Chapter Text
Peter closed his eyes and inhaled, holding his breath for a few seconds before exhaling. This is my job, I’m supposed to fix his helmet. Peter had to remind himself, taking deep and controlled breaths while Hood awkwardly hovered over his shoulder. “For the record, it is kinda your job to fix this, y’know. Like I pay you to deal with this.” Red Hood nervously rushed out, stepping to the side of Peter’s desk, running one of his hands through his hair as Peter examined the broken helmet on his workspace.
“How,” Peter paused, wetting his lips before turning to look up at the anxious-looking man that had the expression of a child who was caught stealing a cookie from a cookie jar. Odd that he managed that, considering the red domino mask that covered part of his face. “How did you manage this, Red?” Peter’s boss grimaced, looking at one of Miles’ unfinished painted walls before looking back at Peter.
“Uhh, people have really bad aim?” Hood grimaced as Peter looked at him with a look of pure exasperation. “Uh-huh, okay. Well. I guess I’ll just make you a new helmet. Feel free to stay, if you want.” Red hummed lightly before moving to walk around the lab, Peter heard the soft creak of his bones as he moved and the humming of the blood flowing through his veins as Red moved around the room, his blood slowly oozing out from a small gash on his thigh.
Peter turned to his computer and looked up at the boxes of code and diagnostics on his screen, typing out a few lines of code, then running some more diagnostics. A small humming came from the speakers hidden in the corners of the walls as Peter got to work on the poor broken helmet in front of him.
After a few minutes a soft ding erupted from the ceiling speakers before N.E.S.S.I.E’s wonderful voice spoke. “Hello, Peter, it appears that we are no longer in New York. Should I alert Team Red of the location change?”
“What the fuck is that?!” Red Hood practically shrieked as he rushed over to Peter.
-=-
“No, Duke, you don’t understand! He knew I was bleeding before I did, then took me to the nurse ! Then he told her that I helped him from some muggers in Otisburg, but that he didn’t realize I had gotten hurt while protecting him!” Tim said through mouthfuls of strawberry ice cream as his friend/brother-not-brother looked at him with a mix of concern and mirth.
“Dang, Steph and I miss school for a day and you lose your mind over the new guy.” Duke chuckled, passing one of Alfred’s fresh cookies over to Damian as he sat down at the barstool next to Duke. Damian was careful to not spin around in his chair, worried that he could possibly injure Duke’s broken leg even more.
“What are we discussing?” Damian questioned as he took a bite of the Viennese whirl cookie. Noticing Tim’s distress, and ice cream, the younger boy blinked at Tim. A silent question of if he was okay, and if he could have some ice cream. Tim blinked back and pushed the bowl towards Damian. “Tim’s got a crush on the new kid at school.” Duke replied, shoving another cookie in his mouth.
Tim pressed his palms into his eyes and groaned, letting his head hit the cool countertop. “I don’t have a crush on Miles. I barely know him. And he’s weird. He could smell my blood before it seeped through my shirt.” Duke and Damian share a look before looking back at Tim. “Is this ‘Miles’ the same as the one who saved you from bleeding out the other day as well?” Damian asked with a raised brow. Tim nodded as best as his head could from its place on the marble counter of the kitchen island.
“If he could smell your blood is it possible that he is a meta?” Duke nodded in agreement with Damian’s statement/question. “Yeah probably. But let’s not tell Bruce that.” Tim sighed as he got up to fill up his mug with coffee.
“So what is it that we shouldn’t tell Bruce?” Bruce asked as he entered the kitchen. He took up the free seat next to his youngest and eyed the three of his children with a look of suspicion.
“Nothing, Father, have one of Pennyworth’s cookies.” Damian said, absent-mindedly handing his father a cookie. Bruce accepted it with a raised eyebrow and took a bite, he immediately finished the rest of the cookie. “That’s a good cookie. What is that?” Tim took a cookie and dipped it in his coffee, much to Damian’s disgust.
“It is a Viennese whirl cookie, and may we go on a patrol tonight, Father?”
“‘We’ as in who? Duke doesn’t do nights(plus his broken leg), Steph’s sick, Cass is too, Dick's still in Bludhaven, Jason barely interacts with us, and Tim’s got another few days before he's allowed back out.”
“‘We’ as in you and I, Father.” Damian said, rolling his eyes as though it had been the most obvious answer. Tim half-mumbled something to Duke about Jason interacting plenty with them and that it was Bruce who Jason didn't like to interact with.
“Sure, Habibi. We can go in an hour, I just have to finish up some emails and other things from work first.” Damian nodded, getting up to rinse out the empty bowl and leave it in the sink.
“Okay, well, I’ve decided that I’m going to bed now. So, uh, night.” Tim said, putting his mug in the sink and patting Damian on the head. There was a small chorus of goodnights from the three other guys before Tim left the kitchen, went up the long ass staircases and through the hallways until he got to his room. Entering his room, Tim went to his bed and promptly stayed awake for twenty minutes thinking about the events of the day before finally getting to sleep.
\\
“Underoos, how much webbing do ya got?” Peter half-mumbled from his spot across the lab, fiddling with one of his web shooters before tugging his mask over his face. Turning to look over at Miles as the teen finished putting on his pointe shoes.
“Fully stocked, what about you?” Miles hummed back as he stood and tapped the squared front of his shoes on the floor. He yanked his mask over his face and went towards the half-open window.
“Same here. You ready?” Peter asked, giving his arms and hands one last stretch before opening the window.
“I think it’s time for Gotham to meet the Spider-Men.” Miles replied.
And with that, the duo got to the edge of the window and swan dived. The sound of web shooters firing off was drowned out by the sounds of Gotham’s nightlife.
;[...
Bruce looked over his city the best that he could. He brought along his Robins to help him and to continue his legacy of justice after he inevitably dies. Granted, he knew he had made plenty of mistakes in his past as Batman and as a father, Jason was the prime example of that. His favorite son becoming his greatest failure and becoming someone he had to fight on occasion was not something Bruce was proud of. It was often something that kept him up at night, something that made him wish he could go back in time.
But, all of this set aside, why the hell were there two people trying to do Bruce’s job? Two regular civilians dressed in what can’t be anything more than spandex and knee pads were currently laughing at The Riddler for getting his own riddle mixed up. “Oracle, who the hell are these people?” He angrily whispered into his radio-com. “Not sure, Batman, but I’m looking into them right now.”
Damian was eyeing the two figures, waiting for Bruce’s next command. The taller, mostly red one pretended to wipe a tear away from his teardrop-shaped mask lens before turning to face Bruce and Damian, casually walking over to them. While the shorter, mostly black one politely tied Riddler up with some sort of white substance that came from his wrists, continuing to have a civil conversation with the older man about different kinds of riddles.
“Hey, who’re yo-” The man in red cut himself off as he caught the batarang that Damian had thrown at him. “Woah, kid, you gotta be more careful. You could hurt yourself, playing with sharp things like this bat-adjacent doohickey.” he said, lenses squinting as he examined the batarang.
“Not my fault that you were in the perfect range.” Damian said, shrugging his shoulders before adjusting his stance and getting ready to fight. “Who are you?” Bruce said, using his deepest and most gravelly Batman voice, wanting to scare off this weirdo.
Red put up his hands in mock-defeat, “Hey, I don’t mean any harm. Just a spider trying to help protect the people of Gotham.” A spider? The fuck did that mean? Red must be a meta, then. Safe to assume the same of the other one. “A spider? Seriously? You don’t look like a spider to me.” Damian said, pointing his katana at the ‘spider’.
The man let out a small laugh, calling his teammate over to his side before saying “Sorry, sorry, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Spider-Man ( there’s a hyphen ) and this is my buddy, Spider-Man.”