wound was catastrophic. Medical help, and fast.
The sirens were closer now, the sound sharp and frantic. Tim couldn't risk the police or the press in this unknown, daylight city. He had to disappear.
He moved on instinct, seizing the downed hero's uninjured arm. With a grunt that tightened his jaw against the searing pain in his shoulder, Tim dragged the heavy, limp body toward the nearest manhole cover he could spot. His own strength was taxed, the pull on his injured muscles agonizing, but he ignored it. He levered the metal lid open, eased the web-slinger down into the gloom, and followed, pulling the cover shut with a heavy, echoing clang.
The descent into the stinking, damp depths of the sewer was rough, but he finally dragged this guy to a patch of dry concrete beneath a rusted maintenance ladder—a momentary, shadowed pocket of safety.
Tim shed his battered cape. The first priority was light and warmth. He rummaged through his belt, pulling out a multi-tool and a small, chemically-treated fire-starter brick. With a snap and a spark, he had a small, contained fire burning, casting dancing, orange light and shadows across the cavernous tunnel.
The triage began immediately. He knelt beside the unconscious hero, pulling a tourniquet from his kit, his hands moving with practiced, grim efficiency toward the catastrophic injury.
Tim worked with relentless focus, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the low, constant drip of the sewer water. The first priority was the catastrophic bleed. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his own shoulder, he pulled out a specialized capsule from his utility belt: a prototype nano suture that he and Bruce had developed for deep field trauma.
He applied the clear, viscous gel to the open, pulsing slash on the stranger’s thigh. The gel instantly activated, and Tim watched the miniature machines knit the severed artery back together, the crimson flow slowing, then halting completely. It was miraculous, alien tech even to this universe, and it had just saved a life.
Next, he stabilized the arm—likely broken from the thirty-foot fall—using a burst of rapidly hardening foam from a canister, setting a makeshift, custom-fit splint.
Only then did Tim address his own injury. The shuriken was a deep, searing ache, but he probed the area carefully. No severing of major nerves or vessels. He could move his fingers, but the blade was still seated firmly in his deltoid muscle.
With a sharp intake of breath, Tim gripped the shuriken—its shape subtly different from his own Batarangs, more like a razor-sharp bat—and yanked it free. The world briefly went white with pain. Blood immediately welled up. He quickly held the blade over the small fire, heating the metal until it glowed faintly. Then, clenching his jaw so hard he tasted copper, he pressed the heated metal onto the fresh wound. The sizzle and stench were overwhelming, but the bleeding stopped.
As he worked, he took in the details of the unconscious hero's uniform. The red and blue web-suit was woven from a material Tim didn't recognize—part fabric, part flexible armor, unnervingly resistant yet thin. He noticed microscopic emitters along the wrists, clearly the source of the webbing, and he detected a low, rhythmic bio-signature in the suit’s material itself, almost like a thin layer of muscle. This wasn't just a costume; it was advanced organic tech.
Exhaustion, blood loss, and the cumulative shock of the eldritch blast, the dimensional jump, and the self-surgery finally caught up to him. He pulled a compact, highly-reflective thermal blanket from his pack, covering himself and the unconscious hero. He settled against the damp concrete wall, his head bowed, his training maintaining his posture even as his awareness faded.
His last thought before passing out was a stark realization: He was a field medic with a patient who was a biomechanical spider-man, fighting a flying pumpkin-bomber, miles and possibly dimensions away from home. Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t this shit happen to Jason?
Tim was completely out, his body slumped against the rough brick, his breathing ragged but steady beneath the silver thermal blanket.
A soft groan cut through the silence.
Spider-Man—or rather, Peter Parker, though the mask was still on—woke to the smell of damp earth, stagnant water, and faint woodsmoke. His spider-sense wasn't screaming, but it was a low, insistent thrum of unease.
He blinked his large, white lenses. "Huh. Just when you think you've seen it all," he muttered, the words thick and dry in his throat. He'd woken up in dumpsters, web-cocoons, and even once hanging upside down from a chandelier, but never in a literal sewer with a campfire and a random, costumed stranger.
He took inventory. His body felt like a lead weight full of broken glass. He slowly flexed his left arm; the movement was stopped by a hard, custom-molded cast. The forearm was definitely splinted, and the radiating ache told him he was probably sporting a few cracked ribs—maybe a concussion too, judging by the dull throb behind his eyes.
He checked his thigh. The suit was torn, but the skin beneath was miraculously closed. A thin, neat scar ran across where the Goblin's shuriken had cut him. This wasn't a standard hospital stitch, or even his own accelerated healing. This was surgical perfection, done recently.
He glanced over at the other figure. Slumped in a similar blanket was "ninja-boy," as Peter instantly nicknamed him. The red and black armor was battered and streaked with dirt. A bloody dressing was crudely taped to the shoulder.
A strange, protective warmth washed over Peter despite his pain. The kid had taken a shuriken for him, patched up a severed femoral artery with what looked like future-tech, and dragged his butt into the sewers.
Definitely not standard procedure.
He tried to sit up, stifling a pained hiss. He saw the fire, the discarded supplies, and the razor-bat lying nearby—used, likely, to cauterize that nasty shoulder wound.
This wasn't some villain's lair. This was a makeshift field hospital.
He had to be the one to save me.
Peter watched the young hero sleep for a moment, his mind working quickly to piece together the chaotic event. He had to know who this guy was, and more importantly, why the Goblin's bombs had thrown him a dimensional curveball.
Peter watched the young hero sleep for a moment. He had a million questions, but the most immediate one was: Who is he?
He needed information, and that mask—a little domino strip covering only the eyes—was practically begging to be removed. "People really wear these?" Peter thought, shaking his head slightly. It was so much more cumbersome than just hiding your eyes with dark lenses.
Wincing from the pain in his ribs, he slowly, carefully eased himself off the wall and shuffled closer to the sleeping figure. His hand extended, reaching for the edge of the domino mask to try and see a face, to get a name.
Just as his fingertips brushed the cool plastic edge, his spider-sense flared. Not a panicked, high-pitched scream like with the Goblin, but a deep, rolling thunder of warning—a spike of acute, immediate danger right here in the sewer.
And then, a sound.
A raspy voice, rough from either exhaustion or the eldritch blast, cut through the silence.
"Don't even."
The voice belonged to the boy in the red suit. Red Robin’s eyes, visible now that the mask’s lenses were off, were wide open, clear, and intensely focused on Peter's hand. He hadn't just woken up; he had been awake, waiting.
Tim's hand, impossibly fast despite his shoulder injury, shot up and grabbed Peter's wrist, the grip surprisingly strong.
Red Robin’s hand clamped down on Peter's wrist, the grip surprisingly strong despite the fresh wound in his shoulder.
Spider-Man, never one to let a tense moment go unpunctuated, let out a weary chuckle. "So... you bring all your first dates here, or is the ambiance just for me?"
Tim immediately released Peter’s arm and sat up fully, wincing slightly as he adjusted the position of his bandaged shoulder. He checked his utility belt—everything was still secured—and then, with a sharp movement, used a fingertip to reset the edges of his domino mask, reasserting his privacy.
"Nope. You're the first," Tim’s voice was still raspy, the tone dry and devoid of humor.
Peter, unable to help himself, smiled beneath the mask. "I knew what we had was special."
Tim ignored the quip. He was already standing, the movement stiff but determined. His eyes, sharp and accusatory, fixed on the web-slinger. He was done with jokes.
"I need answers, Spider-dude. Where am I? What city is this? Who the great googly moogly are you? And who was the Joker reject throwing exploding gourds?"
Tim didn't flinch at the nickname, but the names themselves made his mental database stutter. Green Goblin? Spider-Man? Neither registered on his list of known metas or major costumed criminals. And Queens? He pulled his shoulders back, pushing through the last vestiges of pain and shock.
"Twenty feet below Queens, New York," Tim repeated, the information sinking in like a cold stone. "Not Gotham. Not Metropolis. No wonder my comms are dead. And I don't know your Goblin, because he doesn't exist where I come from."
Tim paused, his stance shifting to a relaxed fighting posture. "I just took a piece of his tech. I can give you a better breakdown of his glider's stress points than I can give you a history of his crimes."
He took a deliberate step back toward the fire. "I'm Red Robin, and I need to know how I got from a midnight rooftop fight in Gotham to an afternoon freefall in Queens. Now tell me, Spider-Man—is magic common here, or did I just get punched across dimensions?"
Peter sighed, a long, weary sound that cracked with pain. "Dude, I hate magic. It always chucks everything up." He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing at the pull on his ribs. "Yeah, magic is real. Guys in capes fly to space, and wizards live in Greenwich Village. And what you're describing—a punch that threw you from your world to mine? That tracks. A witch kid and an 'eldritch blast'—that's exactly the kind of mystical junk that messes with the dimensional fabric."
He leaned back on the wall, giving Tim a quick summary of their current situation: They were in New York City in a universe where he, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, was the resident protector, often battling bizarre, science-gone-wrong criminals like the Goblin.
Tim then reciprocated, detailing his world: Gotham City, a universe defined by street-level crime, high-tech vigilantism, and grim determination. He explained Clarion, a magic-user who was escalating in power, and the shadow-familiar, Teekle, that had pinned him down.
A shared silence settled between them, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Two heavily injured heroes from two impossible worlds, sitting in a sewer.
Peter finally pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. "Look, we're both sitting here bleeding, covered in sewer-gunk, and we're both running on pure adrenaline and paranoia. We need real sleep and a shower." He extended his hand, a gesture of uneasy trust.
"My place isn't far from here," he said. "I know it's asking for a lot of trust, from both of us, but from one devastatingly handsome badass vigilante to another... want to crash at my place? We can finish the 'how do I get home' discussion over real coffee."
Tim looked from the outstretched hand to the sincere, if masked, eyes of the web-slinger. He assessed the risks, the limited options, and the critical injuries. He knew a genuine offer of help when he saw one.
He nodded once, accepting the truce. " Lead the way, Spider-dude. A word of caution: If you go for the mask again, I'll be removing that custom splint with extreme prejudice.”