A Gotham on the cusp of winter was not a kind or friendly city.
Peter reflected on this resentfully as he was buffeted by an icy wind that sliced right through to his bones. Curled in a ball on the ledge of one of the many apartment buildings overlooking Robinson Park, he thought that for a city that had apparently claimed his as one of its own, it hadn't made much of an attempt at making him feel welcome.
"You couldn't turn it up a notch? Pick it up a few degrees?" he bit out, only for his words to be immediately sucked away by the wind.
Gotham's only response was the honking of a distant car.
Figured.
"Sooner likely to kill me than keep me," he grumbled and tugged on his hoodie, arms shoved up in his heated armpits to try and maintain circulation. Things were okay for now — he'd only just stopped and still had the top half of his spider-suit on — but it wouldn't take long for the blood to cool. Then Peter would have to either bear the brunt of the oncoming winter or start moving again. As it was, his stupid bare feet — doing a sound job of keeping him stuck to the building despite his position — were tingling with imminent numbness. Sooner or later his stickiness would stop working and he'd have no choice…
… He should get down before that happened. Swinging while cold led to accidents; that was something he'd learnt the hard way back in Queens (though admittedly, his sensitivity to cold hadn't felt as pronounced then). One too many slips with numbed fingers and one eventful guest visit with a dumpster had Peter stripping the wires from anything he could get his hands on and sewing them into his suit in a frenzy. He'd been off Spider-Manning for a week, hounded by guilt the entire time, but the pause had been worth it.
But while his core stayed tolerably warm, half a heated suit just wasn't going to cut it. Jason's not-so-cozy sweats for his everything else, hands and feed included, weren't going to hold up unless Peter started moving again. If he planned to get anywhere safely, he needed to make sure his fingers remained usable.
As a crude reminder of what else he was dealing with, Peter's leg throbbed insistently. The frozen wind cut brutally into the pulsating flesh. His absurdly oversized sweatpants might be black, but still he knew he'd torn Jason's efficient stitching.
Jason was going to kill him.
Not if you don't go back…
Rather than rejecting the thought outright, Peter turned the idea over.
He could leave…
What was really keeping Peter around, now that the proverbial treat above his head had finally been lowered? Sorry Peter, you're stuck here! Going back might cause the destruction of your universe if done wrong, or the destruction of you, if done right! Or maybe it'll do neither and you'll end up tumbling through universes again and again and again, never sure when you'll outstay your welcome! Hope you don't want to make friends with anyone, because you'll probably lose everything over and over again!
Too bad, so sad! Better luck next time!
Frustration and grief bubbled up, not as dispelled as he'd thought when he'd finally come to a stop. Peter dug his hands savagely into his hair and screamed it out. The wind whipped the sounds away and he screamed again. Again and again, cursing and swearing until he was pink-cheeked and breathless and his chest ached.
Merciless, wintry Gotham did little more than highlight to Peter that he was crying.
"Fuck," he sobbed, and scrubbed at his face with the cuff of his hoodie. "Fuck!"
What was he going to do?
Peter wanted to go home. It was galling, to be told Peter had erased himself so thoroughly his universe didn't even think he belonged there anymore. Devastating. Because he did — he did! That was Peter's universe. His home. His life was there.
Of course… Constantine had said there was a possibility of sending him back. And what was the fear of falling through universes if he was back where he belonged? Constantine could be wrong! Earth I was Peter's universe. He'd been born there. He died there (well, maybe not on Earth, but certainly within the universe!). Been brought back to life, had fought for the continuation of its very existence. Given up his friends. His girlfriend. All for Earth I's welfare.
… The bones of his family were there… mother, father, aunt and uncle. The last of the Parkers, buried side-by-side in the silty Queens clay. Peter had thought one day that he'd rest there with them — ideally a long time from now of course, but that was where he was meant to be.
Now they would go unmourned, except by a handful of people who only half-remembered their names.
(It was a selfish thought. Peter understood that. People knew Ben and his aunt and his parents outside of Peter's realm existence. But mourning them was his job, wasn't it? He was their son, the last remaining member of the Parker line. It was hisresponsibility to watch over their bones. It was the least he could have done for the people who had loved him unconditionally.)
So who cared that no one knew who he was?
Peter Parker belonged in New York, on Earth I…
alone and forgotten…
erased from the minds of all but his own…
An ugly sob hiccupped out of him. Furious, he screamed again.
It was a mess in Peter's head. He wanted to leave… He wanted to stay. He knew he should leave. He knew he should stay. But New York needed Spider-Man, right?
But Gotham, too…
Which was the greater need? Was it equally strong? He didn't know! Couldn't think things through clearly, not with the cold eating into his thoughts.
To think he might have destroyed this universe — it terrified. Appalled. That he might do that for real if he ended up somewhere else? That was unacceptable.
If what Constantine said was true, then returning… it was a bad idea. And that hurt. It hurt to think that. Hurt to come to terms with. But Peter didn't want to spend the rest of his life wondering if he'd cause an incursion. He didn't want to tread carefully, waiting for the day when he'd slip through universes again, torn away from whatever life he'd scraped together for himself.
And that wasn't all… being here in Gotham… Peter hadn't realised how lonely he was until he'd gotten used to people knowing his name again. How cold he'd been until he walked into a warm apartment that smelled of chili. How silent his life had become until it filled again with laughter and chuffing snuffles in his face.
It the choice was, strip him of his new tethers and send him back, or take Constantine at his word and stay here… Peter knew which option he'd take. Better to stay on Earth G, knowing he'd been reclaimed, than go back to a universe he'd made himself alien to.
It was the logical choice.
But… that didn't mean Peter had to stay in Gotham. He could leave. Return to New York, even though New York was nothing like his New York… not even his old apartment building…
Okay, so maybe he could travel!
Without money… yeah, right. Sure, he had ID taken care of, and he'd have to forge himself a high school certificate after all, but it wasn't like Peter could land himself the kind of job that would make life easy without those things. The only reason he even got the job at NRE was because of Jason. No way Justin would have given Peter the time of day without him. Peter wasn't getting a job like that again without seriously compromising on some of his morals (not to mention, that kind of lying was not Peter's forté).
And besides that… what would be the benefit? Hadn't Peter just insisted to Jason that he had the power and the responsibility to help others? Help Gotham?It was fighting for Gotham in the first place that had her digging her tentative grip in him, after all. Didn't he owe it to the city then? Without it, he might have dropped away again — or worse.
Shivering with more than just the cold, Peter closed his burning eyes to the city, trying to seek out that so-called claim, but there was — nothing. All he could sense was the web, full of life despite the oncoming winter, much of it quiet with sleep, some of it thrumming with soft anxiety.
Of course they were: no one but the Bats and the cops knew about Pyg. About the monstrous things he'd done…
Peter groaned and opened his eyes. Was Constantine wrong, after all?
No. He'd felt that pull in his chest. It could have just been smoke and mirrors, but Peter didn't think so.
I'm here because I care! he'd shot at Jason last night. Peter didn't think he could stomach himself if he suddenly chose to leave Gotham for better, brighter pastures. Of the two cities, Gotham had the worst of it, and it wasn't like Queens was his Queens, anyway.
It wasn't as if his Queens had been his Queens by the end either—
If anything, moving to New York G would merely hurt more. Peter knew himself well enough to know he'd spend too much of his time trying to parse out the similarities between his city and theirs. Was there a Ned and an MJ here? Peter didn't know. He hadn't dared look. He daren't do so now, either. They weren't his, just as he wasn't theirs.
Not that they'd been his on Earth I, either. Not anymore. Not since he'd run away from his promise.
And there, in the ugly, seething heart of it all, was the damning truth: to resign himself to staying here felt far too much like giving up. Like a different kind of running away.
But even as he acknowledged it, Peter couldn't free himself of the relief that washed over him when Constantine delivered his verdict. People knew him, here. They cared about him — even if for most of the Waynes (and adjacent) that was purely down to morbid curiosity.
Hell, Peter cared about them.
He had a presence on Earth G that nothing, in the six months of hard work on Earth I, could compare to. Not as Spider-Man, but as Peter Parker.
Peter left Ned and MJ alone because he was terrified the life of Spider-Man would bleed back into theirs. Would endanger them, who had no true way to defend themselves like Peter Parker had. So instead of fulfilling his promise, he'd left them alone. And though it pained him, though temptation came knocking too many times to count, when he was hungry or tired or trapped in the memory of a life that could never be returned to, Peter had remained strong.
But Jason? He was the Red Hood. Tim and Duke? They were (probably? Unconfirmed) heroes in their own rights. They'd been involved in this life as long — if not longer — than Peter.
Being friends with them wasn't safe. Life as a hero was never safe; life as a Gotham hero he suspected was even less. But it was safer. Danger was just as likely to come knocking at Peter's door as it was theirs. Give and take, when all Peter had done to Ned and MJ was take take take.
In all truth, the idea of returning to a Queens where no one knew his name and the only person who cared about his existence was his landlord, was a terrifying one. Only now, after Peter re-learnt what it felt to be around someone who cared did he realise just how bad he'd let things get. How… detached he'd become, as if he was three steps away from his sanity blowing away on the wind.
To return to that? His very soul cried out in rebellion.
But didn't Peter deserve that? What of duty? Of responsibility? Didn't he owe his universe, after throwing it into cataclysm himself?
And there was the crux of it. The reason he ran from Jason: because he should go back! Face the music.
But Peter did not want to!
He cried out again, anguished. Buried his face in his hands. As expected, the pre-winter air had reduced his fingers to little spears of ice. Stupid, running off like that when he wasn't in the right gear! Stupid and thoughtless!
Like so many things you've done.
Peter peered over the edge of the building, suddenly morbid. If he fell… would he die? Or would instinct kick in before Parker-Meet-Ground?
He huffed a mirthless laugh. Dying wouldn't solve anything. Not for himself. Not for Gotham. If anything, all it would do would serve as trauma for whichever unsuspecting citizen came across him first. The silence of his thoughts might be a nice idea, but that's all it could ever be.
He should go back. Back to Jason's, to face whatever music the man would inevitably play. At least the apartment would be warm. And there was Dog. So much of the world felt bearable with Dog around.
Despite the thought, Peter found himself unwilling to move. He dipped back into the web instead. Slipping into the overlapping folds of life was so easy now. Even if Peter couldn't pick people out from a line-up, he found comfort in the warmth of their combined lives. In the birds and insects and mammals that nestled in between the cracks humanity left for them.
And then—
Peter startled. Nearly fell right out of the web.
There was something else there! Alien but not. Alive, but nothing like the life Peter was used to. Green. Verdant. It swam around the warmth of the living like the inrush of the tide. It ebbed and flowed, pinpointed to the north of him. It swelled and faded in a way that felt… deliberate.
Like it was — beckoning.
Come, it seemed to say, though Peter wasn't sure how he could even imagine it was speaking through the web. Come.
Peter stood. Scrubbed away the tear-tracks with his hoodie. Hopped about on his poor, bare feet to try and bring some blood flow back, but his thigh was about the only thing that felt warm. The lush greenness of his summoner continued to sing to him, though it was no siren's song. There was no urgency to it, as he'd felt on the web only a handful of hours before. Peter wasn't entranced by it. He was just curious and desperate for a distraction. And he knew it was an awful habit, but when a moment demanded he choose between caution and curiosity, he'd pick curiosity every time.
This was no different. He shot out an arm, readying himself for a swing to the opposite building, when a desperate shout reached him, carried and garbled by the wind and the web alike.
He paused, twisting on clumsy feet. Might have fallen had his stickiness not kept him stuck to the cold concrete. Someone was rapidly approaching. Someone dressed in black, but he caught a flash of deep blue as they jumped across the chasm between buildings and landed in a running tumble on Peter's rooftop.
The apartment building was long and thin. They'd landed on the far end, but it felt like the space between their landing and their stopping before Peter, rosy-cheeked and panicked, took up no time at all.
Peter blinked dumbly. Had he lost time? Or was his time merely slowing?
He really should get somewhere warm.
"Hey," said the man who was definitely-Nightwing-and-probably-Dick-Grayson in a soft but urgent tone. "You mind stepping away from there? Towards me?"
Peter blinked again. He didn't move. Nightwing-who-was-definitely-Dick-Grayson (come on who was he fooling with that jawline and that hair?) looked like he was about to drag Peter down himself.
"C'mon," Nightwing/Dick urged. He inched closer, gloved hand outstretched. The palm of his glove was blue: it was a nice aesthetic choice. Bet he was toasty and warm, an irrational, jealous thought piped up. "Come down, Peter."
Ah. So he wasn't going to pretend he didn't know who Peter was.
Well, one could play at that game.
"Do I know you?" Peter asked at last, and Nightwing minutely winced, as though realising his faux pas. "How do you know my name?"
"Facial recognition," came Nightwing's smooth reply. Peter's sensitive hearing managed to pick up the soft sound of laughter. How'd he get close enough for Peter to notice that? He should have noticed Dick getting that close.
Peter looked pointedly around the rooftop. He couldn't sense — visually or otherwise — any cameras watching on.
Neither chose to comment on the lie.
A car raced by below, taking advantage of the emptied streets to treat the strip like their own personal racetrack. Peter watched their taillights get swallowed by the city as they veered around a corner, but the roar of their engine ripped through the quiet even as they disappeared from view.
"I should get down," Peter said, gazing down at the empty street.
"Not if you're planning on taking the short way, you shouldn't."
He stared flatly at Nightwing. "I wasn't," Peter insisted, even though moments before he had briefly contemplated that very fate. "There was — something…"
He trailed off. There was nothing left on the web but the lives that belonged there. Still, Peter turned, squinting to the north, but all he could see were the skeletal tops of trees bounding through Robinson Park.
A hand wrapped gently around his wrist, startling Peter. He glanced back to see Nightwing smiling, kind but wary.
"Come down? You're ice-cold."
"What's cooler than being cool?" Peter said thoughtlessly. It was the kind of joke he'd have pulled with Ned, but it flew over Nightwing's head. Or perhaps it didn't, and Dick Grayson was the one with the sense of humour.
Or maybe he's just worried you're about to unalive yourself.
Feeling vaguely guilty, Peter finally allowed Nightwing to tug him down. He stumbled as he landed on his bad leg and yelped with pain.
"You're hurt?" Nightwing asked, suddenly frantic. Brisk hands brushed him down, seeking out the injury, but paused as someone spoke in his comm, too quiet to be anything but garbled even to Peter's sensitive ears. It didn't matter: Peter already had a good idea who was speaking.
"Are you bleeding?" Nightwing demanded.
Peter shrugged. Not enough to be concerned: the wound hadn't been huge to begin with, and he'd not noticed any blood seep out beyond the dressing and bandages.
"I think I've more pressing issues."
Like frostbite. Not that it was cold enough. It couldn't be less than forty-five degrees, but that was more than enough to put him in danger if caught outside for long enough.
Nightwing appeared to have come to the same conclusion. He reached for a large rectangular pack on his utility belt (seriously, they were useful, but why on Earth did they have to be so damn ugly?) and pulled out a little package, about the size of a packet of tissues that crinkled cheerfully. The packet was handed over to Peter, who inspected it carefully, only to realise it was one of those foil blankets, like the ones paramedics handed out to people.
Smart, Peter had to admit.
But really… did it have to come from a utility belt?
Going to have to bite the bullet eventually. Gotham's a city that relies on preparedness.
"But they're so ugly," Peter moaned.
"Huh?"
Peter ignored Nightwing and tore into the packaging, whipping out the foil blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders like a cape. He frowned, having half expected to immediately be warm.
Not how they work, idiot.
He squatted down on the roof and the chill of the autumn night diminished a little. His leg throbbed angrily at the move, but Peter had made his peace with the wound. It was bound to be ugly, thanks to the tearing, but provided he got himself warm and fed, it would heal in a day or so. No big deal.
Nightwing took the opportunity to join him. That mask of his made it difficult to interpret his expressions accurately, but Peter felt the weight of his attention all the same. He avoided Nightwing's gaze to stare at the fractured mirror of the foil blanket clutched between his numb fingers.
Someone said something into Nightwing's earpiece. The wind had fallen into a lull, but Peter only picked up someone saying 'close' and nothing else.
"Why are you here, Peter?" Nightwing asked eventually, low but urgent. "You ran, didn't you? Why?"
Peter thought about responding. Thought of confessing all. Nightwing's reputation was impeccable, but beneath that, he was Dick Grayson. Friendly, kind — if a little misguided — and warm. For all Jason felt a rift between himself and his family, Peter thought he got on well enough with Dick.
Then Peter remembered the cold, severe look on Dick's face at the zoo. And that he'd met Dick Grayson all of three times.
He stayed quiet.
"How did you get hurt, Peter?"
Peter frowned. The tone of Dick's voice was as soft as before, but there was something… else there. An undercurrent of… dread? He looked up but couldn't read anything except a faint downturn at the corners of Dick's mouth.
Silence was the better part of valour, Peter decided. Just because Peter knew who Nightwing was, and Red Hood, and Skittles Robin and Batgirl and probably the rest of the Bats too (oh God, Batman!) if he truly put his mind to it (or rather, committed enough emotional fortitude to realise he'd somehow managed to stumble across the one family in Gotham that were even more entrenched in the vigilante business than Peter), that didn't mean he had to clue them in to him being Spider-Man.
Nightwing sighed and hung his head, resigned. "Can I take you home, at least?"
Peter laughed bitterly. Thoughtlessly, he said, "I can't go home."
Dick's head shot up. "What?"
Peter laughed again.
"Peter, what do you mean, you can't go home? Were you hurt? At home?"
"What?" Peter frowned, then laughed once more as he realised how Dick had interpreted him. "No, no. Not like that. I've been safe — here."
"… But you got hurt."
"Well yeah," Peter admitted. "But it's just Gotham, isn't it? Par for the course."
Nightwing was quiet for a moment as he digested Peter's words. "… Then… home isn't here?"
"No."
Not yet. Not in the way it'll have to be.
"And you can't go back?"
"No." Peter closed his eyes and breathed in the cold. "No… There's no way back… There's nothing left for me."
"I see," Dick said, chewing on his answer. He tilted his head. "But… do you really want to? Go back, that is."
No. "But I have to."
"Do you?"
"It's my duty."
"Is it? Why? What do you owe them?"
"If you had nearly destroyed everything that ever mattered… wouldn't you feel like you owed them something too?"
"Peter—"
Whatever Nightwing might have said was broken off by the appearance of Red Hood, launching himself onto the rooftop and landing much the same as Nightwing had, minutes before. For a man of such bulk, he was quiet as he rolled to his feet.
Immediately, his attention was on them. "Peter," he growled, and Peter clambered to his feet.
He opened his mouth to return the name, before realising Dick didn't know he knew. "Hood," he whispered instead, as the man in question stalked towards them. With every step closer, the storm of emotions in Peter's chest swelled, swiftly boiling over again.
He could have destroyed all of this—
"You Goddamn idiot," Jason snarled, and then Peter was falling to his knees at Jason's feet, clutching at the hem of Jason's jacket so tight his fingers almost punched straight through the reinforced fabric. Shocked, Jason flinched back but Peter, overcome again with horror and guilt, wasn't letting go. He stared up beseechingly into Jason's concealed eyes.
"I'm sorry!"
"Pete—"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—!"
"Peter!"
"I'm sorry! I didn't know — I swear to you, I didn't know!"
"Fuck." Jason dropped down into a crouch, gloved hands wrapping around Peter's wrists. "Stop! I know!It's okay. It never happened—"
"But it could have! It could have—!"
"And even if it had!" Jason snapped. "It still would never have been your fault! I get it, Peter! You didn't know — fucking — how could you know?"
"I should have—"
"No." Jason was gripping Peter so tight it would have hurt someone less sturdy. Peter didn't mind — the touch was grounding. Even through Jason's gloves, his warmth seeped into Peter. "It was never your responsibility and fuck everyone who made you think that!"
"But I might have—"
"You didn't." Jason cursed lowly. His attention shifted backwards. "Gimme that."
Nightwing stepped tentatively closer, accompanied by the rustle of Peter's discarded foil blanket. Jason snatched it from his outstretched hand then wrapped Peter in it firmly.
"Hold that," he ordered Peter, holding the corners to Peter's throat.
Desperate for something to stop himself from spiralling further, Peter did as he was told. But when Jason stripped off his jacket and tried to hand it over, he shook his head.
"I—I'm fine, sorry—"
"Like fuck you're fine. You're practically an ice brick!"
"And I've a foil blanket." Pushing back, slipping into their well-worn pattern of back and forth, made him feel a little more settled. A little more human. No longer strung taut and ready to snap. Trying for levity, Peter flapped the blanket to illustrate the crinkly sound. Something about the frequency felt wildly satisfying to his ears. He smiled — or attempted to. "Just like the ones out of all those TV shows."
Jason's hands flexed on his balled-up hoodie. Mask or not, Peter knew he was staring.
"Ain't that swell," Jason managed to get out at last, then shoved the garment against Peter's chest. He had to shift his grip on the blanket to hold it. "Put it on."
Peter stared at the red fabric rather than do as he was told. It was stiff. Heavier than it looked, but Peter supposed he shouldn't be surprised. It smelled overwhelmingly of Jason. Sweat. Something woody. The soft floral scent of their shared laundry powder.
"Why are you here?" he murmured and was surprised when Jason answered — hadn't thought he's spoken loud enough to be heard.
"… Your man told me you dipped."
"Ah. My man." Peter looked up sharply and grinned, all teeth. Jason shifted in his crouch warily. "Yeah, I'm sure you were his first port of call. Bosom buddies, aren't you?"
"Funny. As you can see," Hood nodded to Nightwing, who was watching them with hawk-like attention, "he outsourced."
Peter abruptly sobered. "I wasn't going to do anything stupid."
"Could've fooled me."
Peter glanced back at the park. But when he touched the web, the green something was still gone.
"Pete?"
He looked back. "I… should get back. I could do with a shower."
The set of Jason's shoulders finally relaxed. "Yeah?"
Peter worked his throat. Couldn't find the strength to say anything else, so he just nodded. He didn't deserve to call somewhere else home, even if he'd started to think of it as a two-bed apartment with a dog and three over-stacked bookshelves.
But he couldn't—
Even if—
Even if Constantine was right. Even if staying here was the only way to stop himself from falling through universes all over again.
But he couldn't.
But he wanted to.
"I'll give you a ride," said the Red Hood.
"Yeah," said Peter Parker. "Yeah, okay."