Spider-Man had a tail.
It had latched onto him almost the moment he'd ventured out of Park Row and into the Bowery. Peter was still tossing up whether he should tell Jason.
The night had been quiet so far. Peter was on his own. Jason had eased off on the handholding, trusting Peter to run around by himself, so long as he gave hourly check-ins. The compromise was a welcome one but still Peter chafed under the monitoring. Independence was what Peter was used to; he didn't appreciate the loss of it, even if he reasonably knew it was with good cause.
His new-found freedoms were — Peter suspected — largely due to Hood's desire to return to his crimelordly duties. They still spent at least an hour each night — usually longer — working together. Jason had it in his head that it was his job to upskill Peter; they'd been working on various skills from sparring to lock-picking to hot-wiring a car.
It was… fun? It was fun. Peter enjoyed the time spent with Jason. If he was feeling bold, he might have even said it was the most fun he'd ever had as Spider-Man… even if Gotham was a dumpster fire of a city.
Despite Jason's absence, Peter was only mildly concerned about his tail. His senses didn't spike with danger… it was just that they were good. Reallygood. Were it not for how attuned Peter was on the Web, he was pretty sure he would never have even noticed. But their attention brushed lightly across his shoulders as he patrolled, far enough away that he could shake them if he tried, but not too far that he'd lose them if he didn't.
For now, Peter settled for not running, but not not playing hard to get, either. The night whipped past as he tore around corners; lights blurred through his flips across the empty chasms between buildings; sounds muddled with the hammering of his pulse, adrenalin spiking with every peak and dip in his swing. Every so often, he'd hear someone shout as he swung past — Spider-Man was still a novelty — but Peter didn't slow except to occasionally allow his follower to catch up.
The Web spread out around Peter in a brilliant tapestry of interwoven threads. Human over beast over insect. Peter swerved away from birds' roosts and avoided thumping onto walls when he sensed humanity slumbering behind them. He still couldn't parse out any emotions except alarm — and only then while he was embedded deep in the Web — but he was confident Gotham would show him where he was needed.
Love… Peter loved this. He loved the way it humbled and empowered him. There was a lot of changes Peter still struggled to come to terms with, but being part of the Web… an agent of the Red, whatever that meant… he loved it with his whole being.
And all the while, his tail remained constant, following at a safe enough distance that Peter didn't feel the need to stop and confront them.
While Peter was in one of his 'catch up' phases in the northeast of Burnley, a soft bip and a reminder popped up in the rudimentary HUD he'd finally installed in the mask. He'd slowed to escort a group of very drunk partiers to the taxi rank half a block away. Thanksgiving was two days ago and the Dancing Strip that ran between the northern streets of Burley and Park Row had died down, no longer heaving with revellers (it was close to two). Still, there were plenty of drunkards (and a few high off their faces) about to make the area prone to opportunistic crimes. As it was, the Dancing Strip was a hotspot for fake taxis — and not the kind they did the porn in.
Peter ignored their drunken catcalls and paused on a flickering convenience store sign to complete his check-in.
"Karen, connect to Hood."
Though she was nothing close to her days of intuitive glory pre-doxxing, to be summoned only when called, Karen had enough oomph to help Peter isolate the frequencies of the comm Jason had gifted him many weeks ago. She connected him to Jason almost instantly.
"Bitsy," Hood grunted and Peter bit back a sigh. Jason sounded busy. Probably occupied with something heinous Peter was better off not knowing about.
"Everything's good here. Nothing exciting to report."
"Noted. Stay safe." And with that, Peter was effectively hung up on. So Jason was definitely busy then. Cool cool cool. It wasn't like Peter wanted someone to riff off while he was being watched anyway.
With the partiers in a real taxi and his tail back on his tail, Peter started slinging again, slipping back into the Web. Before too long, the city sparked enough to merit his intervention. Peter chased the alarm to the back of a restaurant, where two tired workers were leaving — or trying to. A gang of teens — five in all — had taken the workers by surprise. Even from a distance Peter could tell the kids had trouble on their minds.
He alighted on the closed lid of a dumpster with a purposefully loud thud!
"Shit!" at least three groundlings cried out at Peter's entrance. He spared them only a moment's guilt for the scare and remained couched on the dumpster. The pose was far more intimidating than simply standing would be.
Swear to God, if Jason called him Itsy Bitsy one more time—!
"Hey, this a late-night study date?" Peter asked the teens. One of them had dropped their box cutter and Peter yoinked it away with a web. It smacked firmly into his hand.
"B-back off!" another teen snapped bravely.
The restaurant workers edged back to the door they'd already locked. A young man and a middle-aged woman, Peter would put his money on them being related: they had different hair but the same rounded chins and aquiline noses.
"Oooh, so sorry!" Peter wiggled the box cutter. "Was I interrupting your art class?"
Another of the teens — one that hadn't cursed earlier — pulled out a gun. When Peter's senses didn't go off, he figured it was unloaded and yoinked that out of the kid's hands too.
"Haven't you heard you don't bring a gun to an art fight?" With a simple show of strength, Peter crushed the gun in his hand and dropped the metal — squished like a half-baked baguette — onto the dumpster lid. All seven watched the pieces slowly slide down the arched plastic to fall with a dismayed clatter on the concrete below.
"Oh my fucking God," one of the teens — or maybe it was a worker? — breathed.
Peter smiled beneath the mask. "How about some paint? We can do something like a food fight?"
"You are not throwing paint at my restaurant," the woman snapped.
Peter laughed in apology. "You guys hear that? No paint fights. Guess art class is cancelled." He raised his arm, wrist pointed up, and let it roam from each of the teens who thought they'd try their hand at baby's first robbery. "So why don't you guys disperse, because I'm pretty sure Ms Restaurant Owner has a gun, and unlike you, she's not afraid to use it."
Proving his point exactly, the woman in question took a pistol from her jacket and held it up with the kind of disciplined form Jason would have been proud of. Peter however, shifted uneasily, all too aware of how badly civilians and guns went together. He subtly kept his other wrist aimed at her as she flicked her chin-length red hair out of her face. If she chose to escalate, there'd be two mutilated weapons Peter could claim credit for tonight.
Fortunately for all of them, the woman didn't take off the safety. Not that the teens noticed. With their own weapons confiscated or destroyed, they ran, leaving just Peter and the possible mother and son duo (plus Peter's tail).
The woman lowered her gun, peered up at Peter, then put it away.
"Thanks," she said warily. "Tommy said he'd heard something outside during close, but I didn't take it seriously."
Emboldened now they were safe, Tommy rolled his eyes. "I told you we need another motion sensor or somethin' out here!"
"When we get the money," the woman promised grimly.
Peter took note of where they were. He might have something in his stash he could jerry-rig into a useable alarm for them.
"You're Spider-Man, right?" Tommy vibrated with excitement. He couldn't have been much older than Peter. "I can't believe I get to see you! Kit's gonna be so mad. Can I take a picture?"
"Tommy," the woman snapped. "You don't ask the capes for pictures."
"Ugh." Tommy shot a scowl between the two of them, then his shoulders fell. "Sorry."
"It's cool." Peter stood up and tried not to shift as the woman glared up at him. He felt a little like he may have failed in her assessment, but also it could be that her don't-fuck-with-me face was especially well constructed. "Do you guys want an escort?"
The two shared a look. Tommy was already nodding, but Peter suspected that had more to do with the excitement of having a new vigilante 'save the day' than it was a true fear for their safety.
"We don't—"
"C'mon auntie!" Tommy whined. "What if they came back?"
"Then they're idiots who deserve to get shot," his aunt muttered, but fortunately she didn't look like she really agreed with what she said. "Dumbasses didn't even cover their faces."
"I'm pretty sure one of them was Veronica's little brother," Tommy agreed. "They live in the apartment down the hall from mom's."
The woman grinned viciously. Peter imagined there was going to be a very uncomfortable meeting between Ms Restaurant Owner and this Veronica's parents in the immediate future. Hopefully it'd put a stop to the teens' poor choices before they got themselves involved in something they couldn't run off from.
"We're good," she said to Peter though. "The bus ain't far. You go and do… whatever it is y'all do."
"Aw—"
"Can it, Tommy."
Tommy canned it.
Biting back laughter, Peter jumped to the restaurant rooftop, though he couldn't hold it back when he heard Tommy's, "That's fucking awesome," or his aunt's answering, "Sure."
He disappeared from view, but remained close enough to follow just in case the teens did choose to return; not that he expected any more trouble. It seemed like they were just kids amped up on alcohol and teen invincibility. Chances were they'd cleared out the moment Tommy's aunt pulled out her handgun.
Tommy and his aunt hopped on the 304 bus to The Hills. Peter watched it trundle off from atop a supermarket and waited. Sure enough, his tail drew closer, alighting on the rooftop with a near-silent scuffle of boots across the rubbered ground and a soft ripple of fabric.
Somehow, Peter was still surprised when he turned and saw it was the Batman standing proud beside a rusted air-conditioning unit. A slip of dark darker than the night, fragmented by the yellow outlined bat on his chest and the city lights catching on the smoother parts of his armour. Peter's senses thrummed lowly.
So Batman was here for a chat then, not an arrest. That was nice to know.
"Wow," Peter remarked. "You're even taller than I thought you'd be."
It was true. The Batman-who-was-probably-Bruce-Wayne was tall: taller than Peter remembered of Mr Wayne, the single time they'd met. Even cloaked in the ambiguity of the dark, without the tailored obfuscation of suit jacket and pants, the size and heft of the man was readily apparent. White eyes glowed dimly, a good foot higher than Peter's. His legs may as well have been tree trunks. Peter had seen Bruce and Jason side by side (as Jason was firmly escorting the man out of their apartment), and thought them to be of similar builds, but left alone on the rooftop, he was re-evaluating. Was it just nerves? The respectable amount of body armour? Or was Peter's memory truly that fallible?
"Spider-Man," the Batman rumbled, voice like an oncoming storm, straight from the gut. Peter found himself straightening out of reflex. But when the Batman made no other attempt at conversation, Peter got antsy.
"Batman," he said, and crossed his arms in a manner he hoped didn't come across as defensive but knowing that it absolutely did. "To what do I owe the pleasure? Thought you'd finally say hi?"
"You knew I was following you," the Batman said instead of doing so. "How?"
"Magic," Peter said thoughtlessly, then laughed at the subtle shift in Batman's posture. So the guy wasn't a fan of the stuff. Well, neither was Peter these days, and yet here he was, wondering if the Red was some new magic he had access to anyway. Ironically, it felt easier to get his head around than Pamela's 'cosmic energy' spiel.
"I'm kidding!" he said, waving a hand dismissively, then snickered. "Or am I? Either way, it's a trade secret."
"Is Red Hood aware?"
Peter raised a brow. "I plead the fifth." He pursed his lips. "And something tells me Hood's not going to tell you anything either, so I guess it'll just have to be something for me to know and you to never find out."
A soft exhalation. It could have been a huff of frustration or amusement for all Peter knew; Batman had his expression on lock, even with only half his face covered. Peter wished he could be half as good.
"Why did you partner with Red Hood?"
"Ohhh, busting out the big question, aren't you?" Peter snickered. "Does it have to be that deep, bro? Maybe I just think he's got a great ass."
The air dropped several degrees. Batman shifted, the only sign of it a ripple in the blackness of his cape. Peter internally cheered to have flustered him but when the man spoke again, any signs of discomfort were firmly erased.
"I have observed the way you work. The two of you seem… an unlikely combination."
"We are," Peter agreed. "I'm used to working on my own. He's not."
"That was not what I—"
"Meant? Yeah, I figured. But we're not that different, really."
"He's a killer," Batman said flatly. Peter refused to flinch at the stark truth. "He works outside the realm of justice—"
"Hood isn't about justice," Peter said firmly. "And neither am I. He cares about this city. He wants it to be better… I think he sees himself as a white blood cell… fighting to keep Park Row alive. It's clear enough, even to me, that your brand of justice—" he spoke it mockingly, thinking of Pyg, who should never have been able to escape, "doesn't cut it here. How many more people in Gotham have to die at the hands of the same monsters before you either fix them, or put them away somewhere that finally works?"
"He'll kill again."
"And I'll fight him on that when the time comes," Peter said calmly. But from what he'd found, there were very few deaths attributable to the Red Hood in the past few years. "In the meantime, I'll stick with him, despite the blood on his hands. I've seen what he does, with and without the hood." The confession was a daring one, but Peter had assumed that his identity was an unspoken fact by now. It wasn't hard to put together and the Bats weren't stupid. "He's not so much about justice as he is empowerment. That's why I'm here. That's why I've stuck with him."
"Do you think you can fix him? Stop him?"
Peter laughed outright. "I don't think there's anything to fix! We may clash on where we draw the line, but I trust him. I trust that he cares about this city and its people. I know he doesn't want more victims, more statistics. And he should know, shouldn't he?" Peter tilted his head, carefully studying Batman. The man was as impassive as ever, but Peter thought he saw a stiffening of his shoulders. "He was one himself."
Was Batman aware that Peter knew what happened to Jason? If he hadn't been, he certainly was now.
"He's wrong to think murder will solve Gotham's problems. Hood cannot play judge, jury and executioner."
"I agree." Peter tapped his foot impatiently. "He shouldn't. But if he's wrong, why do so many murderers keep running free? Where's the justice in that, Batman?"
For that, the Batman had no answer.
"What is it that you want, sir?" Peter sighed. "Because I don't think you intended to start a fight with me."
A slight shift of the feet. Batman had mastered his body in a way Peter had never seen before and he both envied and reviled it.
"I… did not," Batman eventually admitted. The tension in Peter's chest loosened just a little. "Spider-Man has been here for a full month. In that time, I have been… impressed."
Peter's brows rose with surprise at the begrudging admittance. "Wow."
"I am not…" Batman huffed and this time Peter knew it had to be in frustration. "I don't want you to think I give you this warning because you are a meta, Spider-Man. I have seen how you use your powers — you are untrained, but efficient. People like you—"
"Tell that to the old lady I tried to offer help to the other day," Peter grumbled. She'd whacked at him with her cane when he'd offered to carry her trolley up the stairs to her apartment.
And the fucking Batman laughed. Soft, but a laugh nonetheless. Peter marvelled at it.
"Well, we are all a wary bunch. But they've warmed to you quickly, and that goes a long way around here." And then, though Batman's eyes were hidden by his mask, Peter felt his gaze sharpen. "You use your powers to help. De-escalate. And that is only half the story. I've seen your interventions. You are preventative…" The corner of Batman's mouth ticked upwards. "You were thinking of installing a security camera for them, weren't you?"
"How'd you even hear what they were saying?" Peter asked suspiciously.
"I'm Batman," said the Batman, and — yep. Even Peter felt that that was enough said.
Peter shrugged, feeling like he'd been put on the spot. "It's how I'd rather work. I know you and half the Bats have got the whole—" he artificially deepened his voice, "fear me, I am the night thing going on, and that's great. Happy for you. But that's not my style. The way I see it, what's the point of making people afraid if that's all you've got to offer?"
Was the Batman smiling? Peter thought maybe he was. It was… unsettling.
"It will be good," Batman said as he reached into one of the many pockets on his utility belt, "to have you here, Spider-Man. But you are a meta. You can deal far more damage than the average human. You need to learn to keep a lid on that temper, or you will no longer be welcome."
"I know," Peter said, hanging his head in shame. "I regret what I did. I never… I wasn't prepared. For what he'd done. It was — it was sick. But I regret losing control. It's my responsibility to keep my power in check, just as much as it is help people."
The rooftop was quiet but warm with an air of approval. Batman moved and something small and shiny flew at Peter. It landed with a plasticky crinkle in Peter's jumping hand.
"A… protein bar?" he asked, reading the printed packaging.
"You have an enhanced metabolism. You must be getting hungry by now."
Peter was, but he didn't know how to feel about Batman knowing that. "… Thanks?"
An incline of the head. "I am… curious."
"Oh?"
"Your spider DNA… How did you gain it? The splicing was skilfully done, but it doesn't bear the markers of a naturally born meta."
Peter's fingers squeezed the bar so tight it nearly squished right out the packaging. "Excuse me?" he blurted out, but his mind was already racing. "Did you — harvest my DNA from that pool?"
He'd lost a good amount of his blood there and Peter's takedown of Pyg's dollotrons had been fairly bloodless. It wouldn't have taken much to think the fresh blood spilled at the scene was Peter's.
But Batman's reaction said otherwise. He was shaking his head, that faint smile from earlier long gone. "Your records were already on Oracle's database… You… didn't know?"
"I did not," Peter said. Even through the sudden ringing in his ears, Peter knew it sounded hollow. How did they get his DNA.
How did they get his DNA?
Whatever Batman may have followed up with — clarification perhaps — never happened. His head tilted away from Peter, as a faint but indecipherable voice spoke in Batman's comm. It sounded male. One of the Robins, maybe. Whatever they said had grabbed Batman's attention though. He sighed but acknowledged the Robin and turned back to Peter.
"Welcome to Gotham, Spider-Man," he said gruffly, regret saturating his otherwise approving words. "I didn't…" The man sighed again, frustrated. Maybe he wanted to say more, but he obviously had more pressing matters to attend to. "Be safe," was all he said in the end.
"… Yeah…"
Peter watched the Batman leave, dropping off the side of the building like it wasn't a two storey drop, the catch of the grappling hook on the rooftop the only thing to break his fall. Through the web, Peter tracked his departure, and only when he was certain Batman was gone did he click his own comm and speak.
"Karen, get me Oracle." Peter's voice felt abstracted from himself. Unattached.
A bip as she connected. "Spider-Man? Everything okay?"
"Do you have my DNA?"
Silence. That was as good as confirmation.
"How long?" he followed up before they could shuffle around the truth.
"… I don't think—"
"It's my DNA!" Peter snapped. "I'm entitled to know."
"Spider-man—"
"When did you get it?"
Further silence. Then: "Your first night."
Peter collapsed against an air-conditioning unit. Jason, then.
"I see," he said dully.
Oracle was immediately on the defensive. "You have to understand, you were a—"
Their voice cut off as Peter deactivated the line. He wriggled a hand under his mask and wrenched out the comm for good measure. Peter contemplated dropping it but thought better of it. He was…. He was furious. But he wasn't angry enough to get stupid. Leaving something like a comm around — even on a mostly inaccessible rooftop — was a bad idea.
It always comes down to blood. Constantine's wry chuckle echoed through his thoughts.
He supposed it did… Peter just wished it didn't stick so true in this.
— + —
"Red Hood."
"B? To what do I owe the displeasure?"
"I have made a miscalculation."
The admission nearly tripped Jason. "What?"
He signalled to Toni that he needed the privacy, and the man left the storeroom in his customary cloud of strawberry-flavoured vapour.
"I didn't realise he didn't know."
"Who? What?"
"It wasn't a mistake made of malice, Hood. I promise you."
"B! What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Spider-Man," Bruce said — because it was Bruce talking, stoicism giving way to guilt. "I'm sorry, lad. I thought he knew already."
Jason forgot how to breathe.
— + —
Not trusting himself to stay safe, Peter returned to their new safe house, entering from the roof as he usually did. Inside was cool and silent: the heating was off and if Oracle had told Jason that Peter finally knew what he'd done, he'd not made it back in time to beat Peter to the punch.
With trembling hands, Peter changed into his civilian clothes, folding the suit carefully and stuffing it into his satchel. When he took out his phone, he saw there were fifteen missed calls from Jason. One after the other, and then broken up into five-minute intervals.
Guess Oracle had passed on the message, then.
Peter carefully placed the cell in his coat pocket. He didn't want to break the precious device when anger simmered in his flesh, burning deep in throat. He'd nearly torn his suit as he undressed and had to stand still for a full minute until he got his temper back in check.
Though his stomach ached with hunger, Peter steered clear of the fridge or the cupboards. He had no desire to eat. All he wanted was answers. So Peter sat on one of Jason's questionably stained chairs and waited, cloaked in the not-so-soothing dark.
It didn't take long.
Soon enough, he heard the incoming rumble of Hood's bike and the corresponding rattle of the garage door trundling open. The engine cut off. The garage door slammed shut. Then footsteps thundered up the stairs, making no attempt to be silent in their rush.
Peter saw the relieved drop of Jason's shoulders when he realised the apartment wasn't empty. Jason tore off his muzzle and his domino as soon as the door closed and automatically locked.
"Peter, thank—"
"When were you going to tell me?"
Jason went quiet and still. He didn't ask for clarification. Oracle, then. It was about time Peter learnt who they were: Oracle knew far more than Peter was comfortable with anyone knowing.
"I can understand why you'd take my blood," Peter said, trying to force the calm into it but unable to keep out the hardened edge of his anger. "I was new and a meta. I should be grateful you didn't try to get it off me through other means—"
"I'd never—"
"Wouldn't you? Take it from me by force?" Peter snapped. "Or is subterfuge where you draw the line?" He shook his head. He was getting off track. "I can understand, Jason, why you took my blood. Even why you'd have it sequenced, even if—"
Even if the idea of it sickened Peter to his stomach. That was his blood. His blood, altered twice over without his consent. Ever since the Sokovia Accords fell into place and May warned him of exactly what Mr Stark dragged him into in Germany, Peter had tried to be careful. He refused to allow Mr Stark or SHIELD take samples of his blood, even though it felt wrong to say no to his hero. After he was taken in by the DDC, he and Ned slipped back into their systems and sabotaged their biometric records of him. DNA, prints, voice… They couldn't get away with simply deleting the files — too conspicuous — so they did the next best thing: they altered the records so the Peter Parker on file didn't match the Peter Parker in life.
It wasn't merely self-preservation. Peter knew his modern history. He knew what happened to those who tried to replicate the super soldier serum… one of them was his idol, after all. Doctor Banner was a genius, but he'd paid the price for attempting to replicate Doctor Erskine's achievements all the same. And Banner was a success story. The nameless 'Abomination' that tore through Harlem happened while Peter's parents were still alive. He had a fuzzy memory of his mom taking him to the bathroom and grimly refusing to let him leave. Only later at school had he learned what happened. How she'd tried to keep him safe.
Peter might have been a naive teen, but he wasn't stupid enough to think people wouldn't try to replicate him if they got a hold of his blood. Spider-Man, in the wrong hands, was a dangerous creature. Worse — far worse — than a super soldier.
So to have Jason take his blood — to sequence it — without Peter's realisation was infuriating.
He breathed out slowly. Squared his shoulders. "I get why you did it — you didn't know me. Didn't trust me. Probably wanted to see where I'd come from. So — I get it."
Jason's expression was firmly neutral. Peter was familiar with the look: Jason turned that way when he wanted to conceal things.
"But what I can't understand, Jason, is why you chose to keep it from me." Unable to shake off the angry energy bubbling up, Peter stood and began stalking the limited space between armchairs and kitchen. "Fair enough, you never said anything about it earlier; that would have been incriminating, I'm sure. But we've known what we are for four weeks! At any point during that time, you could have told me!"
Jason glanced away. A crack in the façade. "I was going to—"
"I don't believe you." Peter's lip curled. "You? You don't shy away from the tough conversations, Jason. In fact, I'd say you revel in them. So why the helldidn't you say something already?"
Silence reigned, and in the space where words should have gone, Peter's anger festered into resentment.
Peter had thought the trust he spoke of to Batman was mutual. He thought there was respect betweenthem. He'd guessed wrong.
"Fine," he spat out. "Fine."
He stalked over to his bag and snatched it up, slinging the pack over his shoulder.
"Peter… what are you doing?"
"I'm leaving."
"What?" Jason moved, fast enough Peter was caught by surprise when he wrapped a hand around Peter's forearm. "No. C'mon, Pete, please—"
"Don't touch me," Peter said acidly. Jason let go and stepped back. His eyes were wide and pleading and Peter had to look away. Out the freshly repaired window, Gotham slumbered, unaware of the crisis between the two of them. "I can't—" Peter's voice almost broke, and he shut his eyes and counted to ten. All the while, Jason's attention draped heavily over him. "I can't be around you right now."
"Pete, I'm sorry. I meant to say something — weeks ago! — but—"
"Stop," he bit out. "Stop. I can't — I'm not ready to hear whatever you've got to say."
Jason, blessedly, fell quiet. Peter didn't dare look but that didn't stop him from imagining Jason's expression. Nausea swelled, shaking his hands and turning his breathing raggedy. However he was getting away, he didn't dare use his webs.
"Get back from the door," he said, and with his eyes turned to the floor, he saw the hesitation in Jason's footwork before he did as he was told.
"Peter," Jason said quietly as Peter stormed past, and he carried on despite Peter's hissed warning. "I won't stop you. Just — please. Please just — go somewhere safe. Tim's. Duke's. Fuck — the manor! Just don't spend it outside."
"I'm capable of taking care of myself."
"I know you are. You were doing it long before you ended up here. But you don't have to. It's—"
"Don't you tell me what's dangerous or not!" Peter whipped around to glare at Jason. The man was pale. He held himself stiffly, as though to stop himself from reaching for Peter again. Peter refused to let it move him. "Do you know the — the things people could do with my blood? With my DNA? Where I'm from, terrible things happen to those who try to recreate super soldiers! I'd be no different. I'm a — I'm a weapon, Jason! But I will not be weaponised!"
"It was never going to be used like that, Peter!"
"There is always a leak!" Peter snarled. "Nothing is ever as safe or secure as you think it is!"
He twisted back, back to the door, to his escape, but he couldn't stop the final parting words from getting out.
"The worst part is, I thought you trusted me," Peter said to the door, trying so hard not to let his anger out on the handle even as his pulse hammered away furiously. His fingers spasmed. "I thought we were becoming something like a team. Partners. But even I know this isn't something you keep secret. Fuck you very much, Jason. Don't follow me."
With that, Peter left. He ignored the panicked closing of his throat. Ignored the burning eyes and the icy tear-tracks that opened up as soon as he was outside. And most of all, he ignored the crashing and the bellowed 'FUCK!' that slipped out from the safe house as he marched stiffly down the street.